"There has also been a lost of 209,000 private-sector white-collar supervisory positions in line with the loss of blue collar workers. These well-paying jobs have been replaced by lower-paying service sector jobs in health care, social work, education, and restaurants. Unemployment is low because people have to work to eat, so they take whatever jobs are available. Even so, since Labor Dept. stats do not count people who have been out of work for more than six months, the kind of unemployment that affects how people and families actually live is still high."
Sheer nonsense. If you look at the composition of the most recent jobs report for January, you will see that more than half the jobs created are in high paying sectors. More than 50% job creation in these areas indicates substantive job growth, not burger flipper jobs. The report also confirms that America is creating more than 30,000 new jobs, mostly in new-age industries, every week. Real wages are higher now than at the peak of the 1990s boom. This is no burger-flipper economy.
Further, the assumption that all service sector jobs are low paying is a leftist/liberal conceit with no bearing in economic reality. Service sector jobs are more than just beauticians and "social workers," but include attornies and finacial service professionals which are high paying jobs, as are the health care professional the dope who wrote this article thinks make minimum wage.
Also, this conceit of "there are a lot of people who have given up looking for jobs" is pure crap. That number is said by labor experts to be only another 1 percentage point over the official unemployment rate which is a static number in ANY economy no matter how good.
Most people who need jobs simply cannot afford to give up looking. I was unemployed for 2 yrs. during the "Clinton" boom and never gave up. I couldn't afford to. Most who do are second income earners. But to claim the number of those is "high" is simply not supported by the facts.
Finally, while anecdotal data is never that helpful, look around you? Do any of you really know anyone chronically unemployed who hasn't chosen to be? I don't know anyone other than a terminally ill friend who's unemployed. Again, I know that doesn't mean much but one can often measure the strength of the economy merely by seeing what's going on around them. From what I see, people are doing well. The stores are always packed with shoppers. New cars are all over the roads, etc.
Finally, what of the new fed. chair, and the old one, all speaking in glowing terms of the economy as well as most economists? Are they ALL missing something the leftist clown who wrote this article is the only one tuned in to? I doubt it.
What this article is is nothing more than a partisan hit piece meant to talk down the economy in time for the November mid-terms. Dems. know the strong economy will be a hinderance to them come November. This loser who wrote this braindead article is just part of the effort by Dems. to lie their way back into Congressional control.
Most people I know are doing well. Credit card and personal finance companies are doing well too. Americans are in debt up to their eyeballs. Personal savings are at an all time low. Americans do have a lot of equity built up in their homes and that's good. Hopefully the housing market won't take a dive anytime soon. All in all, its definitely hasn't been an easy transformation from a mostly industrialized nation to a computer, information, entertainment based society. Pop culture rules. Google, Yahoo and MS are the big stuff today. GMC, Ford and Chrysler are history.