We may be skidding into a cataclysm but the unemployment numbers will not help us know that. They will lag the recovery by 6 to 18 months-or the nadir for that matter.
Posted on 07/14/2009 8:56:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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.
[...]
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. [...]
- 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.
- The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. [...]
- The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. [...]
- The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. [...]
- The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.
- The goods producing sector is losing the most jobs -- 223,000 in the last report alone.
- The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Always liked the WSJ.
How is that “hopeee, changeee thing” working out for you all?!!!
We may be skidding into a cataclysm but the unemployment numbers will not help us know that. They will lag the recovery by 6 to 18 months-or the nadir for that matter.
What points in the article do you disagree with? Can you cite opposing evidence?
Not trying to start a FR fight here, just wondering which points aren’t accurate.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)tracks Employment, Hours, and Earnings. They are three separate numbers, but could be rolled into one "labor income" number. Here are the Average hours and earnings numbers
When Turbid Timmy said it would be over in "months" did he mention how many how many months, like 12, 120, or 1,200 months. He might have been more believable if he had said "some day soon".
Oh, yeah....we’ve already made plans....my husband’s 58...so it’s looking like early retirement is coming....he’s planning for it by years end. Feel sorry for younger people who haven’t had the time to invest/save like we have......course who knows what will happen to our “savings”
“Geitner says the recession will be over in months”
He is right.
In a few months it will be a DEPRESSION.
um, anybody in congress take a 20% pay cut?
That's true, but the ineptitude in gathering and/or deliberate obfuscation of the data by Obama Inc. is what's really troubling.
only 5 percent cut here, but I don’t make much anyway, so it’s a big hit.
Don’t know what I would do with 10 or 20 percent.....second job time then.
The “Costanza ruling” It’s not a lie if you believe it.
Too funny. I have to use it and often.
The Democrats are spending at a pace never before seen in the history of mankind.
“The deficit of $1.09 trillion so far this year compares to an imbalance of $285.85 billion through the same period a year ago.”
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090714/D99DSUG00.html
I'll tell you one thing, inflation is coming back with a vengeance. A chemical I buy for my business was $49.00 for 25 pounds January 5, 2009. Now it is $54.00 for 25 pounds. That is an annualized inflation rate of 17%. Who knows what it will be if cap and tax goes through.
If it goes much higher, I may just shut down and go for early retirement.
Ah ha then it must be W fault cause he didn’t create enough jobs in the first place.
/S
No increase, no bonus, elimination of 401K matching and I have to take a week’s furlough for a week of my choice. Still, I feel blessed to have a good paying job with a good company. There are many fellow Americans who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are staring down the barrel of a really tough winter.
Might as well. Obama is already trying another Costanza tactic with his doing everything opposite to what has worked many times in the past to stimulate the economy.
It's gonna be a long eight years.
I was about to paste these excerpts, you nailed the key phrases.
Why isn't this front page news? Bam has wrecked any chance of a recovery. Capntax, free healthcare and amnesty will wreck our country.
We have 6 months, if we don't stop these things dead in their tracks things will never be the same.
schu
And the rank cronyism in Goldman Sachs is a crime of growing proportions. General Electric is another probable area of cronyism and perhaps even outright trade-offs. With no government entity and scarcely any media outlet willing to even look at these matters, the Obama administration is waxing more arrogant everyday.
Hubris comes before the fall, the question is whether the fall will be the Obama administration or the whole American edifice.
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