Unfortunately, the policymakers who propose these measures and the disconnected boomers and knowledge workers who vote for then are impervious to logic or experience. Their beliefs and ideas MUST be valid, for moral reasons if not empirical ones. One would think that political ideologues would want to dig through the records of their past claims, to see if they are on the right track. In fact, it's usually the opposite. There's always a new promise to make and a new preconception to promote, with absolute certainty and a contempt for all who disagree. This has been going on for decades now.
And yet not a mention of this on his blog. In typical socialist fashion, he just moves on from his errors never learning from them and repeating the same arguments he made beforehand.
Curious about the incarceration bit. Agree that ex convicts may not be model workers but would generally be employable. But would the labor market have created that many more jobs to employ them?
If there are non-incarcerated adults who are unemployed now (ie there already aren’t enough jobs for everybody who wants one), wouldn’t introducing a large cohort of newly freed adults simply mean even more will be unemployed? (Let’s remove the spectre of market shock by sudden release of a large number of convicts; let’s simply assume that fewer people had been incarcerated in the first place).
Sure, some newly released prisoners might start their own business. But do you suppose this will be a substantial proportion? I would think not….cuz if they were that entrepreneurial…they probably on balance wouldn’t have ended up in prison in the first place.
Current employees are irrelevant to the unemployment discussion…by virtue of the fact they’re currently employed.
And current employees are part of the definition of the unemployment fraction.
And ... and ... sometimes people make philosophical statements, and if your soul is devoid of the poetry of language, maybe you should just desist from commenting on forests and trees.
Every prisoner creates jobs for prison guards. Every guard position needs 5 guards to allow 40-hour work weeks, vacations, holidays, sick time, etc. The reports I have seen were something like 5-10 prisoners for every guard, or 25-50 prisoners per guard position.
Other reports credit crazy salaries to prison guards, so I don't know what they really get paid. But it's not hard to imagine 5 low-level low-paid jobs for prisoners for every guard job. That would make it roughly a wash whether current prisoners were released or not.
And I know the kinds of jobs are not so fungible. It's a really crude comparison.
Interesting scenario. But wouldn’t that actually magnify the incarceration effect on suppressing unemployment figures?
If it requires employing 5 guards for every 6 prisoners….then having 6 fewer prisoners would mean needing 11 extra (new) jobs….6 for the people now free, and 5 who are doing jobs that will no longer be necessary.
That would seem to add to the argument that high incarceration rates artificially lower unemployment rates.
Right. You said 5-10….so I chose 6 to avoid confusion with the numericals. I went with the ratio that related to “number of guards employed”, since that’s the number of people who would be out of work if there were 5-10 fewer prisoners.
Are you objecting because 6 does not fall btw “5-10”?!?
I apologize if I’m misunderstanding your point. My point is simply that if there are X number of prisoners and Y number of guards, where X>Y, and you released X prisoners, you now have X + Y people who are newly unemployed. So it’s actually worse than merely saying that having fewer people in jail would increase unemployment by the same number; having fewer people in jail actually causes more unemployment than the number of people you’re releasing.
1: To be "unemployed" you have to be actively looking for work. If you don't have a job and tell people you are looking because you are a full time criminal, you are out of the work force just like you were in prison. So fewer than the entire prison population is going to show up as unemployed even if none of them have jobs.
2: There isn't really "the" unemployment rate, but rates for different jobs. People who want a low skill job can usually get one very quickly, while people looking for very specific high skill jobs often spend quite some time, for example. So if prison has a bunch of accountants who can no longer be accountants because of their crime, they would probably cause the rate to go up if they are picky. If prison is mostly guys who don't care if they are a roofer, warehouse worker or line cook so long as they get paid, it might make the rate go down.
Between the two cases, it isn't obvious that opening up the prisons would make the unemployment rate go up, especially as there are fewer government programs for supporting males without kids, and a fair expectation that it might stay the same or even go down a little.
Re #1. That requires a lot of suppositions. I don’t know the numbers either way.
Re #2: that’s what I’m saying. There are non incarcerated folks who are unemployed now, regardless of skill level etc. Presumably some currently unemployed folks are low skill. So if you release a bunch of people anew into workforce, some of whom will also be low skill, how would that not increase unemployment? If there are currently unfilled jobs that these released convicts could fill…why wouldn’t they be filled by the currently unemployed now?
1: That doesn't require any suppositions, it is literally the definition used by the BLS. People are employed, unemployed which requires one to be actively looking, or out of the labor force entirely. Everyone from retirees, house wives, hobos, inmates, military servicemen, and people who just aren't looking (or applying for unemployment) show up in the out of the labor force number. Full time criminals do not show up as unemployed unless they are trying to find a regular job as well.
