Older Workers and the Lump of Labor Fallacy + Toil and Trouble By PAULA SPAN

[mEDITate-OR:
be shocked, yes shocked, that times they are a'chang'n
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The participation rate is trending up for all older age groups.
Unfortunately Span concluded:
So to that Wisconsin reader who grumped, “Too many older people (professors, Morley Safer, etc.) continue to work for selfish reasons, thereby taking jobs from the young and unemployed” — I’m afraid you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
That is a classic lump of labor fallacy. This is a common error people make with immigration - that immigrants displace other workers, when in fact immigration increases the size of the economy. I suspect we will see more and more of this age related "lump of labor" fallacy. The number of jobs in the economy is not fixed, and people staying in the work force just means the economy will be larger.
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You need to read, and think, about this.
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Older Workers and the Lump of Labor Fallacy
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/12/older-workers-and-lump-of-labor-fallacy.html
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Toil and Trouble
By PAULA SPAN
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/toil-and-trouble/
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