I suspect that the issue with not enough people being in the workforce is less of a problem with the population and more of a problem with the employers. Fun fact: shortly before I turned 18, the world went into The Great Recession. Eventually, the economy started to grow back, but people of my generation haven't reaped many of the benefits of that return. You want a job that pays decently? Well, it's still shockingly hard to get a job that pays enough that you can be reasonably sure you can pay your bills. Hell, even entry-level jobs frequently still require years' worth of experience. Of course, you can still get those years from an internship, but, well, those jobs don't pay. At all.
(note: Emily the Criminal provides a damn good illustration of the situation many of us are in.)
And this can be a major turn-off, especially if, like many of us, your parents brow-beat you into going to college because they were convinced that it was the one thing that guaranteed you'd get a decent job. Those parents wound up being wrong, and many of us got saddled with tens of thousands in debt. Even if we've managed to get a full-time job, frequently, it still doesn't pay enough to keep the lights on. And then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And shortly after that came the Great Resignation. And when polled on why they left the work force, 63% of the respondents said that the pay was too low for them to stay in the work force, and they didn't see much opportunity for things to get better.
When you can't make ends meet, and there's little chance of that changing, it's no wonder that there's so few people in the workforce.
And if you want to go to the moon, Mars, and beyond, you're going to need more than a number of people willing to colonise those celestial bodies. You're going to need resources. Even if we had the technology necessary to make either the Moon or Mars habitable for long-term settlement ready (and we're not even close,) you're going to need a lot of fuel to power the rockets to get it there.
(note: Emily the Criminal provides a damn good illustration of the situation many of us are in.)
And this can be a major turn-off, especially if, like many of us, your parents brow-beat you into going to college because they were convinced that it was the one thing that guaranteed you'd get a decent job. Those parents wound up being wrong, and many of us got saddled with tens of thousands in debt. Even if we've managed to get a full-time job, frequently, it still doesn't pay enough to keep the lights on. And then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And shortly after that came the Great Resignation. And when polled on why they left the work force, 63% of the respondents said that the pay was too low for them to stay in the work force, and they didn't see much opportunity for things to get better.
When you can't make ends meet, and there's little chance of that changing, it's no wonder that there's so few people in the workforce.
And if you want to go to the moon, Mars, and beyond, you're going to need more than a number of people willing to colonise those celestial bodies. You're going to need resources. Even if we had the technology necessary to make either the Moon or Mars habitable for long-term settlement ready (and we're not even close,) you're going to need a lot of fuel to power the rockets to get it there.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
