With so many manufacturing jobs permanently moved overseas and the government only willing to bail out the wealthy, where are these people supposed to go?
The numbers tell so much of the story. The 6.76 million Americans — or 46% of the entire unemployed labor force — counted as long-term unemployed in June were the most since 1948, when the statistic was first recorded, and more than double the previous record of 3 million in the recession of the early 1980s. (The numbers have since dipped slightly, with a total of 6.2 million long-term unemployed in August.) These are people who, despite dozens of rejections, leave phone messages, send emails, tweak their cover letters, and toy with resume templates in Microsoft Word, all in the search for a job.
Not counted in this figure are so-called “discouraged workers,” including plenty of former searchers who have remained on the unemployment sidelines for six months or more. In August of this year, 1.1 million Americans had simply stopped looking and so officially dropped out of the workforce. They are essentially not considered worth counting when the subject of unemployment comes up. Nonetheless, that 1.1 million figure represents an increase of 352,000 since 2009. In effect, the real long-term unemployment figure now may be closer to 7.5 million Americans.
So who are these unfortunate or unlucky people? Long-term unemployment, research shows, doesn’t discriminate: no age, race, ethnicity, or educational level is immune.
[…]
As for the causes of long-term unemployment, there’s the obvious answer: there simply aren’t enough jobs. Before the Great Recession, there were 1.5 workers in the U.S. for every job slot; today, that ratio is 4.8 to one. Put another way, with normal growth instead of a recession, we’d have 10 million more jobs than we currently do. Closing that gap would require adding 300,000 jobs every month for the next five years. In August 2010, the economy shed 54,000 jobs. You do the math.Worse yet, if you imagine five workers queued up for that single position, the longer you’re unemployed, the further back you stand. Economists have found that long-term unemployment dims a worker’s prospects with each passing day. “This pattern suggests that the very-long-term unemployed will be the last group to benefit from an economic recovery,” Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley, told Congress in June.
We already have a class like that.
Also, anyone unemployed over 35.
right?
“Are We Doomed To Having An Underclass Of Permanently Unemployed?”/// I’m afraid so, an unavoidable consequence of the “free market” regardless of how manipulated it is otherwise. Pure coincidence when the number of jobs equals the number of job seekers? When there are more jobs–immigrants are encouraged to come. When there are too few jobs–citizens are told to quit being lazy.
but its all math, many variables, and different curves intersecting variously.
Yes, what to do? Jobs for make work purposes? Aren’t about X% of jobs currently held exactly that?
Emigration, War, Disease have always interplayed with employment. They are still in operation with a lag time here and there.
Yes, the only thing that has kept this from happening before was a chain of speculative stock market bubbles (dot-com, mortgages, etc.) As other countries have sought out U.S. capital to modernize manufacturing while keeping wages, it’s become more and more difficult for the United States to maintain low rates of unemployment and a high standard of living. The changes have already happened gradually as we’ve seen the move from single to double-wage earner families without a sustainable increase in buying power. We can survive this, Europe did when its capital went to U.S. railroads, mines and cattle ranches, but only by eventually installing social safety nets like national health care, subsidized housing, transportation and other programs that so many middle class Americans seem pathologically opposed to, to the joy of the wealthy tax-dodgers.
The next couple of decades should be really entertaining in a Mad Max apocalyptic sort of way. I predict that a lot of stupid people and a lot of the elites are going to perish. Be sure to bring plenty of firearms and ammo!
Soylent Green – why do you think we have been fattening Americans up for so long!
The Government doesn’t need to create “make work” jobs. There is plenty of real work that needs to be done. Unless you consider maintaining and improving roads, bridges, rail systems, airports, the electrical grid, water & sewer systems, etc. etc make work jobs.
A recent independent report showed there was about 2 trillion (yes trillion) dollars worth of unfunded repair/replacement work needed on the Nations infrastructure.
Plus another recent report showed there was over 2 million jobs (private sector) with no one to fill them mostly because of the lack of job skills.
We need to retain works and fix stuff the problem is no one wants to pay for it.
Government is killing jobs. Unemployment has continued to increase since Obama took office and the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Coincidence? Not at all.
