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Comment by rrggrr | Hacker News Reader

"We will have to write off one to two entire generations". This from one industrial client who manages a workforce in the rural and suburban south. Why? The skills gap. Drug abuse, particularly meth. Competition from disability, welfare and black market income sources. I've heard similar from other clients. Their contempt for politicians stems largely from their perceptions that rural/middle America has been left to rot as big cities and technology centers thrive. The recent election in the US should have been viewed by both sides as the mother of all wake-up calls for Congress and the President to deliver results. Instead... outright political civil war with both sides having blame.

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What's sad to me is that all those folks in those shitty, worn-out parts of the country, they're the perfect target market for a universal basic income. Why? Cause in the really poor counties, there's already a de-facto UBI, in the form of disability payments. It's just not formally universal, and people have to jump through a lot of hoops to maintain it. Simplify the whole thing, and pump some money into these places that have nothing and never will again on their own.

I see this and it's very frustrating. The things you mentioned are what make it such a difficult problem, especially "competition from disability, welfare and black market income sources." So often, it's papered over and misleadingly described as something else entirely for politically expedient means, as if there was a time we could go back to where we were safe from these forces.

The truth is, we never were and never will be, and we have to be always vigilant about fighting it by working to provide opportunity and safety nets. I despise that the conversation is always framed in moral terms regarding whether those who need safety nets "deserve" them, when the question should really be about whether we're serious about winning the competition against non-productive income sources, state sponsored or otherwise. The conversation is perennially hijacked.

The equivocation between parties is pretty weird, considering that a substantial chunk of the Democratic platform was about things that would offer real help to these suffering areas (for example, subsidized education in new fields), while the Republicans offered pixie dust and the claim that outcompeted mining and manufacturing jobs would magically reappear.

The results of the recent election were driven by inefficiencies in the American electoral system, such as the electoral college, gerrymandered districts that result in Republicans holding more seats than their vote totals would suggest, etc.

The "skills gap" is largely a result of the actions of employers. There is disdain for on the job training for easily learnable, high access jobs such as waitstaff, cashiers, etc. Furthermore they aim to pay as little as possible, while being as demanding as possible. They have stopped using defined weekly/biweekly scheduling and switched to unpredictable schedules that rapidly shift total hours worked, days worked, and even reduced hourly shifts. Oftentimes these jobs do not pay markedly more than one would get struggling to get by via social programs, family/friends, etc.

> Middle America's stubborn refusal to move forward

This is a form of name-calling, which the site guidelines ask you not to do: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I vouched for GP because they seem to have removed the name-calling.

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