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.
Well since they keep extending unemployment benefits every few weeks, yes, we will have people willing to stay home instead of working. My boss told me yesterday they raised his bill for unemployment 450% and we don’t have any of our employees gone to unemployment. We’ve kept everyone this whole time so it’s our punishment to pay for everyone else.
#56
you cannot compare a tiny country like Denmark to a country of 300+ million people and act like it’d be the same if we just did what they do. It’s ludicrous. There is no “free” healthcare anywhere. You’re just moving the money you paid from the insurance column to the tax column. I’d much rather decide for myself where to spend that money than letting some govt loon decide for me, thanks.
Yes, right, helping out is punishment.
(god save you when it comes your turn, cus those that think like you would rather crush any chance
than to think of others as honest and in trouble)
That puts Denmark’s corporate tax as less than the US, and substantially less than Obama’s planned rate.
Wasn’t this site complaining about the government not extending unemployment benefits?
Keep extending the benefits, and there is less incentive to find work.
#65
Of course one cannot compare the two countries.
One can only site examples. And yes the health care is paid through taxes, and no I can choose any doctor and hospital in the country I want, they have removed the Profit from becoming ill.
If you get a major illness you will understand the difference. I’m willing to pay a bit more so that all citizen no longer worry about quality health care. Funny the propaganda about ‘the government’ is so widespread in the US. You’d think they were not people, just like you ? But some vicious enemy of some foreign power out to suck your precious bodily fluids.
There were only 3 things keeping the American economy going in the Bush years.
1. easy credit
2. two wars
3. deficit spending
Well heck, just start a couple of more Big Wars and your worries are over. or easy credit to buy what you can’t afford.
Oh, I forgot *The War on Terror*, fighting a bunch of no bodies with billions and billions. That should pump it up for a while. I wonder what the unemployment rate would be without * The War on Terror* ?
Why does everyone say the only to fix things is to hurt those that are unemployed and rely on Dems and Repubs to come up with a fix?
Think outside the box guys.
In two years I will be unemployed. Retired. Can hardly wait.
My pension is in good shape, and my detached single family house in a good neighborhood in San Francisco is paid off. Drive a couple of old trucks, and have all my guns already.
Plenty of ammunition too, since Kalifornia passed a lay making it harder to get.
Gold? Plenty.
Clothes? Plenty.
Medical insurance? None. Fucking Disney company.
I can hardly wait….
Meanwhile, my brother is a bum, and hasn’t worked in twenty years. He lives off of handouts for the government, and complains about it.
dems always run on helping the poor….and in the end they just create more of them. Then they’ll promise THEM help if they vote for them and then they create more poor….etc. etc.
#69
haven’t had a major illness per se but was in a motorcycle accident about 18 months ago. Shattered femur and dislocated shoulder, spent 2 weeks in the hospital and about 8 weeks rehab to get walking again. I paid about $1500 out of pocket. not a bad deal for the great care i received and I didn’t need Obamacare to get it. Just work and pay my insurance like everyone else should be doing.
#72, #74
So it’s the wild west myth once again ‘I got mine, screw the rest.’
Great, no problem.
Things will just get worse and worse, fine.
From the replies it seems the Underclass of Permanently Unemployed is a sure thing.
Too bad for them that can’t cope.
What a great society.
No problem, the world doesn’t care and neither do the International Corps.
Vote Republican of Tea Party and get the party going once and for all.
I’ll visit, when I can, and give the teaming homeless a few coins. See ya on the streets.
If you want to live like a Republican, you’d damn better vote like a Democrat.
That Kim (#76) lady sounds like a Hippie
No kidding (#76, 77). So much the hippie she didn’t even mention a version of the line is often attributed to Pres. Truman. And you don’t want her thought getting spread around–if people start realizing that the only way to have good-paying jobs is to have, you know, good-paying jobs to lead to competition for workers, where will we all be? As it is, the rich-larded of the right wing get the far more numerous wish-they-were-rich types to militate against good-paying jobs–because, in those infertile brains the wishers have, they think that everything will cost less for them. Here’s a common idiocy: Get rid of the unions and their good salaries and good benefits, and there’ll be manna for all! Of course, you’ll notice that as the unions have become less powerful that the wishers’ salaries have also gone nowhere, and benefits, what is that word?–must be French. And things are cheaper today, you finding that out there? As if. Meanwhile, the rich have become profoundly richer. And it’s thanks to the ignorance of the wishers, the sheep who follow the right wing. So you don’t want that kind of intelligence getting out there. And don’t even get me started about letting people know, which they already would have if they had been paying attention in 2nd-grade history, that to a man the Founding Fathers were all liberals. LIBERAL liberals. I mean, it’s right there in the history books, and in their words, and in our founding documents, but you can’t let that get out, either. You don’t want the sheep waking up!!
58, AND THE REST OF YOU..
You have to understand 1 point.
HOW does a business get PROFIT..
Purchasing power of the CUSTOMER..
If you dont get the money to those on the bottom.. so that MORE people can BUY STUFF..
This has little to do with TAXES, except that if the money You LOWER PROFITS/PRICES/.. to give the CONSUMER a chance to buy YOUR PRODUCT..you can do better and have LESS taxes.
While this seems a “recessionary issue”, this trend has been developing since the early 90’s. Companies started mass layoffs of older workers. Companies also began a campaign of laying off and hiring at a cycle as rapid as the fluctuations of Wall Street. We now have at least one generation which believes all jobs are temporary jobs. This same generation is accustomed to employment being akin to servitude, where working a 60 hour week is the only way to achieve even a modicum of job security.
What else besides eventual chronic unemployment does any worker look forward to?
In my area the layoff’s were happening since at least the 80’s.
The layoff’s in the 90’s were definately much worse than the 80’s. The 90’s was when the recessions started to get severe as well. Since then each recession that happens makes the previous one look like nothing at all. When the next one hits it will make the one in 2008 look like good times.
#80
lETS ADD Profits and wages on the TOP END.. AS well as in CHINA(not hong kong/shanghai) there are NO STOCKS on the corps.. NO dividends to pay out the VALUE of your corp each year.
#81,
that started in the 80’s..
joblessness will lead to an epidemic of mental illness I believe, which not go unnoticed but I hear will go mostly untreated. I am 60 and I am almost certain I will never have a job again. Our society needs to prepare itself to cope with large numbers of idle individuals and individuals left idle must learn to also fill the emptiness of long term idleness.
I suggest you take a look at Japan. They have been in this situation for a long time now. A lot of them there spend their time playing games as a result of their idleness. I suspect it will be far worse here though.
Wow! I just found something pretty cool. I have been marketing stuff on the internet for many years. I have used a variety of tools to do so. It is difficult to keep up with what actually works and some software is just downright difficult to use. Or, it’s not that difficult but by the time that I get back around to using it again, I need to relearn everything all over again. This new software does everything behind the scenes so that all you have to do is plug in the URL that you want to promote and hit the “GO” button. I love the simplicity! I also don’t mind all of the new visitors that I am getting to my website now. Anyway, if you want to check it out, here is a link… http://tinyurl.com/7twvewd
Why would you hire a worker if you can get a machine that does the job for you?
Actually most of the jobs are being exported to China and India where people there do the job for far less money. It’s very rare for a machine to replace people. Although it does happen from time to time.