TheDailyJobCuts.com website tracks the number of people
affected by layoffs, bankruptcies, and business closings on a daily basis. It does not tally the huge number of
jobs that are converted from full-time to part-time positions in order to avoid oppressive government rules about
health care, maternity leave, etc. Below is a chart I just generated on the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS)
website showing the number of people age 18 and over who are not in the labor force. Part of the number includes
retirees and those who would like to work but cannot, but the well-documented primary cause of the huge increase
is that the government has made it easy for people to exist without working (flooding us with
immigrants who are immediately placed on welfare, take free health care, education, and social services, abiding
disability fraud, etc.). I point this out so you can see how the deck is stacked against you at least in
part because companies are being increasingly burdened with new costs that makes hiring or retaining you more difficult.
BTW, I have never received a check from the government for anything, never collected unemployment, never received
food stamps, never been incarcerated, or anything of the sort. We homeschooled our kids so I can't even be accused
of receiving that benefit. I missed the GI Bill
by a little over a year when enlisting in the USAF in January 1978 (it changed to VEAP from 1976-87), so
I paid for every penny of my engineering degree. I'm pretty sure that I am one of the most qualified Americans to
gripe about all the freeloaders out there who never thank anyone for anything and criticize people for not giving
them more.
My real income has fallen precipitously in the last couple years and being both self-employed and over age 55,
I cannot afford anything but bare minimum health care insurance and have no life insurance at all. In fact, I would
do without health care insurance but thanks to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare),
doing so would cost me 2% tax (goes up to 2.5% next year) on gross income
(before any deductions) for opting out . Have you
ever checked out the cost and benefits on Healthcare.gov?
The bottom end plan runs around $10k per year with an $11k deductible and it only pays 65% of bills after
that - oh, and no coverage for x-rays. The rates are almost 3x (not factoring in the
increased
deductible amount) what we had been paying before my fellow citizens helped saddle us with such 'affordable'
health care. I don't think anyone has yet to find all the 'average' families saving the promised $2,500 per year.
Wow, I really went off on a tangent there. It has been my choice to run RF Cafe full-time since 2007, and I have
greatly enjoyed it. When I say your supporting my advertisers and buying items I promote on Amazon.com, etc. helps put
food on my table, I mean it literally. I am making big plans for the future, though - How's this sound to you? "Welcome to Walmart,
folks."
Posted September 3, 2015
