The March unemployment figures released by the U.S. Labor Department indicate that massive job redundancies in the United States are continuing unabated. According to the data, 663,000 jobs vanished in the past month, raising the official national unemployment rate from 8.2% to 8.5%, a level not seen since 1983. The Labor Departments statistics show that job losses occurred in all sectors of the U.S. economy: white and blue collar, manufacturing and service sectors, private and public arenas.
Since the current recession officially commenced in December of 2007, more than five million Americans have joined the ranks of the unemployed.
However, as bad as the official statistics clearly are, the underlying reality is actually much worse. For one thing, the Labor Department no longer includes "discouraged" workers in its unemployment figures. In addition, the underemployed are also excluded. This latter category reflects the somber reality that millions of Americans have been forced out of full-time employment, and can only find part-time jobs with much lower salaries and benefits. When these missing pieces to the unemployment picture are aggregated, the actual unemployment rate in the United States is a staggering 15.6%, which fits in the mid-range of the unemployment rates that the U.S. encountered during the years of the Great Depression.
Like a receding cosmic red shift, the employment contraction in the United States is accelerating. Not even the massive deficit-driven stimulus binge of the Obama administration is expected to have anything beyond a minor impact on the burgeoning American unemployment figures. Even the Federal Reserve, whose Chairman has predicted an end to the recession before the current year is out, is projecting elevated jobless figures into 2011, while several economists predict high unemployment rates through 2013.
It is precisely at this time of unprecedented job destruction, not only in the U.S. but also throughout the world, that stock markets are rallying. The Dow Jones actually rose the day the U.S. Labor Department released its grim jobless statistics. Again we see the opium of optimism pervading Wall Street, while the Global Economic Crisis continues to shred Main Street.
Amid all the uncertainty clouding the global economy and its fate, one thing is certain: the massive rise in unemployment rates throughout the world will facilitate further demand destruction, which in turn will lead to further job losses, as a vicious self-perpetuating engine of economic destruction runs amok. Recall that the initiation of the Global Economic Crisis began with a collective failure to pay the monthly bills on subprime mortgages, at a time when the United States enjoyed record levels of employment, and an official jobless rate below 5%. With the likely impact of rising levels of unemployment on the securitized bank assets based on near-prime, prime and commercial mortgages likely to be highly negative, it would appear that the current "sucker's rally" on Wall Street is just another manufactured asset bubble waiting to implode.
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< "March unemployment figures released by US Labor Department indicate that... 663,000 jobs VANISHED in _past month_, raising official national unemployment rates from 8.2% to 8.5%, levels not seen since 1983!!!!
The LaborDepartments statistics show that job losses occurred in ALL SECTORS of US economy: white & blue collar, manufacturing & service sectors, private & public arenas.
Since the current recession officially commenced December of 2007, more than FIVE MILLION Americans have joined ranks of the unemployed.
However, bad as official statistics are, the underlying reality IS ACTUALLY MUCH WORSE....the Department no longer [even] includes "discouraged" workers in its unemployment figures.
In addition, the 'UNDEREMPLOYED' are also EXCLUDED.... millions of Americans [that] have been FORCED OUT of full-time employment, & can ONLY find PART-TIME JOBS with much lower salaries & benefits.
When these missing pieces to the unemployment picture are aggregated, THE ACTUAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE in the United States is a staggering __15.6%__,
which fits in the mid-range of unemployment rates that the US encountered during the... Great Depression." >
For COVERING UP and HIDING these BASIC FACTS, which American taxpayers SPEND GOOD MONEY for economists to count & measure, the editors/publishers of the NY TIMES, WashPost, networks, & "lesser media" SHOULD BE PUBLICLY WHIPPED & put in stocks, for DEFRAUDING the American people.
(sigh - I'm an "anti-corporal punishment "Lefty", but the CONSPIRACY to DECEIVE & DEFRAUD Americans is SO VAST, DEEP, & PERVASIVE, that it truly is _criminal._)
What happened? When? Who did it? If their was deceit, how did they manifest it?
You have to read history, unemployment numbers were 25%.. we are nowhere there.
Things are bad but not that bad, please don't make it worse by pulling the fire alarms when there is no fire.
Your obviously trying to panic everybody. How are we ever going to get back to normal if you keep telling everybody the truth?
Lying, as we have seen, is the one major component of the "recovery". They said the bailouts and stimulus would cost approx $150 billion. I got some bad news kids it's already almost double that. Approx $270 billions. They sold you a bill of goods. You had no say so whatsoever. They take the money you worked your hind end off for and throw it away never to be seen or heard from again.
Time to stand up you little woosy Democrats and start screaming bloody murder. Before it's too late.
Or maybe we don;t want to hurt Barack's feelings?
