Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Labor Markets: "Rural America Needs Triage"

Some concepts, profound in their simplicity, that policymakers will have to internalize before the human toll of current economics—whether fast suicides by firearms or hanging or slow suicides by opioids, self-medicating with carbohydrates and booze leading to epidemic levels of obesity, cirrhosis and diabetes, from first generation poverty leading to  multi-generational epigenetic DNA methylation of genes linked to depression—the policy wonks have to get the basics down first.

From AgWeb:
My comments on labor immobility brought this response from Gregory Switek in Ironwood, Michigan:
“One factor that I believe you missed is that people do not move for a better paying job [because] they cannot afford to do so.  Moving is an expensive undertaking both economically and emotionally. 
 This is something that is not unique to rural farming communities.  Small towns and cities across the country which were built on a single business, one company, or a government installation experience this.  My city of Ironwood MI was a mining town.  The last mine closed over 50 years ago.  The State of Michigan operated a prison near us.  It closed at the end of last year.  There are empty and abandoned houses throughout the city a number of which are being razed each year through grants.”...
....MORE

You have people literally trapped in their circumstances.
And since I never cared for the Doors song where Morrison says "No One Here Gets Out Alive" (Five To One), here's LA Woman, also about a place that used to be: