The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession.
[…]
Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:– June’s total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.
– More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don’t count on the unemployment roll.
– No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn’t searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
There are seven more reasons. But why isn’t the stimulus helping?
How could this happen when Washington has thrown trillions of dollars into the pot, including the famous $787 billion in stimulus spending that was supposed to yield $1.50 in growth for every dollar spent? For a start, too much of the money went to transfer payments such as Medicaid, jobless benefits and the like that do nothing for jobs and growth. The spending that creates new jobs is new spending, particularly on infrastructure. It amounts to less than 10% of the stimulus package today.
Oh. I think I need a drink. Got a couple of bucks I could borrow?
Jobs, jobs, jobs. With “real” jobs still getting tax incentives to be moved overseas leaving only “service” jobs remaining in USA, I would love to see an objective analysis of just how many jobs it is even theoretically possible for the USA to have. I’m sure this can be done, but I’ve never seen that kind of exercise.
The closest I can recall is a comment once that jobs are a direct result of social policy==eg, that everyone in the USA could have lifetime employment as a telephone switchboard operator but “society” decided to use electronic switches instead thereby creating unemployment.
So how many financial advisers, real estate agents, doctors, lawyers, day laborers, farmers, etc can America under ideal circumstances actually employ? What to do with surplus people? Reopen Ma Bell?
Pretty typical WSJ scare opinion piece. As screwed-up as gov stats run, they’re the same parameters as every admin in a recession since Nixon.
Ab’t 10% of the stimulus money is on the streets. Most states – and it is state governments that do most of the managing – took till the end of June to write their proposals for programs.
Of course, you could take American politics back to the era of Herbert Hoover and say Keynesian policies never work – and stick with the guys who brought us to this dance.
Leading indicators ain’t bad. I’ve worked my through the trailing indicators several times in American recessions – and survived – and the rate of jobs declining has diminished.
But, then, I don’t own a cordless crystal ball like the editors of the WSJ. And I live in a state with a Democrat governor who ain’t a whiz kid – but, has been bringing in new jobs and building new infrastructure for a couple years right through the recession – because that’s his job, ain’t it.
We got rid of our remaining Republican members of Congress, last year.
I think individual examples are pretty silly – so, this will put me in line with most Commenters in this neck of the prairie.
Leading indicators? Well, I’ve made back every penny I lost in the market at the end of Bush/Cheney reign. And gained.
What part of commerce provided that comeback? Banking (no, not American banks), Technology, GreenTech.
No stock tips, though. Besides, don’t most of you lot hate Apple. 🙂
#2–newrepublican==do you see this as “just another recession” or as a recession with some other attributes? I’ve called it a “resetting” of a American workplace. In most recessions, the jobs are still “there” to go back to when the material glut is slowly sold off and new widgets need to be built.
Our widget making industrial/societal base is being moved overseas. Eventually, that causes a reset. Looks like a recession at the start, but theres no coming out.
Dear Uncle,
See the other Dvorak post about bullshit reporting. The Obama administration has repeatedly said since January things will get worse before getting better. It did.
The aftermath of the Cheney regime incompetence and let chaos reign in lending market has been difficult indeed. However, we may have reached bottom and now a slow job mkt recovery.
I may also add that less than 7% of the stimulus package has been spent and it was not intended to a silver bullet for 6 month recovery. Lay off the bad pot.
Point is some folks are trying to talk the economy back to life, or worse sugar coat the facts. JDC is simply pointing out the fact that the economy continues to sink.
As we roll on toward the 2010 congressional elections it’ll be interesting to see whether the Repubs can pin the ongoing recession on the Dems or the other way around.
Too soon to call that one …
It’s really pretty simple, it’s about jobs right? Then it’s about remaking the trade agreements that got us here. The deficit is nothing and will take care of itself when people are working and paying taxes again.
“But why isn’t the stimulus helping?”
But O’Mama announced that the stimulus is working and the economy is getting better. I guess his plan to totally sink the economy is going as planned. Either that or he is lying. Take your pick.
