Examining the Association between Racialized Economic Threat and White Suicide in the United States, 2000–2016

Suicide is steadily rising. Many blamed worsening economic conditions for this trend. Sociological theory established clear pathways between joblessness and suicide focused on status threat, shame, and consequent disruption of social relationships. However, recent empirical research provides little support for a link between unemployment and suicide. I attempt to reconcile this contradiction by focusing on white suicide and white employment-to-population ratio. Whiteness is not just a default category but a pervasive ideology that amplifies the effects of status loss. The white employment-to-population ratio represents a form of racialized economic threat and accounts for discouraged workers who have exited the labor force. I use longitudinal hybrid models with U.S. state-level data, 2000 to 2016, and find that decreasing employment is associated with increasing suicide among the white population and white men. I discuss this study’s contributions to the literature on suicide and joblessness and the emerging scholarship on whiteness and health.

Introduction

Main arguments are discussed and key concepts are defined to help readers later on and to preview the book’s effort to evaluate mainstream paradigms, one of which is that 4 percent unemployment is full employment. Flaws in the idea of frictional unemployment are sketched. This chapter stresses the importance of discouraged workers and other jobless people outside the labor force. Truly full employment requires more jobs than people needing jobs, short periods for finding work, and real wages rising 2 percent per year. These conditions have been rare. The final argument is that neoliberalism and unregulated markets cannot bring full employment. Government job programs are essential.

The U.S. Unemployment Rate

Creating a scientific survey of unemployment in the 1930s and 1940s was an advance for people’s understanding of unemployment and for rational government policy. Many government officials, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and agencies including the Census Bureau, the Works Progress Administration, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), deserve credit for the achievement. However, today’s BLS unemployment rate omits too many people, and the low count weakens support for job-creation programs. This chapter offers a short history and a critique. It explains and evaluates the official rate, discusses hidden unemployment, including discouraged workers and other labor-force dropouts, evaluates alternative unemployment rates, including the BLS’s U-6 and the National Jobs for All Coalition’s rate, and examines the idea of full employment.

Trends and Cycles in U.S. Labor-Market Slack, 1994–2019

Janet Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, intimated that the official unemployment rate (U3) is an inadequate measure of labor market slack when she highlighted the “possibility… that labor market slack is not appropriately measured by the civilian unemployment rate” (2019). Thus, we explore the difference between U3 and a more inclusive estimate of unemployment, U6, in order to understand the extent to which U3 misinforms the public, policy makers, and researchers.We find that the gap varies substantially over the business cycle and especially so for the most vulnerable – minorities, youth, and the less educated. This is because these groups are most likely to work part-time involuntarily the longest after the end of a recession and therefore bear the brunt of the burden of its lingering impact for many years thereafter. For African Americans, for instance, it took 7 years and 4 months longer for the recession of 1990/1991 to end. After the Great Recession the Hispanic gap also remained at an elevated level of 10 percentage points from October 2009 through June 2013. In January 2011 U6 climbed to 47.5% among African American youth and the U6-U3 gap was 18 percentage points and was similarly large among African Americans without a high-school diploma. In other words, not only does U3 mislead but the degree to which it does so varies greatly by ethnic group. JEL Classifications: J40, J49, J69 Unemployment, U6, African American unemployment, Hispanic unemployment discouraged workers, labor market slack

The Uneven Perils of Unemployment and Underemployment: The Role of Employment Structure in explaining Rural-Urban Poverty Differences, 1970-2018.

There has been a persistent gap in the poverty rate between urban and rural areas of the United States. Much of this gap has be attributed to industrial composition, however employment composition also likely plays a key role. Underemployment and labor force non-participation have been become significant issues in rural areas. This study uses data from the Current Population Survey for 1970 to 2018 to understand how poverty rates among 6 employment groups —(1) not in the labor force, (2) discouraged workers, (3) unemployed workers, (4) low hours workers, (5) low income workers, and (6) adequately employed workers— can explain the persistent gap in poverty between urban and rural areas. Demographic standardization and decomposition techniques reveal that majority of the poverty gap is explained by differences in poverty rates for the employment groups. Rural individuals in all employment group have higher poverty rates than urban individuals in the same group. Analysis also shows that if rural America had either the employment structure or the employment specific poverty rates of urban America than poverty rates would be much lower in rural areas.

Mapping Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Indonesia Labor Market

The empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (PWD) has recently attracted the attention of the Indonesian government. Several initiatives have been made to empower their life, especially the establishment of Act No. 8/2016 which enhances their right to inclusive economic activities. This study aims to map PWD in Indonesian labor market. Specifically, it analyzes the characteristics of employed and unemployed PWD. It explored Labor Force Survey (Sakernas), which began to concern on disability issue in 2016. The results show that PWD prevalence varies highly among provinces led by West Sumatera, East Nusa Tenggara, and South Sulawesi and that PWD has lower labor participation rate than that of PWOD. It may indicate the significant presence of discouraged workers among PWD.