With so many manufacturing jobs permanently moved overseas and the government only willing to bail out the wealthy, where are these people supposed to go?
The numbers tell so much of the story. The 6.76 million Americans — or 46% of the entire unemployed labor force — counted as long-term unemployed in June were the most since 1948, when the statistic was first recorded, and more than double the previous record of 3 million in the recession of the early 1980s. (The numbers have since dipped slightly, with a total of 6.2 million long-term unemployed in August.) These are people who, despite dozens of rejections, leave phone messages, send emails, tweak their cover letters, and toy with resume templates in Microsoft Word, all in the search for a job.
Not counted in this figure are so-called “discouraged workers,” including plenty of former searchers who have remained on the unemployment sidelines for six months or more. In August of this year, 1.1 million Americans had simply stopped looking and so officially dropped out of the workforce. They are essentially not considered worth counting when the subject of unemployment comes up. Nonetheless, that 1.1 million figure represents an increase of 352,000 since 2009. In effect, the real long-term unemployment figure now may be closer to 7.5 million Americans.
So who are these unfortunate or unlucky people? Long-term unemployment, research shows, doesn’t discriminate: no age, race, ethnicity, or educational level is immune.
[...]
As for the causes of long-term unemployment, there’s the obvious answer: there simply aren’t enough jobs. Before the Great Recession, there were 1.5 workers in the U.S. for every job slot; today, that ratio is 4.8 to one. Put another way, with normal growth instead of a recession, we’d have 10 million more jobs than we currently do. Closing that gap would require adding 300,000 jobs every month for the next five years. In August 2010, the economy shed 54,000 jobs. You do the math.Worse yet, if you imagine five workers queued up for that single position, the longer you’re unemployed, the further back you stand. Economists have found that long-term unemployment dims a worker’s prospects with each passing day. “This pattern suggests that the very-long-term unemployed will be the last group to benefit from an economic recovery,” Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California-Berkeley, told Congress in June.
So where are the jobs, President Obama? You had over a year and a half to fix things. Start fixing the economy instead of making it worse.
My girlfriend graduated from a prestigious college with a degree in chemical engineering. Good grades, willing to work. That was over a year and 3 months ago. No job offer, even at half the salary she was promised to command upon entering school. Everyday i see her pain and self loathing at the prospect that she will never get a job even remotely in the field she dropped over 150k on.
#62
sorry to hear that
Greed and speculation crashed this economy and sold the near future of our youth. Maybe, like the Great Depression a new generation of thinking citizens will change things……….. then again maybe not. Greed is a powerful thing, reasonable and honorable living is an acquired taste.
Well since they keep extending unemployment benefits every few weeks, yes, we will have people willing to stay home instead of working. My boss told me yesterday they raised his bill for unemployment 450% and we don’t have any of our employees gone to unemployment. We’ve kept everyone this whole time so it’s our punishment to pay for everyone else.
#56
you cannot compare a tiny country like Denmark to a country of 300+ million people and act like it’d be the same if we just did what they do. It’s ludicrous. There is no “free” healthcare anywhere. You’re just moving the money you paid from the insurance column to the tax column. I’d much rather decide for myself where to spend that money than letting some govt loon decide for me, thanks.
Yes, right, helping out is punishment.
(god save you when it comes your turn, cus those that think like you would rather crush any chance
than to think of others as honest and in trouble)
That puts Denmark’s corporate tax as less than the US, and substantially less than Obama’s planned rate.
Wasn’t this site complaining about the government not extending unemployment benefits?
Keep extending the benefits, and there is less incentive to find work.
#65
Of course one cannot compare the two countries.
One can only site examples. And yes the health care is paid through taxes, and no I can choose any doctor and hospital in the country I want, they have removed the Profit from becoming ill.
If you get a major illness you will understand the difference. I’m willing to pay a bit more so that all citizen no longer worry about quality health care. Funny the propaganda about ‘the government’ is so widespread in the US. You’d think they were not people, just like you ? But some vicious enemy of some foreign power out to suck your precious bodily fluids.
There were only 3 things keeping the American economy going in the Bush years.
1. easy credit
2. two wars
3. deficit spending
Well heck, just start a couple of more Big Wars and your worries are over. or easy credit to buy what you can’t afford.
