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Plenty of jobs, lazy Americans just don't want them
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Fox's John Stossel.
Some people look at our 8.1 percent unemployment rate and say, there aren't enough jobs out there. But others say there are plenty, Americans just aren't willing to do them. One of those people is John Stossel, host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network.
Stossel did a Fox News special called "Out of Work," where he argues that there are plenty of jobs in the United States, Americans aren't willing to take them. He points the blame on a more-than-generous government safety net.
"We've taught people that in some cases it's easier to be dependent, and you're a sucker if you pound the pavement and work at one of those tough minimum wage jobs," he told host Jeremy Hobson.
Listen to the interview above to hear from Stossel about why he thinks both the "help wanted index" and the unemployment numbers are higher than ever now.
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I am sorry, I went to school and have an advanced degree and AM STILL stuck in deadend call center job, which I am thankful and grateful to have even in this crappy economs. I agree why should I take a minimum wage job, the point of going to school was supposed to be that I wouldn't have to Sucess in my field of study.
As one hardworking highly educated person to an apparently lazy, ill-informed, or incompetent radio interviewer, I have to say your worshipful "interview" of John Stossel was one of the lowest points in the history of N.P.R. A single example is representative of the whole: You asked Stossel 'what about all the unemployed looking for jobs' and he answers with a vague reference to 'job wanted' ads being at 'an all time high.'
That claim, in fact, was a bald-faced lie. They are not at 'an all-time high.' You surely know, do you not, that available jobs across the board are fewer in relation to the work-force than at any time in the past thirty years. Don't you? You know, too, that published newspaper classified ads for real jobs are at an all-time low, don't you? You may know, too, that while there are many alleged "jobs" advertised on certain well-known employment web sites, the vast, vast majority are phantoms -- all-commission sales jobs with no benefits which are in reality designed mostly to grab emails from unsuspecting, desperate unemployed people and try to sell them more consumer crap made by corporations in low-wage overseas factories.
Even if you were too "lazy" and "unwilling to work hard" enough to prepare for a competent interview with Stossel, how could it not even occur to you to ask him the follow-up question, "Do you have any verification for that claim? I mean, you're from Fox News. Everyone knows what that means; we can't just accept your word for it. Do you have any proof for what you just said? A study, perhaps? A report, a number?"
When you allow anyone -- much less an habitual prevaricator with a highly partisan agenda like John Stossel -- to throw out over the airwaves unverified lies, you show contempt for your audience or, at best, the very sort of laziness you supposedly were reporting about. Shame on you!
As it happens, I just happened to tune in to my favorite local NPR station a little early, before the Beethoven. I have not heard of you or your program before, but in one way I'm glad I did: your record-setting, passive enabling act for the always-unreliable John Stossel was an historic low in radio journalism. I'm sorry it happened.
But I'm also mildly glad I heard it myself. Now, I know your radio program is one to avoid.
I can't believe you had John Stossell on your show! This show was one of your worst. I listen to Marketplace Money for personal finance information, not Fox "News". His piece had no research to back him up. A few weeks ago you had a piece on vacation and one of your commentators indicated that the problems of southern Europe were due to excessive vacations rather than the biggest financial crisis in the world since the 1930's. There was no research to back the statement up just as your interview with John Stossell. I am about to give up on this program! Please go back to personal finance and keep the politics out. I have looked to Marketplace Money for unbiased information but I am beginning to doubt your reporting integrity.
I can't believe you had John Stossell on your show! This show was one of your worst. I listen to Marketplace Money for personal finance information, not Fox "News". His piece had no research to back him up. A few weeks ago you had a piece on vacation and one of your commentators indicated that the problems of southern Europe were due to excessive vacations rather than the biggest financial crisis in the world since the 1930's. There was no research to back the statement up just as your interview with John Stossell. I am about to give up on this program! Please go back to personal finance and keep the politics out. I have looked to Marketplace Money for unbiased information but I am beginning to doubt your reporting integrity.
I can't believe you had John Stossell on your show! This show was one of your worst. I listen to Marketplace Money for personal finance information, not Fox "News". His piece had no research to back him up. A few weeks ago you had a piece on vacation and one of your commentators indicated that the problems of southern Europe were due to excessive vacations rather than the biggest financial crisis in the world since the 1930's. There was no research to back the statement up just as your interview with John Stossell. I am about to give up on this program! Please go back to personal finance and keep the politics out. I have looked to Marketplace Money for unbiased information but I am beginning to doubt your reporting integrity.
I lost my $47,000+ a year job when I got called up in 2003. Since then i've taken minimum wage jobs, and currently work three part time jobs to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. To get Medicaid, Food Stamps, Section 8, cash assistance, utility bill help, etc all I have to do is quit one job. Sorry, but I won't.
In the mean time I meet people every day who tell me there are no jobs out there. Like John, I can find three for myself, and two of them are hiring (for more than minimum wage too). But not one person has taken up the offer to fill out those applications. One even offers a Roth 401k, health insurance for part time and full time workers, and pays $2 over state minimum wage. (higher than national minimum wage).
What John found was people not willing to give up doing the job they lost. For some reason they are not realizing they lost the job because of one of two reasons: 1) your job is not needed anymore or 2) you were not good enough to do that job and make money for your employer. Your old job is gone. Time to find a new one. Stop looking for your old job and start looking at a new one.
It really gets me that people complain that you can't live off minimum wage, yet they keep taking their unemployment check which is less than they would earn working minimum wage. I would rather have $290 a week from working than $275 from unemployment.
I was shocked that you gave John Stossel a platform from which to spew his self righteous views. I am so sick of the line about Americans not being willing to do the jobs that are out there. We are not eager to do those jobs for $7.50 an hour. Perhaps if minimum wage kept up with inflation or with executive salaries people may be more willing to apply for those jobs.
I would love to see Stossel roofing my house or waiting tables for minimum wage because the journalistic world has turned it's back on him.
In the future if I wait a load of hate, I'll flip on Faux News. I turn to NPR for real reporting, not hate.
The mean spirited segment by Stossel was offensive. His little "test" was not scientific in any way and it is likely he reinterpreted the "information" from it to prove his theory. Stossel was particularly biased from the outset and his point was merely to promote a very harsh and greed driven Dickensian society in which the wealthy have no responsibility except unto themselves.
I appreciated John Stossel's piece. He's not saying Americans are lazy but pointing out the dangers of government handouts because they create dependency. If the goal is to have everyone employed, then the programs are failing. Forty years ago 1 in 65 workers was disabled. Today, 1 in 16! What will happen if and when we have too few workers to support the nonworkers?
Stossel said look at Greece for example. People were used to government props to income and now there is great hardship when government finances collapse. It doesn't take intellectuals or elites to understand it. Stossel is just expressing the view that many people have, especially immigrants: you work at whatever job you can get because you have to. Better to count on yourself and your friends and family because you can't always count on the government.
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