But you still didn't answer the question, what are all these people missing from the workforce actually doing? I know two millennials who are literally living in their mother's basement playing video games on her dime, but is this normal? Is the drug trade taking that many people?

No one knows where the missing workers are, or what they are doing.

Where does the UBI money come from? Even if it was only $10,000/year, that would be... $3.2 trillion a year.

That cost would cripple taxpayers and squeeze businesses to the point where they can't afford to hire, kicking off a downward spiral with a positive feedback loop. That's what happened in the Great Depression, and it took a world war to break it.

We need pro-growth policies so that small businesses can grow and hire. That cycle spirals upward.

And here's an idea for one - no business taxes if you pay your employees (including contractors to close that loophole) more than some threshold value. Pegged to some function of the poverty level, or maybe a highest to lowest salary ratio for large enterprises. You can do that safely because corporate income taxes just get passed on to consumers anyhow, and you'll be capturing higher individual income tax revenue. Higher wages lead to higher demand, higher demand leads to expanded supply, which leads to more jobs...

Really? Office in your browser would qualify?

Porting is such sweet sorrow.

Wow. What the f-k is wrong with you?

Toaster licenses?

I found it telling when a certain prominent black Democrat said we need illegal aliens to pick our crops. People used to say the same thing about a different kind of cheap labor.

It's very easy, but it's also very bad. You can give people government busywork, but that squeezes private enterprise out of the labor market, especially small businesses. The engine powering our economy is private enterprise, primarily small businesses. If everything has crashed, they can get it going again because labor becomes cheap. If labor doesn't become cheap, they fail and that cascades throughout the rest of the economy. This is what happened during the Great Depression. FDR's attempts to get out of it, made it worse.

Government doesn't produce things. It can build infrastructure, but that's useless if there's no private enterprise to put it to productive use. You need private enterprise to provide the jobs.

If the dead can't find jobs, how are they supposed to afford healthcare? Do you just want them to stay dead? Monstrous!

A training program is always going to be more useful than busywork, and that's what the New Deal boondoggles were. And I use the term "boondoggle" because it gained the meaning of "government scam" because FDR was paying people to sit around and make boondoggles (the little slide that holds a Boy Scout's neckerchief together).

It actually prolonged the Depression by screwing up the labor market and making it impossible for small struggling businesses to find workers.

Now that's a post that could have used some formatting. Next time, slap a P between angle brackets every now and again.

I was also essential (but worked from home so it didn't matter), got it two or three times the first year (first time may have been something else), and then at least once a year for the next two. Each time it was weaker, no long-term effects.

Couple of things. First is why in the world would you think that no health insurance should count for unemployment? The second is that for gen Z, what you're describing is marginal attachment and part time for economic reasons. So, if you want those numbers, look at U-6 unemployment. Which also captures people who have dropped out of the labor pool.

Last I checked, CPI numbers exclude subsidized costs (foodstamps). I assume that's what you refer to by subsidies.

Do you think that Slashdot is made up solely of programmers and developers? It is not.

There are people here who are scientists, physicists, Engineers, I believe some NucE's as well, and may or may not be highly placed. My present position involves electromagnetic issues - RF from 100 MHz to 6 GHz mainly. but can be anywhere from DC to Daylight as we say.

As I noted, I'm not a VP in name, only that is the closest type position I can associate with what I do.

The advisement I give and counsel I give is on mitigating RF interference, very broadly stated. And since the process looks like black magic to normal people, what I say generally goes. That pattern weaving and mirroring I noted in my previous reply is why I can speak to the CEO's on their level, the Engineers on their level, and interact with all levels on the food chain.

And that is about as much as I can tell you.

That's pretty cool, mind sharing what it does? Don't worry, I have an iPhone and won't be bugging you for a copy. And probably won't repeatedly harass you about porting it.