Jim Hightower: Real Recovery Is Easy to Spell: J-O-B-S

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 by Creators.com

Real Recovery Is Easy to Spell: J-O-B-S
by Jim Hightower


The recession is over! The economy is growing! The Dow Jones is above 10,000! Bankers are pocketing profits and fat bonuses! Happy days are here again!

Unless, of course, you're just a regular working stiff struggling with falling income and rising unemployment - and sensing that your family's grip on middle-class life is steadily slipping away. Welcome to America's tinkle-down economy.

The latest job numbers mock the smiley-faced claims of economists and polticos that the Great Recession is over:

- 10.2 percent of America's workforce is officially unemployed - nearly 16 million people.

- Another 15 million people are either so discouraged by their fruitless job search that they've quit looking, or they've had to settle for part-time jobs when they want and need full-time employment. Add the discouraged and underemployed to the number of the officially unemployed, and the percentage of our people who can't find the work they need rises to 17.5 percent - one out of every six workers.

- More than a third of the officially unemployed have been jobless for more than half a year - a new record for long-term joblessness.

- Nearly 15 percent of the unemployed have college degrees, and many more of the college-educated are underemployed.

- October was the 22nd straight month that the U.S. economy lost jobs - the longest streak since 1939. About 7.3 million jobs have been eliminated since December 2007, when the recession began. In this same time span, 2.8 million new workers have come into the job market, meaning our economy is now 10.1 million jobs short of the number needed just to get back to even.

- While average wages have risen slightly in the past year, average weekly pay has stagnated because workers have had their hours cut.

So please excuse our country's workaday majority for not cheering the news that prosperity has returned to those at the tippy top of America's economic pyramid. And - please - do not continue to insult workers with the dismissive declaration that the economy is experiencing a "jobless recovery." Not only is that an oxymoron, it is moronic. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/11-5

[bertman]

1. TELL IT, JIM!!!!

"Where did that guy go?"

A lot of us are asking that question.

Recommend.

[truedelphi]

3. Patch on one side of scalp is now bald from number of times I have asked

That question...

But don't worry. He is alive and well inside a small enclosed booth in the WH. He will be dusted off and sent out in late December 2011. And we will get to hear all those old platitudes once again.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

[OhioChick]

2. No Jobs=No Recovery K&R n/t