“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” The USA, the bastion of global capitalism, entrepreneurship, with the goal of achieving the American dream is now home to people who would rather work for the government. According to Rasmussen Reports, a government job remains “the top employment choice in today’s economic environment.” While below the level of 37% in Jan, “29% of adults believe it is better to work for the government than to work for themselves or for a private co.” There is some hope though as 24% think it’s better to work for themselves in the current economy, up 7 pts from the Jan survey and “Americans believe, by a 9-1 margin, that the creation of a new job in the private sector is better for the economy than the creation of a new government job.” “Worker confidence” in the jobs market is the likely reason for the desire for government work as it fell in July to its lowest level in over a year.
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August 26th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
And weak worker confidence leads to increased retail sales. So that is why retail stocks are soaring. (Please note healthy dose of sarcasm)
August 26th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
When Americans dream of working Government jobs, we are truly turning Japanese…. or…. (gasp) French !!
August 26th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
The U.S. has always been more like France than it wants to admit. America and France are the “universal nations” who fantasize that they represent not just a people, but a way of life for all people, and which all people aspire to (or should). That’s why they bicker so much. You can’t have two “universal nations.”
August 26th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
@primalscream; any nation that has the feeling it is universal is one to many. The fact that there are several helps because then they can see how wrong it is to be that way. ;-)
August 26th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Well, this is obvious.
Corporations have been outsourcing and downsizing for so long, even pro-biz Americans see the writing on the wall: in the private sector, you face being middle aged, out of a job and health insurance, with a family to support. And what will the economists say? Oh yes, time to “re-train”. Don’t ask with what funds. The fact is, you’re a discard, and you don’t matter.
Even wealth adoring, pro-biz Americans see that this is a more of a scam than a stable middle class life. By contrast, a govt job looks great. Remember pensions? Yeah, they have them.
If you want entrepreneurship, get health care reform, for one thing.
The fact is, countries that have portable, non-job based benefits, in Scandinavia for instance, have more small business and entrepreneurship than we do. We are cubicle slaves for corporations, that is what adoring wealth and being reflexively pro-biz has brought us to.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Any honest economist should see the poll results as expected and totally in-line with a rational participant wanting to maximize risk-adjusted gains.
@primalscream – dead on. Quoting someone else: ” …as anyone with siblings or children will tell you, two brothers with a half-decade between them and few interests in common will get along famously, whereas two sisters, a year apart, going out for the same cheerleading squad, seat in the school orchestra, position on the soccer team, and so on will despise each other through the whole of their adolescence, even though one is blond and one brunette.”
@nyet – I had long wondered why companies like GM – pre-bankruptcy – didn’t try to get universal healthcare passed as a way to offload a lot of their costs onto the government. Now I wonder if there were lobbies concerned about locking down their talented labor via the fear of losing health insurance.
August 26th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Peter,
Who sneezed on your plate of Oreos, such that you can’t imagine a career in public service as an honorable way to earn a living?
August 27th, 2009 at 6:44 am
The government employee gets pretty decent medical coverage benefits, perhaps that is a factor. Of course the co-pay went up 25% from last year but it is still one hell of a deal.