Why 10 percent unemployment and worse is our future, unless we rethink our economy

People waiting in line for unemployment relief in Chicago in October 1960. Photo by Myron Davis for LIFE Magazine

Updated with more perspective on the job-crashing Internet here and more from Vox Media here. Also, though some think there is a mighty economic transition happening, many readers and friends have pointed that I didn’t properly address the ‘lump labor fallacy‘ here, in which I incorrectly assume there is a static number of jobs that are going away. I still think there is perspective worth sharing below. More comments welcome.

In the next 20 years, the United States and the broader global economy will either dramatically rethink its employment structure or a history-altering societal change will take place.

Of course, unemployment numbers are gamed by those who give up on looking for jobs, but the idea here is that it’s hard to understand why anyone seems to think that the overall unemployment numbers for our country will trend anywhere but upward.

Let me be clear, this is armchair commentary from someone with absolutely no background in economics or geopolitical, socioeconomic trends, so I am writing this hoping for outside insight because I can’t figure this out.

Below, I (a) outline the problem as I see it, (b) look at big economic drivers that seem to be chances for more problems, (c) list all the opportunities I understand that could reverse somewhat this trend and then (d) highlight some of the transformational changes that could lie in wait for the next generation, before offering some more reading and then waiting to get yelled at in the comments.

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8 ways to make Philadelphia more innovative: Young Involved Philadelphia presentation

The annual State of Young Philly event series from Young Involved Philadelphia featured two economy-focused events at which I spoke.

One was a series of lightning presentations last week and a second was a panel discussion Tuesday night that was followed by breakout groups.

Some takeaways below.

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Junto presentation on social entrepreneurship in Philadelphia

I’m still on something of a speaking tour talking about the idea that Philadelphia has a real reason to be seen as a hub of social entrepreneurship. -Which means I need to update my slides.

This post led to this chat, which informed this event, which followed speaking at a Junto on the matter, video of which can be seen below, which was followed by still another event. And other organizations have reached out about continuing to push forward the conversation.

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Philadelphia should own social entrepreneurship: presentation for Knight Foundation, others

Because it has the infrastructure of a major market with mission-orientated for-profit and nonprofit groups and because it has all the big problems that other cities face, Philadelphia should be the country’s hub of social entrepreneurship.

Defined as ventures that put impact over profit, I again spoke about this cause, this time at an event with the Knight Foundation, the Delaware Valley Grantmakers and 30 other industry leaders at the University City Science Center last week. See the presentation I gave here.

See the Technically Philly coverage of the event here.

It was a variation of this presentation, which built off this post on why Philadelphia’s regional distinction should be social enterprise.

“Every problem is an opportunity to build ventures for solutions, scale them and export them to other cities,” as Generocity quoted me as saying. I followed a stirring 20-minute review of the 30-year development of social entrepreneurship, as given by Cheryl Dorsey, the president of the noted New York City-based Echoing Green.

To move the effort forward, we’ll be working on broadening the regional stakeholders who see this as a sensible distinction for Philadelphia and working to build in and build up the mission in organization’s based in and around this city.

After presentations, there was a large group discussion, led by the Knight Foundation’s Donna Frisby-Greenwood, on ways to move forward the effort, concepts that were drilled down in more specific ways in smaller groups. See notes from the discussions here [PDF].

In organizing the event, I came across new organization I hadn’t known had roots in Philadelphia, including an annual sustainability-focused social entrepreneurship event and Halloran Philanthropies, which focuses on social ventures.

It occurred to me that it was more than a year ago that I was beginning to really think about the need for a stronger sense of regional entrepreneurial identity. We needed hungry entrepreneurs and if Philly already has some of them, we need them to be hungrier, bolder and sell the region’s assets more.

Social entrepreneurship should be Philadelphia’s regional distinction: my Pecha Kucha presentation

Social entrepreneurship is an opportunity for Philadelphia to create a regional distinction for attracting and retaining startup talent, was the central theme of my Pecha Kucha presentation Saturday night.

It was an extension of my writing on social entrepreneurship here.

The lightning talk event, in which a dozen speakers use 20 seconds for each of 20 images to give a five-minute perspective, was having its ninth iteration locally, after having been launched by graphic designers in Tokyo in 2004. See the slides from the presentation below.

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Social entrepreneurship: how Philadelphia could have a regional distinction for startups

Philadelphia, like any other city that wants to compete in a global marketplace, needs a regional distinction that sets it apart, and in this place, nothing makes more sense than for Philadelphia to define itself as the hub for social entrepreneurship and urban renewal.

Around the world, our hubs of innovation and culture, of education and community are densest and most alive in cities. All of the truly great problems of our time — war and crime and poverty and disease and education and violence and racism and hunger and employment — are either exacerbated by or housed most primarily in our cities.

As a country, if the United States intends to continue to play some form of a major role in the future, the sense seems to be that we will need to do that by continuing to be smarter. Adaptability, industrial might and military strength have served us well, but we need to look for the next train.

Entrepreneurship and the spirit that came out of World War II federal funding (largely in Philadelphia first) helped define the last quarter century of American cultural impact. At a time of high unemployment and a sluggish economy, high technology and scale is meant to be that next train.

So cities do a lot of hand wringing about how to replace widgets with gadgets.

The trouble is that, as a friend put it, if Silicon Valley represents the overwhelming majority of investment in the country, and New York City is in second place, then just about every other city that is even trying is in third place.

How should Philadelphia (like any other big city) try to stand out?

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