Back in the 1960s, people used to wonder what Americans would do with all the leisure time that they would enjoy in the over-abundant economy of the future. Now we know: They'll spend it unsuccessfully looking for work.

Companies just don't need the number of people they currently employ due to technological and other advances.

Back in the 1960s, people used to wonder what Americans would do with all the leisure time that they would enjoy in the over-abundant economy of the future. Now we know: They'll spend it unsuccessfully looking for work.

This conclusion is supported nowhere in the readings you quoted. There is no evidence that people are spending their all or even most of their forced free time looking for work.

From what I've seen on the beaches and hiking trails of Los Angeles, they're spending their time beaching and hiking.

I suspect a lot of them are also spending their time arranging skills barters on craigslist and digging vegetable gardens in their back yards.

Forced leisure time could be just what the piss-tested workaholic overachievers of America need to get some balance and perspective back into their lives.

And some sunlight on their skin and some organic dirt under their fingernails and some social connections to people they don't work with.

The Hippie era is back, whether you want it or not!

The carrot is beginning to look suspiciously like a turnip, and the hampster wheels are beginning to rust. Maybe Amercians should try something a little different from the tried and not so true "pecuniary emulation" and "conspicuous consumption" for a change... Fat chance that.

This news comes as no surprise. It's just another facet of the major deflationary event I've been anticipating for almost a decade starting with the exporting of jobs to cheaper countries and now, having more people than we have work.

The traditional response of most businesses to an abundance of workers is to use the smallest number of workers they can and use whatever techniques available to deflate the wages of those workers (i.e. uncompensated over time, firing those of a certain pay grade and hiring cheaper labor, hiring women and juveniles in preference to men). We may see a movement towards mandating a lower work week (32-35 hours) with strong punishments for any form of overtime.

For me a telltale sign that we've become comfortable with an underemployed workforce is when the consumer economy drops by 25% and people spend more time doing things that are fun instead of spending money on toys. Look at any activities magazine from the 1930s to see what I mean. People built things. Airplanes, boats, radio controlled aircraft, and telescopes. They used them and derived pleasure from a simple, low-cost not-rented experience.

One important mindset from the 1930s was that people dreamed big. They had little money but they dreamed big, pushing records with aircraft or watercraft. Spaceflight was a common dream. We need to dream big again and I don't mean wind turbines on the moon. I mean well organized small cities that don't have the rot so prevalent in our larger urban centers. A well thought out food infrastructure combining local and remote supplies. Distributed power generation and yes, maned spaceflight with an eye to spreading humanity around the solar system (my jet pack equivalent)

You know, I think I'm kind of looking forward to this economically slower world. Powers that be won't change. Bankers and other large institutions will still control us but if you aren't so concerned about acquiring, you can ignore them.

I wonder if these statistics take into account longer hours being wrung out of salaried employees (for example bankruptcy attorneys)? If not, it seems as though actual remunerated work would be falling even faster - salaried workers being forced to put in more hours for the same pay, while being offset by an even greater loss in hourly work, which is actually paid.

And where does the forced unpaid time off (furlough) fit in when schedules are not allowed to slip?

Place I worked before - salaried workers were expected to routinely work evenings and weekends.

Current workplace has instituted furloughs with the demand that people still meet their schedules.

Interesting times. Don't think the actual hours reported (assuming 40 hour/week/person) reflects the actual hours worked. Especially when it comes to salaried workers.

Current workplace has instituted furloughs with the demand that people still meet their schedules.

That's what happens when people use "can a get a loan?" instead of "can I afford it?" as a criterion for purchasing luxuries. They get into a situation where a single missed paycheck causes distress and multiple missed paychecks cause disaster. Once they're there, employers have them by the short hairs and can dish out all the abuse they want.

Andrew, the "birth death" model used to estimate jobs created by under the radar small businesses added 220k jobs for May - the most ever - as if all is normal in the economy - this at a time when GDP is falling and as you note, hours work, payrolls, etc. all are still falling. Don't believe that the rate of layoffs has slowed - this is just an attempt to make people feel better.

The fundamental problems in the economy have not been addressed by any of the Bush or Obama policies - wishful thinking and platitudes are no substitute for hard choices. If consumers don't have money to spend because they don't have jobs or a secure income there will be no recovery and all the financial manipulations to bail out financial institutions that produce nothing of real value simply sink us deeper in the mire.

Mountains of fictitious "wealth" has been created out of nothing over the past 30 yrs and until this fact is acknowledged and policies adjusted to face this fact there will be no recovery - just wild gyrations and chaos as those at the top try to preserve the status quo of yesterday.

I see no courage in Washington - just cowardly hiding behind curtains of fuzzy numbers and obfuscation...