Unemployment Flim-Flam

The New Media Journal ^ | Nov 4, 2009 | Paul R. Hollrah

[NewMediaJournal]

In January 2009, as Obama unveiled his plans for economic recovery, he assured the Congress and the American people that, if we would just agree to set up a $787 billion slush fund for him to play with, he would fix our sick economy and that the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent. With a straight face, and with words that came straight from his teleprompter, he vowed that he would accomplish something that no man, and no government, has ever accomplished before: he would halt the downward spiral of the economy and stimulate economic growth, and he would do it all with borrowed money.

Democrats in Congress gave him what he asked for. By June 2009, just five months later, the unemployment rate was at 9.5 percent, and by mid-October it stood at 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1940 during the Roosevelt Administration. But what is most curious about current discussions of our economic plight is that no one, Democrat or Republican, ever seems to mention one of the greatest contributing factors to unemployment… the minimum wage.

The first attempt at establishing a minimum hourly wage occurred in 1933, during the early years of the Great Depression, when Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act set a minimum wage standard of $0.25 per hour. However, in a 1935 court decision (Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States), the United States Supreme Court found the act to be unconstitutional. The Roosevelt Administration made a second attempt in 1938 with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The minimum wage was again set at $0.25 per hour and that legislation has withstood the test of time.

[KarlInOhio]

and by mid-October it stood at 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1940 during the Roosevelt Administration.

It was that high or higher from July 1982 to June 1983.

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

1982 8.6 8.9 9.0 9.3 9.4 9.6 9.8 9.8 10.1 10.4 10.8 10.8
1983 10.4 10.4 10.3 10.2 10.1 10.1 9.4 9.5 9.2 8.8 8.5 8.3

[KarlInOhio]

Here's the real link. http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=LNS14000000

[1776 Reborn]

You’re right. The Republicans seem to have given up on fighting minimum wage increases in principle because they don’t have the votes to block them. Hello, have they forgotten what a minority party is suppose to do? BE VOCAL! How else do they think they will ever become a majority again? They act like they are sitting in a church rather than the halls of Congress.