Unemployment: The Gathering Storm

oftwominds.com ^ | 9/26/09

[Kartographer]

Officially, 14.9 million Americans are unemployed. That number will double. The number of people who are unemployed is almost unimaginable: 15 million. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic's August 2009 Employment Situation Report, 14.9 million persons are unemployed, 9.1 million are "working part time for economic reasons," and 2.3 million are "marginally attached to the labor force," i.e. they wanted a job but have not actively looked for a job in the past four weeks.

[Kartographer]

[Texas Fossil]

“Where did your County’s Jobs Dissappear”

This is still the best map illustration of the geography and extent of the problem. And it is built on the BLS rosy statistics.

http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/

[AmusedBystander]

Don’t forget all those who took early social security as they would no longer be counted as unemployed.

[newnhdad]

Those areas that consistently voted democrat are getting hit hardest.

[Zeddicus]

Well, I’m about to join that statistic. White collar. 20 years in IT as a software engineer, and now I’m getting canned. Very little prospects to find another job too.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

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[kromike]

Unca Joe sez that the stimulus is "working beyond our wildest dreams." And the jOker sez that we've "come back from brink".

Are you suggesting that they're LYING?

Off to the re-education camps with you.

[dalebert]

sorry no green for you we have to give al gore money for his status cars to be manufactured in another country....no jobs here

[ProudFossil]

Don’t forget all those who took early social security as they would no longer be counted as unemployed.

The wife's brother-in-law (an "expert" in money) did take early retirement and early social security. Now he finds himself unable to meet his house payments and buy groceries. And more importantly cannot find a job because he is 74 years old. Ten years ago he said he would not work for less than $80K a year and that is in New Mexico, one of the lowest paying states in the country. Now he would be happy to get a minimum wage job at WalMart as a greeter but finds himself in a line of about 17 gazillion geezers.

And of course he and his wife are screaming liberals and are blaming the "great right wing conspiracy" for all their problems.

[olivia3boys]

Very sorry; don’t give up though! My husband was laid off for 2 months earlier this year, and then took a much lower paying job; but he eventually found another job a couple of months ago that turned out to be even better.

[rbg81]

Part of the problem is spending. How many tens of millions of jobs are dependent on continued Federal government overspending? Right now, a lot of government jobs at the state level are holding because of the stimulus. Those will not hold forever if there is no real recovery. People are scared. Until they pay down their massive debt, they will not start spending again. Look for the Administration to pressure Banks to forgive debt so spending picks up again. In the end, the $$ has to come from somewhere—and right now its being financed by bonds or printed out of thin air.

[wac3rd]

Your inlaw needs to meet one of the Messiah’s healthcare panels to shorten his jig on life’s dancefloor.

—Kompassionate Kenyan.

[mysterio]

Sorry you’re losing your job. I’ve been out of work for a while now as well.

[SkyPilot]

Hang in there. I went through that too with my company's contract canceled. I found another job, and I understand the anxiety.

Knowing that God was still in charge helped a lot for me.

[dragnet2]

Things will turn around when there is no one left working.

[headstamp 2]

Here’s the new state-run media meme:

“The Obama Rally”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601084&sid=a98FvdWy6eLA

[headstamp 2]

We had an economy based on insane levels of consumer debt. That kind of spending ain’t coming back for quite some time.

[dragnet2]

White collar. 20 years in IT as a software engineer, and now I’m getting canned. Very little prospects to find another job too.

Hopefully you're not in forties or fifties.

I've had directors of human resources from very large firms, tell me off the record, if you're 45 or over in today's America, you're basically s**t out of luck.

They want people that can pay little, people they can pull around by the nose while earning 1995 wages, while doing 3 times the work.

She said today, "team player" is code for working 3 times harder, for half the money and a fraction of the benefits.

No joke.

[Don Corleone]

Now he finds himself unable to meet his house payments and buy groceries. And more importantly cannot find a job because he is 74 years old.

74 years old, retired and STILL making house payments? What degree did he get in college, an...A$$???

[truthguy]

When you lose your manufacturing economy you lose the fuel that drives your information and service economy. If you are a IT professional you are likely to work for a company that actually builds something. If those companies that actually build things go away so do the service and information technology jobs. I wonder why more people don't understand this. It's really VERY easy if you think about it for a while. Eventually even the government jobs will go away as the tax base dries up.

Those folks who claimed we could be a total service economy were incredible fools. I've often had arguments with them. They aren't as confident as they once were. Their world is starting to implode.

The Green Jobs movement is a fraud. There will be VERY few green jobs out there and those that are there will be very low pay.

We need to revitalize our manufacturing base and start building things again. This is too long of a topic for this post so I'll end it here.