But again, think about this from ground level. Under-employed factory workers don’t read a lot of economic analysis. They just know they can’t pay the bills, they’re in physical pain from a life of hard labor, and no one in power seems to care. Many go on disability, which is not even close to minimum wage, and massively discouraging for somebody who wants to work. For some it leads to depression and, tragically, overdoses or suicide. And it’s common enough to bend the curve in national life expectancy stats that had been rising for decades.

yeah dude. see, i work in a good factory, all things considered. trust me, it's humane and safe by all standards and exceeds those standards in ways it really doesn't have to. but there's still a premium in productivity and efficiency, task to task, widget to widget in a twelve hour shift. then you go home and do it again the next day. not my department, but i still see it. the constant flux of temp employment and people who eventually decide they've had enough. i cannot imagine what it must be like to be working in what i would consider a bottom-50 percentile factory. the labor conditions must be appalling.

For illustration, let’s apply Luke’s prices to a hypothetical self-employed person making $100,000 a year. The $1,286/month premiums add up to $15,432 annually. But you get no benefits (except a basic wellness exam) until you’ve spent another $12,500. That totals $27,932, or 27.9% of your gross income that will go to healthcare if anyone in your family gets even a minor illness. A lot of angst.

This, this right here is a major, major consideration in possible emigration to Oh, Canada. Our healthcare system is draconian and unjust to every patient, provider, and healthcare professional who isn't in the Insurance Industry or a politician. It's scary to think that a single bout of poor health is enough to bankrupt somebody or to alter their economic status for years on end.

Enjoyed the background post on the education graph posted in this article.

The evidence suggests the demand for college graduates has grown far less in the period since the mid-1990s than it did before then. This is difficult to square with contentions that automation or changes in the types of skills employers require have been more rapid in the 2000s than in earlier decades. Rather, automation has been slower in the recent period than in earlier decades as seen in the pace of productivity, capital, information equipment, and software investment—and in the speed of changes in occupational employment patterns.

yeah dude, honestly what's missing from a lot of places is skilled technical labor. at least from my (current) and relatively (recent) experiences that's where the bigger gap is. That or convincing an Engineer to take on a ton of responsibility for not a ton of money. shrug.

Think about the late 1930s… Hopefully with just economic turmoil, not kinetic war. It will be hard but without the kind of motivation, I really question whether we will do what it takes.

well that's encouraging. i don’t know how you make this better without

a. universal healthcare

b. fixing our education system

c. eating the rich