The talk in Washington these days is all about budget deficits, tax rates, and the “fiscal crisis” that supposedly looms in our near future. But this chatter has eclipsed a much more pressing crisis here and now: almost thirteen million Americans are still unemployed. Though the job market has shown some signs of life in recent months, the latest figures on new jobs and on unemployment-insurance claims have been decidedly unimpressive. We are stuck with an unemployment rate three points higher than the postwar average, and the percentage of working adult Americans is as low as it’s been in almost thirty years. What’s most troubling is that so much of this unemployment is long-term. Forty per cent of the unemployed have been without a job for six months or more—a much higher rate than in any recession since the Second World War—and the average length of unemployment is about forty weeks, a number that has changed very little since 2010. The economic recovery has now lasted nearly three years, but for millions of Americans it hasn’t yet begun.
Being unemployed is even more disastrous for individuals than you’d expect. Aside from the obvious harm—poverty, difficulty paying off debts—it seems to directly affect people’s health, particularly that of older workers.
The low participation rate tells me the country is ripe for some sweet movies... Terminator, Weird Science and Goonies? all 1980....Expect excellence in bread and circuses
Jonny Canuck wrote:looking at the graph I see the peak was at the end of the clinton years and the beginning of the bush term. what happened?
Crash of the Dot.Com bubble?
I love hearing Obamanoids totally ignoring "Civilian Work Force" participation. Used to be they were called "Long Term Unemployed". Same kind of Orwellian crap that transforms bums and hobos into "homeless people".
actually around here in the PNW it really did last about that long...most of us figured it was fixing to pop in 97-98 This late 90's time frame coincided with the beginning of local housing weirdness.
has nothing to do with 80's movies or shitty presidents et al.
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that." JS Mill
actually around here in the PNW it really did last about that long...most of us figured it was fixing to pop in 97-98 This late 90's time frame coincided with the beginning of local housing weirdness.
has nothing to do with 80's movies or shitty presidents et al.
Was that due primarily to the microsoft millionaires or was there more to it?
"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule
Blaidd Drwg wrote:The low participation rate tells me the country is ripe for some sweet movies... Terminator, Weird Science and Goonies? all 1980....Expect excellence in bread and circuses