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/blsln/lnu03327709
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/blsln/lnu04025027
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/blsln/lnu04000052
Here's a compilation of different rates:
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/find.exe/blsln+Unemployment_Rate
Our capitalist system, with reasonable controls and regulation, is truly the goose that lays the golden egg. But there are two areas of corruption disable it. One is the emphasis on easy money.... money that isn't earned, but is "created" for undeserving people to their unfair advantage and the disadvantage of everyone else (eg. Henry Paulson who "earned" $600 million in a few years, .... boy, you must be a terrifically productive guy Henry, pure corruption of the system).
The second area of corruption is where real money is distributed broadly in small amounts to undeserving people. Of the many available examples of that, here are but a few: Overly generous union contracts, welfare and medicaid cheats, earmarks, broad based government programs that reward people without any connection to behavior or macroeconomic effect.
It is emminently possible to construct a fair system in which there is a middle class, risk/reward and effort are rewarded on small and large scale, and a broad prosperity fuels healthy industries and instituions. However, the current situation has developed to the point where the two types of corruption identified threaten to kill the goose..... to all of our detriment.
US Taxpayers put on the hook for ONE TRILLION dollars (in 1980s dollars) in the 1980s Savings & Loan Debacle..... and ALREADY this economic crisis, Taxpayers have forked over THREE TRILLION "real" dollars (actually, MORE DEBT on the already over-extended National credit-card) - with the INSANELY CORRUPT Obama/Geithner/Rubin/Summers/Emanuel crew LOOKING to MAKE THE TAXPAYERS "guarantee" (_PAY OUT_ !!!) ANOTHER $3 PLUS Trillion dollars!!
and even THOSE amounts are VASTLY Insufficient to the task - I have read that JPMorgan-Chase has $88 _TRILLION_ in outstanding "DERIVATIVE" losses, and Goldman-Sachs on the low end of the Big-5 with $18 TRILLION in losses.
Whether or not these figures are 100% accurate, the GREATER CRIME is that - after SPENDING $3 TRILLION in TAXPAYER DOLLARS to PROP UP these FAILED, CRIMINALLY FRAUDULENT organizations, WE HAVE NO IDEA, what are NOT allowed to know, the TRUE extent of their losses /black-hole Debts!!!
This is COMPLICITY with CRIMINAL FRAUD on part of Obama administration....
A Human Investment Tax Credit program was designed to generate 3 to 6 million new jobs and encourage between 1 to 4 million men and women to become self-employed.
The 2009 Report can be downloaded free at aesopinstitute.org.
The 1977 job tax credit program, which adopted a few of the incentives recommended in an earlier Report, generated almost a million private-sector jobs; twenty percent of all new jobs created that year. It resulted in more jobs in less time than any prior legislation.
There are now two versions. The full 52 page document contains a new economic analysis. A shorter version contains the Summary and a total of 15 pages. The tax incentives in the Human Investment Tax Credit program have been updated and can be debated and voted into law.
Urge your Representative and the House Ways and Means Committee to debate and discuss this important legislation without delay.
1929 .... 3.2% Hoover Era, Great Depression begins
1930 ..... 8.7%
1931 .... 15.9%
1932 ..... 23.6%
1933 ..... 24.9% < New Deal begins
1934 .... 21.7%
1935 ..... 20.1%
1936 ..... 16.9%
1937 ..... 14.3% < Recession Begins
1938 ..... 19.0% < Recession Ends
1939 ..... 17.2%
Many of these years included a + GNP. Unemployment is but one metric of measurement of this recession/depression, and unfortunately it's often a lagging indicator.
As you can see, Roosevelt began relatively modest deficit spending that arrested the slide of the economy and resulted in some astonishing growth numbers. (Roosevelt's average growth of 5.2 percent during the Great Depression is even higher than Reagan's 3.7 percent growth during his so-called "Seven Fat Years!") When 1936 saw a phenomenal record of 14 percent growth, Roosevelt eased back on the deficit spending, overly worried about balancing the budget. But this only caused the economy to slip back into a recession, as the above chart shows.
Meaningless? Hardly. They are simply another metric in evaluating economic health. If they were truly meaningless than we should be equally pleased with negative GNP, and that's simply bunk.
With regard to the NRA -- just one facet of the New Deal -- many of the labor provisions of the NRA were then folded into the Wagner Act of 1935.
Revisionist history is the hallmark of the right.
Luckily, James Clyburn (D - S.C.) included a clause that will allow the state legislatures to overturn any governor's decision to turn down the funds.
Case in point -- Consumer confidence is up for the first time since the bubble burst. The country's feeling about the direction that our country is moving has also risen for the first time.
Make no mistake about it -- things are turning upward. Thank God for Obama's foresight in tackling unemployment insurance and food stamps to cushion the blow for hard-hit families.
My girlfriend lost her job a year ago and has two children. It's food stamps and unemployment that are allowing her to breathe again.