Oh, I forgot *The War on Terror*, fighting a bunch of no bodies with billions and billions. That should pump it up for a while. I wonder what the unemployment rate would be without * The War on Terror* ?
Why does everyone say the only to fix things is to hurt those that are unemployed and rely on Dems and Repubs to come up with a fix?
Think outside the box guys.
In two years I will be unemployed. Retired. Can hardly wait.
My pension is in good shape, and my detached single family house in a good neighborhood in San Francisco is paid off. Drive a couple of old trucks, and have all my guns already.
Plenty of ammunition too, since Kalifornia passed a lay making it harder to get.
Gold? Plenty.
Clothes? Plenty.
Medical insurance? None. Fucking Disney company.
I can hardly wait….
Meanwhile, my brother is a bum, and hasn’t worked in twenty years. He lives off of handouts for the government, and complains about it.
dems always run on helping the poor….and in the end they just create more of them. Then they’ll promise THEM help if they vote for them and then they create more poor….etc. etc.
#69
haven’t had a major illness per se but was in a motorcycle accident about 18 months ago. Shattered femur and dislocated shoulder, spent 2 weeks in the hospital and about 8 weeks rehab to get walking again. I paid about $1500 out of pocket. not a bad deal for the great care i received and I didn’t need Obamacare to get it. Just work and pay my insurance like everyone else should be doing.
#72, #74
So it’s the wild west myth once again ‘I got mine, screw the rest.’
Great, no problem.
Things will just get worse and worse, fine.
From the replies it seems the Underclass of Permanently Unemployed is a sure thing.
Too bad for them that can’t cope.
What a great society.
No problem, the world doesn’t care and neither do the International Corps.
Vote Republican of Tea Party and get the party going once and for all.
I’ll visit, when I can, and give the teaming homeless a few coins. See ya on the streets.
If you want to live like a Republican, you’d damn better vote like a Democrat.
That Kim (#76) lady sounds like a Hippie
No kidding (#76, 77). So much the hippie she didn’t even mention a version of the line is often attributed to Pres. Truman. And you don’t want her thought getting spread around–if people start realizing that the only way to have good-paying jobs is to have, you know, good-paying jobs to lead to competition for workers, where will we all be? As it is, the rich-larded of the right wing get the far more numerous wish-they-were-rich types to militate against good-paying jobs–because, in those infertile brains the wishers have, they think that everything will cost less for them. Here’s a common idiocy: Get rid of the unions and their good salaries and good benefits, and there’ll be manna for all! Of course, you’ll notice that as the unions have become less powerful that the wishers’ salaries have also gone nowhere, and benefits, what is that word?–must be French. And things are cheaper today, you finding that out there? As if. Meanwhile, the rich have become profoundly richer. And it’s thanks to the ignorance of the wishers, the sheep who follow the right wing. So you don’t want that kind of intelligence getting out there. And don’t even get me started about letting people know, which they already would have if they had been paying attention in 2nd-grade history, that to a man the Founding Fathers were all liberals. LIBERAL liberals. I mean, it’s right there in the history books, and in their words, and in our founding documents, but you can’t let that get out, either. You don’t want the sheep waking up!!
58, AND THE REST OF YOU..
You have to understand 1 point.
HOW does a business get PROFIT..
Purchasing power of the CUSTOMER..
If you dont get the money to those on the bottom.. so that MORE people can BUY STUFF..
This has little to do with TAXES, except that if the money You LOWER PROFITS/PRICES/.. to give the CONSUMER a chance to buy YOUR PRODUCT..you can do better and have LESS taxes.
1. The only way to have manufacturing jobs return to the US is to compete directly with China. And that means adopting Chinese wages, environmental standards, health benefits, etc. Good luck. No American worker will accept Chinese wages, and Uncle Sam will not allow US companies to relax environmental or labor standards or minimum wages. We’re screwed.
2. If you really think about it, the Social Security and Medicare systems will not go bankrupt. Why? There will be so many people out of work for many years, they will not build up the forty “quarters” (10 years worth of quarter-year FICA paycheck deductions) needed in order to qualify for Social Security checks. A lot of people are going to hit 65, 67, whatever, and when they apply for retirement checks, they’ll be told, “Sorry. You don’t qualify for Social Security or Medicare”. Since Obamacare will be rationing health services, be prepared for a lot of sick and dying seniors living in cardboard boxes or shelters.