2: Much of the unemployment rate (I recall it last estimated at 2-3%, but that was a while ago) is frictional, in the sense that if you take a snapshot of the population there will always be some people who left a job and haven't found a new one yet but will shortly. That's why full employment isn't 0% unemployment, you are always catching that turn over. There are also structural differences, such as there are jobs in city A and people in city B are slow to move to fill them. There are also people who are voluntarily unemployed, due to being able to find jobs but turning them down because they don't like the work/salary combination. You can have more than enough jobs for everyone and you will still see unemployment when you do your surveys, and so can't quite know what putting in extra people will do to the unemployment rate. E.g. if your unemployment rate is fairly high because people are quite picky about what jobs they take, then adding in people who aren't so picky will likely drop the number.
Employment numbers are quite a bit more complicated than you seem to think.
Re #1 the supposition is whatever fraction of the current prison population would resume their criminal line of work if they were no longer in prison. I have no idea. I doubt you do either.
Re #2. Sure, some ex prisoners may well take jobs that current unemployed are unwilling/unable to take. But that again requires more suppositions. The simple conception is you’re adding to the unemployed pool. You can then conjure models and theories why the actual increase in unemployed numbers won’t be quite as large as the number of prisoners you’re releasing.
Well Steve, I am trying to explain why the answer to your question "If there are non-incarcerated adults who are unemployed now (ie there already aren’t enough jobs for everybody who wants one), wouldn’t introducing a large cohort of newly freed adults simply mean even more will be unemployed?" is "No, it is not at all certain that more people will be unemployed, and unemployment could even go down." Your simple conception is simply incorrect due to being incomplete, and apparently based on a misunderstanding of how unemployment statistics work, as well as an extremely simple conception of labor markets. I am now sorry I tried to help you. Well done.
Unfortunately, the policymakers who propose these measures and the disconnected boomers and knowledge workers who vote for then are impervious to logic or experience. Their beliefs and ideas MUST be valid, for moral reasons if not empirical ones. One would think that political ideologues would want to dig through the records of their past claims, to see if they are on the right track. In fact, it's usually the opposite. There's always a new promise to make and a new preconception to promote, with absolute certainty and a contempt for all who disagree. This has been going on for decades now.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/intransigence
Just so. A free-er market will feel more “shocky,” maybe more violent, but it will produce better results overall.
...I don't see how you jump from the empirical point (unemployment rose back up) to the moral point (Europe is wrong, US is right).
>Flexible labor markets respond more sharply to shocks, but yield lower unemployment rates overall.
Is a strike _against_ flexible labor markets.
And yet not a mention of this on his blog. In typical socialist fashion, he just moves on from his errors never learning from them and repeating the same arguments he made beforehand.
Curious about the incarceration bit. Agree that ex convicts may not be model workers but would generally be employable. But would the labor market have created that many more jobs to employ them?
If there are non-incarcerated adults who are unemployed now (ie there already aren’t enough jobs for everybody who wants one), wouldn’t introducing a large cohort of newly freed adults simply mean even more will be unemployed? (Let’s remove the spectre of market shock by sudden release of a large number of convicts; let’s simply assume that fewer people had been incarcerated in the first place).
Jobs are made by employEEs, not employERs. Think about it.
Huh? Do workers hire themselves? 😂. That’s a good one. You’re gonna have to go back to drawing board on that one.
Some people are self-employed. In addition, some employees do more than the bare minimum in their jobs, and make themselves too valuable to fire.
Sure, some newly released prisoners might start their own business. But do you suppose this will be a substantial proportion? I would think not….cuz if they were that entrepreneurial…they probably on balance wouldn’t have ended up in prison in the first place.
Current employees are irrelevant to the unemployment discussion…by virtue of the fact they’re currently employed.
Might ... suppose ... would think
Talk about lots of supposition!
And current employees are part of the definition of the unemployment fraction.
And ... and ... sometimes people make philosophical statements, and if your soul is devoid of the poetry of language, maybe you should just desist from commenting on forests and trees.
lol ur the one supposing that ex prisoners might become self employed…not me. But that is a level of self awareness that clearly eludes you.
I’m merely being gracious and granting your supposition, while pointing out its rather flimsy foundation.
Indeed, you’re making lots of philosophical statements, it seems. Poetic? Not so much. But whatever floats your boat bud.
I see that you’ve failed to address the principle I was speaking of in the other thread. 😂. You take your time.
Every prisoner creates jobs for prison guards. Every guard position needs 5 guards to allow 40-hour work weeks, vacations, holidays, sick time, etc. The reports I have seen were something like 5-10 prisoners for every guard, or 25-50 prisoners per guard position.
Other reports credit crazy salaries to prison guards, so I don't know what they really get paid. But it's not hard to imagine 5 low-level low-paid jobs for prisoners for every guard job. That would make it roughly a wash whether current prisoners were released or not.
And I know the kinds of jobs are not so fungible. It's a really crude comparison.
Interesting scenario. But wouldn’t that actually magnify the incarceration effect on suppressing unemployment figures?
