| There is no "preference" stated here. Without compelling evidence otherwise, I tend to subscribe to the theory of revealed preferences - our actions reveal what we really want. But you are logically correct, there are some possibilities, e.g., the poor would prefer to have a job but irrationally don't look for one. I somehow doubt that's because people "prefer" to remain poor. You are looking at the wrong choice set. The choice set is not [ poor, middle class]. The choice set is [ (poor, leisure), (middle class, hard work) ]. The theory I'm pushing is that for some people, utility(leisure)-utility(hard work) > utility(middle class) - utility(poor). See my blog post for more details. Also, this is not caused by the current recession. The numbers have been similar since 1996 (the year of the earliest report I can find with a quick google search). http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp96.htm http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2002.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2006.pdf (Tweak URLs to get data for intermediate years.) |
It doesn't make sense to assume that people who are not working are doing so just out of a desire to avoid work.
>But you are logically correct, there are some possibilities, e.g., the poor would prefer to have a job but irrationally don't look for one.
Or there are no jobs within distance that pay the bills (i.e. what's the point of flipping burgers for minimum wage - it won't pay the rent and feed the kids). In which case it stops being an argument of utility and one of common sense - it makes none to work at a job which would be a pointless treadmill in which you stand a zero chance of ever getting back on your feet.
What bothers me is that you're assuming preference from raw data. This is a problem when the data does not support (or even attempt to) support any such conclusion - does it take into account local conditions?
If not, then any such analysis (including yours) is baseless.