Given the realities, what is the better solution: just give people a minimum living stipend or require some kind of “job” to earn maybe just a little more?
I can see plus and minus to either but the free market is not designed to handle this without revolution in the streets.
As usual, I’m thinking: do both. Maybe 20K per year and free cable tv to stay off the streets and 30K per year at some make work job like planting/maintaining trees and other worthy social projects.
Its always a challenge when reality clashes with ideology. Any guesses as to which one wins – eventually?
Benji, Benji, Benji. You actually had a good point last week. Obviously, they are in short supply.
It looks that way, I’m afraid.
Corporate America has and continues to send manufacturing jobs overseas, This is not sustainable so the hell with unfettered globalization.
We need the US government to make it costly for corporations to take high volume manufacturing overseas. We need to the US government to reduce regulatory costs in high tech fabs.
The cost of a high tech fab overseas is lower not because of lower salaries, but rather regulatory costs.
The Republicans are responsible for allowing corporations to ship jobs overseas. Carly Fiorina and the rest of those GOP bitches are responsible.
JOBS, har.
The BIG fucking corporation outsourced my job to a little company in India in 2008
The BIG fucking bank got my home in 2009.
The BIG fucking government chapter 7 judge spread what remained of my wealth in 2009.
I got to keep my 8 year old car, weapons and a computer.
Yea they got the family home, my hope, my dignity and the future my kids dreamed of, but…I got time.
Time to select my caliber of choice to vote with.
Dallas–rough weekend? step back from the koolaid.
Reduce regulatory costs: I suppose you mean clean air and water standards?
Lower “salaries?”—Haw, Haw.===Yes, earning 12 cents and hour and living 6 to a room is quite a “salary.”
When an upstanding ObamaLib like Dallas is this stupid, it shows how deep the rot of idealogy goes. Makes reality hit even harder.
Silly Hoomans.
Hippies don’t care to work anyway, dudes.
Hippies? Another up to date dude. The operant issue here is not “not wanting to work” the issue is wanting to work and there are no jobs.
#12 No goofy. Stay away from high tech fab issues – you have no idea. The cost of a high tech fab is compliance costs and has nothing to do with keeping the water or the air clean.
You knew anything about it, you would find high tech companies put water back into the ground CLEANER than they got it out.
Salaries? Again you have no clue. High tech fabs are largely automated and an American salary is no cheaper than some chinese or indian salary for the those specific jobs.
Stop passing yourself off as a know it all in every industry – you don’t.
Dallas–specifics please?
We will all wait.
Always have, always will.
Dallas–or more to the point: what specific “high tech fab” regulation is so onerous that removing/reducing the impact of such regulation would allow USA to more readily compete in that market on the world stage?
Add all such opportunities up–what would they add to the GDP?
Ha, ha.
Common sense, the first casualty of ideology in its war with reality.
See a lot of agreement (Yeah, its bad) but no solutions. No one has stated the obvious. Make work Jobs? How about jobs that create a new energy source (other than Oil)? How about jobs that bring back the textile industry? Or that help the Automakers to reduce the need for petroleum? The technology is there. The government needs to get rid of the Corporate dollar and START a war on Oil. Not FOR Oil, but on it. HEMP is the new solution, yet one that dates back to the beginnings of recorded time. The Diesel was originally designed to run on it. Yet, you hear the stories about how people are ‘converting’ to Peanut and Canola oils to run their equipment. guess what? Hemp can produce the Fuel, the ‘Steel’, and even the ‘rubber’ to BUILD and power vehicles. yet, it is Illegal to Grow. Why aren’t the questions being answered, and why is no one upset that they are being ignored? Why do we trust our government, or our religion, rather than OURSELVES?
because we are taught to be subservient. We are taught to ignore the true reality.
Time to wake up people. Those that have been unemployed have woken up. And they seem to be getting angrier each day.
Bio fuels of the leaves/stems/roots variety cannot provide enough net energy to significantly affect the world/usa energy needs. Algae has some hope. I’m waiting for a breakthru with bacteria.
silly to use “food” to run machines–dangerous too once they become intelligent.
