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Income Loss Persists Long After Layoffs (Losing your job often means years of lost income)
New York Times ^ | 8/4/2009 | Michael Luo

Posted on 08/04/2009 7:59:07 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Chuck Dettman said he had not really considered the notion back in 2001 that he and his friends in a job-search support group would never recover from being laid off.

The country was in a recession then, as now, and the professionals who had just lost their jobs met weekly at a local job center to network and trade advice. Despite the national economic problems, they remained confident that they would not only find work but would also be compensated as they had been in the past.

Eight years later, however, most of the people who formed the core of Mr. Dettman’s group have not made it back to their old income levels, even if they eventually landed jobs.

“I think there’s maybe only one or two that have been successful in making what they did then,” Mr. Dettman said.

Taken together, their struggles are stark illustration that it can take years for a worker’s earnings to bounce back after a layoff, and that it can take even longer for a layoff during a recession. Economists, in fact, say income losses for workers who are let go in a recession can persist for as long as two decades, a depressing prognosis for the several-million people who have lost their jobs in the current recession.

“On average, most workers do not recover their old annual earnings,” said Till von Wachter, an economics professor at Columbia University, who recently completed a working paper with two other economists that examined the long-term earnings of workers who lost their jobs in the recession of the early 1980s.

Mr. Wachter studied workers who had been with their companies at least three years, then lost their jobs when their employers reduced their work forces by at least 30 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhoeconomy; bmflr; economy; income; jobless; jobs; obama; unemployment
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To: Citizen Tom Paine
There definitely is age discrimination in the market place.

Worse than ever..

Ask any HR director for any big company...Off the record they'll tell ya, if your over 45 or 50 in today's America, and lose your job or career, unless your extremely lucky, your finished, done....Screwed.

21 posted on 08/04/2009 9:06:16 AM PDT by dragnet2
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To: dragnet2
Ask any HR director for any big company...Off the record they'll tell ya, if your over 45 or 50 in today's America, and lose your job or career, unless your extremely lucky, your finished, done....Screwed.

Aren't there Federal Laws on the books that outlaw age discrimination in the same way they outlaw race/color/gender discrimination ? If there are, two questions come to mind :

1) Are conservatives for such laws?

2) How does one enforce it ?
22 posted on 08/04/2009 9:19:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Aren't there Federal Laws on the books that outlaw age discrimination

There enforced the same way our borders are.

23 posted on 08/04/2009 9:24:21 AM PDT by dragnet2
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To: dragnet2

AARGH!!

There, their, they’re.

AARGH!

Your, you’re, yore.

AARGH!

Allot, a lot.

AARGH!

The edjumicashunn sisstim dunn faledd alotta fokes.

Nothing personal, I just needed a rant after the aggravation of reading so many borderline illiterate postings this morning.


24 posted on 08/04/2009 11:14:19 AM PDT by Don W (The root word of diversity is DIVIDE)
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To: SeekAndFind

I think this is factual.


25 posted on 08/04/2009 11:38:56 AM PDT by fightinJAG (Good riddance, UAW.)
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To: Don W

I join you in this rant! It seems like a small thing, but it actually hinders communication when one has to stop and think about whether the writer is saying “your” or “you are.”

Etc.


26 posted on 08/04/2009 11:41:59 AM PDT by fightinJAG (Good riddance, UAW.)
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To: dragnet2

I tell anyone in high school or college, “Be prepared to work for yourself by the age of 40.” That means saving money and learning what it will take to start your own business by then. And that saving and learning starts TODAY!


27 posted on 08/04/2009 11:46:23 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: DonaldC

The other reason for the statistic may be pay based on seniority in union jobs. It takes 20 years to get good pay - no matter how good you are at whatever job you’re in.


28 posted on 08/04/2009 5:06:49 PM PDT by tbw2 (Freeper sci-fi - "Humanity's Edge" - on amazon.com)
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To: Don W
Nothing personal, I just needed a rant after the aggravation of reading so many borderline illiterate postings, bla bla...

Hey Don...And thanks for that cutting edge, on point response. No doubt you're an English scholar, far advanced of most others.

29 posted on 08/04/2009 5:09:50 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: rabscuttle385

Thanks for the ping.


30 posted on 08/04/2009 5:18:05 PM PDT by GOPJ ( Obama "the joker" creates terror by chaos and confusion - pitting people against each other-FR:KitJ)
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To: domenad
Amusingly, the NYT is blocked as “PORN” at my office.

Well, their official motto is, "we suck less"...

31 posted on 08/04/2009 5:19:43 PM PDT by GOPJ ( Obama "the joker" creates terror by chaos and confusion - pitting people against each other-FR:KitJ)
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To: Don W

Nothing personal Don, but your country that exhibits a freaking leaf on their flag, is laughable at best.

But feel free to roam the threads, looking for typos and grammar violations.


32 posted on 08/04/2009 5:19:45 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: SeekAndFind; All

“I think there’s maybe only one or two that have been successful in making what they did then,” Mr. Dettman said.

Well, that’s where that ‘free market’ thingy comes in! The market pays you what it can bear and what your skill set is ‘worth’ to an employer.

Maybe some in the group were grossly overpaid in the high clover years?

I don’t wish to be in their shoes, BUT there’s an awful lot to be said for ALWAYS living within and BELOW your means, no matter what your income level. Then, when you have a fall, and most of us DO; company goes bankrupt or is sold, an illness for you or a loved one, death of a spouse, fire, flood, etc., it’s not such a steep fall.

I know. Weird concept, Eh? ;)

It’s fun to blame 0bama and Government. Hell, I do it on a daily basis! But when it comes right down to it, we are ALL ‘Free Agents’ in the Marketplace. No one OWES you a job.


33 posted on 08/04/2009 5:33:44 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: dragnet2

its time we stopped indulging in frivolous presents for Christmas anyway.....why buy for people that have everything already?.....its better to give practical gifts to your relatives or friends that really need them and appreciate them....


34 posted on 08/05/2009 8:54:00 AM PDT by cherry
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To: April Lexington

After Reagan left office two major changes occurred that altered the world economy. The fall of the communist bloc, bringing millions of new workers into the global labor pool. And the rise of the internet, bringing global competition to jobs that once were ‘safe’.


35 posted on 08/09/2009 10:58:16 PM PDT by Pelham (California, formerly part of the USA)
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