There are still places in the United States where nearly all men in their prime working years have a job. In the affluent sections of Manhattan; in the energy belt that extends down from the Dakotas; in the highly educated suburbs of San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, Boston and elsewhere, more than 90 percent of men between the ages of 25 and 54 are working in many neighborhoods. The male employment rates in those areas resemble the nationwide male employment rates in the 1950s and 1960s.
On the whole, however, it’s vastly more common today than it was decades ago for prime-age men not to be working. Across the country, 16 percent of such men are not working, be they officially unemployed or outside of the labor force — disabled, discouraged, retired, in school or taking care of family. That number has more than tripled since 1968.
This map allows you to examine nonemployment rates for prime-age men in every census tract and every county. (Census-tract borders typically follow city or town lines, although they are much finer in large cities.) The data is an average of surveys taken from 2009 to 2013.
You can see the low nonwork rates in those prosperous areas. More strikingly, you can also see sky-high rates across much of Appalachia, the Deep South, northern Michigan, the Southwest and the Northwest. In many towns across Clarke County, Ala.; Iosco County, Mich.; Malheur County, Ore.; and McKinley County, N.M., more than 40 percent of prime-age are not working.
Greater Appalachia — particularly in West Virginia and Kentucky — is on the wrong end of two big trends: It’s coal country, which is suffering amid the concerns about pollution and climate change, as well as the rise of fracking in North Dakota and elsewhere. And Appalachia has low levels of educational attainment at a time when education has become an economic dividing line.In parts of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky — like Magoffin, Breathitt, Leslie and Wyoming Counties — about half the men ages 25 to 54 are not working. In a few counties — including Clay in Kentucky and McDowell in West Virginia — the share exceeds 60 percent. The situation in McDowell seems unremittingly grim: Every census tract has a nonwork rate for prime-age men above 45 percent.Many of them are likely to remain out of work for months or years more, and some of them will never hold a steady job again.
If we shift focus to the Northeast and look at New York, notice how in the five boroughs, the percentage of men who are not working ranges from 17 percent in Queens to 28 percent in the Bronx. A few blocks near the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side of Manhattan had rates around 3 percent. Rates are as high as 100 percent in some census tracts, like the one around Rikers Island, that include jails. (The government counts people in jail in two ways in two different surveys. They are not included in the Current Population Survey, which is used to compute the unemployment rate. But they are counted as being outside of the labor force in these maps, which are based on the American Community Survey.)
Sources:
The full text for this article can be accessed at New York Times Interactive. Last access Feb 2015. Downloaded from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/12/upshot/where-men-arent-working-map.html
Discussion Questions:
What do the men in your family do for work? Are they employed in a professional or semi-professional capacity or do they not work at all?
What social factors do you believe had the greatest influence on their choice (or lack of choice) of occupation?
If you grew up with a father or father figure in your household, did that person ever lose their job? If so, can you describe the impact on your family?
How might have the career choices of the men in your life impacted your decisions about what is possible and desirable for you, in terms of your own potential career trajectory?
My dad owned his own restaurant, and was in the pizza business for 30 years. He worked very hard to support our family. He ended up losing his business to the failing economy. That really impacted our family because we were no longer able to afford our house, and at the time my mom was not working. We ended up moving to NJ with my grandparents, to a cheaper home. My dad stayed in NY though because that was where he had all his connections and was able to find another job to send money to us. My mom had to get a job again after so many years, but we were managing. What affected our family the most was when my dad was no longer able to work. Things got really tight. But regardless of the situation, my dad was adamant that I go to college. He didn’t want me to get stuck in a job where I would only have one skill and no back up if things went bad the way he was. He wanted me to have a degree that I could fall back on even though money was tight. Now that he can’t do the only job he’s ever done, and we no longer have my mother or her income in the picture, we get by on very little income and the support of my grandmother. We don’t spend much money on unnecessary extravagant things, and it has definitely taught us to appreciate the little things in life.
Maria, we have a lot in common in this regard, so stay the course and be encouraged that at some point your efforts and sacrifices (and those of your family) will no doubt be rewarded.
So my father whom I currently live with is employed by the Hopewell Township Police Department for the past 28 years. My father went to the academy and before he even went to college he knew that he was going to be a police officer since that is what he found a passion for. On the mark of my dads 25 year of service he could of retired with full benefits, but only for himself and no the rest of the family. This was due to the fact that he was just a patrolmen and not up in ranks. Those in ranks only have to have the title for a day and they are guaranteed to get those benefits for the rest of the family. In this small department is is very much like a high school where you have to “suck up” to the popular crowd and to move up in rank. My dad felt he was just going to do his job and get out. He has the passion, but also has all of us back at home. Now 28 years in him and my mother I currently live with were thinking about getting a divorce and it turns out with his salary being split and everything he could not live on that much money. He makes most of his money working extra shifts and picking up more hours. This shocked me since I would be living with him and the idea that he has worked so hard for so many years and at this point he may never be able to stop working. My mother only works part time and doesn’t make a lot of money, but they survive the lifestyle they have now since they are putting the two incomes together. I myself have always wanted to be a police officer and my father and a few others in the department whom I am close with have discouraged me not to go into law enforcement not only due to the drama in the workplace, but due to the fact that I am a female and I will be treated differently no matter what. Although, I want to still want to be a police officer they do not make the money to compensate for the amount of abuse and ridicule from the public and media. Both jobs I am considering are both low paying and not nearly what they should be for the amount of stuff they deal with.
The police are coming under scrutiny from the public and the media because of their behavior, which to be quite frank, reflects institutional practice that should never be tolerated in a functioning democracy. The media is not “picking” on the police; the police are calling attention to themselves through abusive practice, which is neither random or incidental, but rather reflects a troubling pattern.
The fact that you have been told by insiders that you are a “woman” and so you will be singled out for unfair treatment only serves to magnify the problem of an institution, which has no problem using violence, not to simply enforce the law, but to uphold a social order, where anyone not fortunate enough to be born male and white is a second class citizen, whose body is subject to be injured, tortured, and killed.
My father has always been a dedicated and hard working individual to make ends meet for my family. He has had various jobs that were always in demand such as an electrician, a plumber, and currently a truck driver. He has always worked hard for everything he has ever gained and has infinite knowledge about the field he gets into. When we talked about my future endeavors, I always had to have a plan. I could not be aimlessly going through life, otherwise I would never have a successful career. He always steered me away from the blue collar labor careers, because he knew I would struggle financially with them. So when picking a career I had to have a plan. I had to want a realistic career and not go into things such as theater and dance because those fields are very slim on ever finding a career and it was highly unrealistic to my father. So that’s when I decided to become a lawyer. With law, I would be in an office setting, and be able to have benefits and not struggle financially. It is also a job that is decently in demand for the world, so this was the path I had to take.
Growing up with my father, it was very hard on everyone in the family when my father had temporarily lost his job. Even though it was not that very long, the time period of my father not working had effected everyone in the household. You can kind of feel as if moral or the general being of everyone gets brought down a little when the main person of the household stop bringing in money. The loss of the job had kind of changed the course of money spending and the financial aspect of everything in the house. Certain luxuries and other non-important things were not bought due to the fact that money needed to be saved just in case of an emergency since a large portion of income had stopped flowing into the house.