If it requires employing 5 guards for every 6 prisoners….then having 6 fewer prisoners would mean needing 11 extra (new) jobs….6 for the people now free, and 5 who are doing jobs that will no longer be necessary.
That would seem to add to the argument that high incarceration rates artificially lower unemployment rates.
Say what?!? This is what I wrote:
"The reports I have seen were something like 5-10 prisoners for every guard, or 25-50 prisoners per guard position."
Did I mess up the arithmetic somewhere? I didn't even use "6" anywhere!
Right. You said 5-10….so I chose 6 to avoid confusion with the numericals. I went with the ratio that related to “number of guards employed”, since that’s the number of people who would be out of work if there were 5-10 fewer prisoners.
Are you objecting because 6 does not fall btw “5-10”?!?
I'm saying I won't waste time trying to defend something I didn't write. For the third time:
I said "5-10 prisoners for every guard".
You said "5 guards for every 6 prisoners".
Edit to add "6 prisoners for every 5 guards".
I apologize if I’m misunderstanding your point. My point is simply that if there are X number of prisoners and Y number of guards, where X>Y, and you released X prisoners, you now have X + Y people who are newly unemployed. So it’s actually worse than merely saying that having fewer people in jail would increase unemployment by the same number; having fewer people in jail actually causes more unemployment than the number of people you’re releasing.
The two big points on incarceration:
1: To be "unemployed" you have to be actively looking for work. If you don't have a job and tell people you are looking because you are a full time criminal, you are out of the work force just like you were in prison. So fewer than the entire prison population is going to show up as unemployed even if none of them have jobs.
2: There isn't really "the" unemployment rate, but rates for different jobs. People who want a low skill job can usually get one very quickly, while people looking for very specific high skill jobs often spend quite some time, for example. So if prison has a bunch of accountants who can no longer be accountants because of their crime, they would probably cause the rate to go up if they are picky. If prison is mostly guys who don't care if they are a roofer, warehouse worker or line cook so long as they get paid, it might make the rate go down.
Between the two cases, it isn't obvious that opening up the prisons would make the unemployment rate go up, especially as there are fewer government programs for supporting males without kids, and a fair expectation that it might stay the same or even go down a little.
Re #1. That requires a lot of suppositions. I don’t know the numbers either way.
Re #2: that’s what I’m saying. There are non incarcerated folks who are unemployed now, regardless of skill level etc. Presumably some currently unemployed folks are low skill. So if you release a bunch of people anew into workforce, some of whom will also be low skill, how would that not increase unemployment? If there are currently unfilled jobs that these released convicts could fill…why wouldn’t they be filled by the currently unemployed now?
1: That doesn't require any suppositions, it is literally the definition used by the BLS. People are employed, unemployed which requires one to be actively looking, or out of the labor force entirely. Everyone from retirees, house wives, hobos, inmates, military servicemen, and people who just aren't looking (or applying for unemployment) show up in the out of the labor force number. Full time criminals do not show up as unemployed unless they are trying to find a regular job as well.
2: Much of the unemployment rate (I recall it last estimated at 2-3%, but that was a while ago) is frictional, in the sense that if you take a snapshot of the population there will always be some people who left a job and haven't found a new one yet but will shortly. That's why full employment isn't 0% unemployment, you are always catching that turn over. There are also structural differences, such as there are jobs in city A and people in city B are slow to move to fill them. There are also people who are voluntarily unemployed, due to being able to find jobs but turning them down because they don't like the work/salary combination. You can have more than enough jobs for everyone and you will still see unemployment when you do your surveys, and so can't quite know what putting in extra people will do to the unemployment rate. E.g. if your unemployment rate is fairly high because people are quite picky about what jobs they take, then adding in people who aren't so picky will likely drop the number.
Employment numbers are quite a bit more complicated than you seem to think.
Re #1 the supposition is whatever fraction of the current prison population would resume their criminal line of work if they were no longer in prison. I have no idea. I doubt you do either.
Re #2. Sure, some ex prisoners may well take jobs that current unemployed are unwilling/unable to take. But that again requires more suppositions. The simple conception is you’re adding to the unemployed pool. You can then conjure models and theories why the actual increase in unemployed numbers won’t be quite as large as the number of prisoners you’re releasing.
Well Steve, I am trying to explain why the answer to your question "If there are non-incarcerated adults who are unemployed now (ie there already aren’t enough jobs for everybody who wants one), wouldn’t introducing a large cohort of newly freed adults simply mean even more will be unemployed?" is "No, it is not at all certain that more people will be unemployed, and unemployment could even go down." Your simple conception is simply incorrect due to being incomplete, and apparently based on a misunderstanding of how unemployment statistics work, as well as an extremely simple conception of labor markets. I am now sorry I tried to help you. Well done.
I was simply asking the question. You, OTOH, seem very certain about your answer. Good for you. Doesn’t help me any.
Yes…unemployment “could even go down”….in the way that anything “could” happen.