Three of my seven children over 35 have been unable to find work for the past 2 years. Their unemployment insurance has run out and I’m now helping to support them from my retirement savings. The future looks bleak.
Just gotta hope the money holds out till either I croke or they find work.
Thats more than I can say for my parents in 1933 thru 1939 when we had to live out of a car for a while till my mother found work and my father joined the navy. There was no support from my Grand parents. I don’t want to live through that again.
How about clean up business?
In no specific order: Waste Management, Global Crossing, Enron, Microstrategy, Parmalot, and Tyco.
Mix of different types.
Corporate governance and regulatory authority don’t seem to work…
Er….when in US history, from 1776 through Saint Ronald Reagan to today have we EVER had 100% employment? Never.
There’s ALWAYS somewhere between 4% – 10% unemployment at any given time. That’s how it’s always been.
The Great Depression was 25%. Let me repeat that. The Great Depression was 25%. We’re CLOSE to 10% now. While high in terms of statical norms, it’s NO WHERE near catastrophic unemployment the way the fake media keeps pointing out.
Two years into Ronald Reagan’s first term unemployment hit 10.8%. So we have a ways to go JUST to match the economy under Reagan, which if I remember Republicans telling me was FANTASTIC, and he got re-elected to a 2nd term. So…
P.S. The high unemployment during the first 2 years of Reagan is always blamed on the previous President (Carter) according to Republicans, meaning by that logic our current relatively high unemployment is the fault of our previous President (George W Bush)
Glass–you imply this is just another regular business cycle and NOT a “resetting” of our economy.
Yes, every society has regular business cycles until they “fail.” then the regular downside of a business cycle is in reality the first spiral around the drain of collapse/resetting.
THATS the point of this thread. Are you stuck in a rut or positively arguing functioning full employment is going to return to USA?
Part of the problem is we continue to have a public education system that is rooted in creating quiet, obedient factory workers … but no more factory jobs. We’re educating & training an entire generation of children for jobs that we outsourced to China long ago.
And how are y’all enjoying that “change you can believe in”??
No one have yet stepped up to the obvious: Left wants and needs high percentage of people out of or at the edge of a job. Dependents. Who will vote for more Big Govt. every time.
@Dallas (#10,15) Obama policies lead much more to job exports in every field than anything Bad Republicans have done (and they did). a) Higher cost of business – 3 times higher taxes than China; newly defined health care burden;… b) Regulations gone mad both in environmental and legal/financial sense c) Intentional USA Govt. (Obama) support for foreign competition (ex. giving financial aid to Mexican and Brazilian Oil Industry while choking our domestic one). It does not matter which industry is in question, to be globally competitive every single of these must be reversed before jobs start to trickle back.
We’ve had an underclass of unemployed forever, nothing new. It’s called Welfare, public dole, whatever…
Glad I’m not in that class.
Scadragon:
We really didn’t like Dubya’s changes to the economy at all, especially changing the rules to enrich the Republican speculators, bleed many companies dry, and then letting the speculators take the money and run.
#27 I won’t argue that the biggest burden in keeping jobs here is corporate tax rates. They are high here (I believe second highest in world). That needs to be addressed but your point about this being an Obama policy is grossly misplaced.
Obama takes the blame for not addressing it, not for creating it. What we need in high tech (our future) is appropriate (lower) R&D TAX CREDITS – with the condition that the resulting JOBS created by all that R&D REMAIN HERE.
This is where Republicans, like Carly the Bitch Fiorina takes responsibility for milking American ingenuity to invent shit and then shipping large scale manufacturing of that shit to China. Shameful. Republicans of course have no issue with that because it’s about the almighty dollar – for the top 10%.
The sheeple of course, don’t know what happened because the GOP tells them they will get their trickle down soon enough. Usually, they get pissed on.
As far as ideas go, Obama has the right idea: Infrastructure spending. High tech, clean energy production and distribution jobs. Transportation jobs – like high speed trains.
The GOP thugs just want a tax cut for the filthy rich 1% that made > 1 TRILLION dollars in salary. Shame on you republicans thugs.