Weekly Audit: The Unemployment Epidemic

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Weekly Audit: The Unemployment Epidemic (10:50 am)


On Friday, we learned that the U.S. unemployment rate officially broke 10% for the first time since the early Reagan years. This is about as bad as it gets for a modern, developed economy. No economic force takes a heavier toll on a society than rampant joblessness, and few personal setbacks take a deeper psychological toll than being out of a job for months on end. If Congress and President Obama don’t do something to create jobs fast, both are going to pay a hefty political price when next year’s mid-term elections roll around.

So how bad is it? In October, the economy shed 190,000 jobs and the unemployment rate jumped from 9.8% to 10.2%. That percentage is the most optimistic reading of the labor market in Friday’s report. If you take people who want full-time jobs but are settling for part-time work, then add those who have simply given up on finding a job, the rate is a massive 17.5%.

The problem is not that either Obama or Congress have failed to act on the problem, but rather that they have not done enough. When Congress was moving on Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package back in February, we were shedding upwards of 700,000 jobs a month. So the stimulus package has worked—it’s probably helped keep unemployment from jumping to 12% or 13%. But this is cold comfort to the nation’s 15.7 million unemployed, 5.6 million of whom have been out of a job for more than six months.

As Robert Reich notes for Salon, Obama’s economic advisers dramatically underestimated how bad things would get when they crafted the stimulus package. As a result, the package was too small and unemployment has remained high. Obama needs to go back to Congress and demand more economic relief funding. Republicans will continue to whine about government spending to excuse their obstructionism, of course, and conservative Democrats will probably start sweating, too—Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) helped cut back the original stimulus bill in February to help boost his “centrist” credentials. This of course had nothing to do with economics or policy. Government spending is what saves the economy in a recession. In a downturn as severe as this one, it takes a lot of spending to turn things around. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.theittlist.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/index.php/ittlist/ind/5576/hed_weekly_audit_the_unemployment_epidemic/

[valerief]

1. People were getting too addicted to paychecks anyway. Like their addiction to oil. nt

[dembotoz]

2. my friends jobs are dropping like flies.

keep wondering how far behind my job is.

[onethatcares]

3. I've been trying to figure out which jobs could be created.

Can companies be forced to hire admin clerks or janitors, call center reps or asst vice presidents? There are only so many construction/road/infrastructure hands on jobs available that I don't know where the administration would start. Plus, add in the off shoring,
outsourcing, and the rest of the new lean model, there are no jobs available to be made.

You can just about forget manufacturing unless you're talking about manufacturing hamburgers on a bun.

[OnionPatch]

7. Well, you hit on it with outsourcing.

If Obama and Congress would get the cajones to to put some real restrictions and/or taxes on outsourcing, we might see some jobs come back. But it's becoming crystal clear that the big corporation's mega profits are more important than jobs for regular Americans.

[ThomCat]

4. When you are in that bubble, isolated from us and our concerns

it is easy for them to underestimate how bad things are. They don't see unemployment anywhere, or what it is doing. We don't have lobbyists constantly bribing them and putting our needs in front of them. Is it any surprise that this administration has failed to act strongly enough to help people?

But of course there are trillions of dollars to help wall street.

There is also no real will in Washington to impose regulations to prevent this kind of disaster from ever happening again. Obama and Rahm Emanuel in their bubble just don't see the need.

Carter was the last President who really tried (unsuccessfully) to break through that bubble, and he is still demonized as a horrible president for even trying.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. K&R

[mia]

6. just picked up a second job

Tutoring - 7.5 hours per week @ $15 per hour(before taxes). Looking out for job #3. Saving as fast and as hard as I can.

I'm grateful that I have a full time teaching job, but fully aware that it may not always be there.

[sendero]

8. Obama...

... doesn't have a chance in hell of getting re-elected, and the midterms are going to be disastrous for Dems. No, they didn't create this mess but when given the chance to do something about it, they did NOTHING.

[Louisiana1976]

9. I just learned that 2 people I knew from the company where I used to work....

lost their jobs.