It is no consolation to the unemployed & underemployed that the government told us today that the unemployment rate for January is 9.0%. In fact 26 million Americans do not have any employment or suitable employment - this figure includes the 6.5 million people who have given up looking for work. There are also 43.6 million Americans who receive food stamps - many of whom would like to return to the dignity of earning a living & not being dependent on the government for buying groceries. Housing prices continue to fall as a result of government intervention but maybe the worst & cruelest of all is that rates on CDs - the bank instruments that so many seniors rely on to supplement their pension & Social Security incomes - are so low that many seniors have seen $5 thousand to $10 thousand of CD interest income ripped from them @ renewal as the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates manipulated artificially low. But of course this is all by design as BO plans to complete the socialization of America - for starters.
For those previously unemployed lucky enough to have found employment the new job has only a fraction of their previous job's earning power in so many cases. Many underemployed people with multiple masters degrees & previous six figure incomes are working as school janitors, frothing cappuccinos @ Starbucks, or if they live in NJ are pumping gas @ the local convenience store. People I know who are doing these jobs have told me they have to do what is needed to pay their bills. The problem is that as time rolls on these drops in wages will be permanent for these people - never to recover in most cases. In fact things may very well get worse with extremely qualified people being offered absolute peanuts to do even more menial jobs. Many jobs pay less than the unemployment benefits.
Now the government's unemployment percent is one way to look @ the jobloss situation of the past several years. This rate includes only unemployed people who are looking for work - it does not count those who thought it in their best interest to retire, who went back to school, applied for long term disability, or simply gave up & moved back with relatives if they could find any that would have them. Homelessness, which is a euphuism for what used to be known as being a bum, is another alternative.
The broadest measure of unemployment is the employment to population ratio - the number of people who are employed as a % of the population 16 & older who are not in the military or institutionalized. This figure is currently 58.3% - the lowest in thirty years when far fewer women were in the labor force.
With all of this dismal science information as a backdrop please look @ the above investment-unemployment graph that traces the investment ups with the unemployment downs & vice versa from 1990 to 2010 in perfect harmony. Solving our employment problem does not have to get any more complicated than that.
Doug:
ReplyDeleteThere are no blue collar jobs AKA factory workers. America unanimously decided decades ago no smoke stacks and greasy manufacturing plants will be allowed. We elected leaders who were pro-active in forcefully eliminating these “dirty” companies. We gave unprecedented powers to government organizations like the EPA to tax and punish these smoke stack companies into bankruptcy. We (America) accomplished our goal. Jobs were never part of the equation, you are not advocating a return to the toxic days of the sixties & seventies are you? Of course, I am playing devil’s advocate but we cannot eliminate all of our manufacturing plants then act surprised because America is unemployed. Remember, we get the government we elect.