Stimulus: The bulk of the job creating part of the stimulus isn’t scheduled to be released until September.
Recession: Wages have been going down for a full decade now. Any growth we have seen has been the result of dollar devaluation. When measured in euros instead of dollars, Dow and GDP were both down under Bush. This recession has been going on for a while now, cloaked by the real estate and commodity bubbles, both of which have popped.
We are in a deflationary recession. With the amount of debt we are in, everyone is expecting an inflationary period, and it isn’t happening. Between the banks very leery about lending, and the baby boom retiring and not finding buyers for their assets, it may be deflationary for a while (as in years!)
Government stimulus is needed in deflationary times.
In January it was widely reported that the recession would most likely extend until the summer of 2010 before we got back on track.
The great problem is that over the past decade so many jobs have disappeared from our shores to the Pacific rim. Traditional economics has always focused on the presumption that internal stimulus will create internal jobs. That same stimulus today will only fuel imported products.
We must regain these manufacturing jobs. As Bobbo, #1 put it, we need real jobs that create wealth, not service jobs that only transfer wealth around until it finally disappears.
#10 – I agree. How about pulling out of WTO as a start?
#4, bobbo asked
I see it as the collapse of the biggest bubble ever in all of human history (so far). It totally dwarfs the previous record holder, the Savings & Loan debacle.
I shudder to think what the economy would be like without the stimulus, and I shudder even harder when I wonder what the _next_ one will be like…
I love the people stupid enough to think Obama is different than Bush. Blinded by their own stupidity.
Golly, for all the people out of work, come to Seattle. Sure are a lot of “now hiring” signs around the town. Of course these aren’t for 2.5 million a year bullshit finance jobs where you get to make up numbers and cripple our economy…they’re ACTUAL jobs.
# 16 Not Me…You said, “Of course these aren’t for 2.5 million a year bullshit finance jobs …”
Nor are they for $60k/year manufacturing jobs, they are for $6.00/hr McDonald’s jobs. “REAL JOBS”
Don’t we have some concentration camps to store all these useless layabouts? Nothing to see here. Move along.
I would like a change in the business structure.
Since they seem to LIKE moving business to other countries. Lets take all the TOP wage earners and give them wages EQUAL to those over seas.
If some low level Flunky had done something like this, wouldnt they have been fired?
Much of the BIG business and corps are treating our gov, as if it had no controls. Think its time to give it some teeth.
Something has happened in this nation, that bodes bad tidings for the consumer.
FRom the Import Docks to the reseller, the price of goods is marked up so high on most products, that the common person, cant afford it. That includes food.
Understand that out of the Food from the field, LESS THAN 1% is thrown away. In 1 form or another, it gets to be used. From 1 end of a Cow to the Udder..the WHOLE cow is used. It may not be on your table, but they find uses for it.
most imported goods, end up costing YOU 10 times there costs to get here.
Even canada has higher wages then the USA, for starting wages. We just hit $7.25 per hour. They are $8-11, depending on location.
# 21 ECA said, “$7.25 min USA wage is $8.83 can.”
Yes.
“Umm, and what happens when business LEAVES of its own accord.
this country has to have SOMETHING to trade. If we arent making it HERE, we arent making money.”
The country changes its attitude & practices towards business or it goes under. Pretty simple. Study what happened to the USSR… China changed, USSR fell because it didn’t…
The government blowing a lot of money with nothing to show for it. The government I have come to expect.
#8, Cow-Patty,
But O’Mama announced that the stimulus is working and the economy is getting better. I guess his plan to totally sink the economy is going as planned. Either that or he is lying.
Perhaps you could link to somewhere Obama said “the economy is getting better”.If you can’t, then I guess you are lying.
Pat,
if the USA corps were smart..
we would buy up ALL the goods from the Manufacture countries, and sell them to the rest of the world.
WE WOULD be the MAIN middle man and distributor.
THAT is what made the trade routes of the world, the RULERS of the world. control of TRADE.
#25 LOL.
Yes, we can station kour troops in Mesopotamia and take over the silk industry!