Sunday, January 09, 2005
Recovery? What recovery?
Some facts from today's New York Times:
"About 3.6 million American workers...ran out of unemployment insurance benefits last year, the most in at least three decades.20 weeks, which is the average length of unemployment, is five months (I know you could do that math yourself, but it's important to do it, because when you talk about unemployment in terms of "weeks," even when the number in front is 20, it doesn't really hit home in the same way).
"Even as overall unemployment dropped last year, the share of unemployed workers who have been jobless for more than six months - the point at which most state benefits run out - has remained historically high. As of November, about 1.8 million, or one in five, unemployed workers were jobless for more than six months, compared with 1.1 million when the recession officially ended in November 2001.
"Since the start of the recession in March 2001, the average length of unemployment has risen to 20 weeks from 13."
The misleading part of the article, directly related to the length of unemployment, is that sentence "even as overall unemployment dropped last year." Because the only reason the "unemployment rate" has gone down is precisely because the official statistics keep dropping more and more "discouraged workers" from the ranks of the "unemployed". I've said it before and I'll say it again. News reports now have it that the number of jobs in the U.S. is almost exactly what it was when George Bush took office, and imply (or state explicitly) that this means that the U.S. has "broken even" during those four years. Nonsense. Balderdash. Stuff and nonsense. The fact is, when "job inflation" is taken into account, the U.S. has a shortfall over the last four years of 150,000 (the number of new jobs each month to keep up with population growth) times 48 (the number of months in four years) or 7.2 million jobs. Only the continual redefinition of who is "unemployed" can hide that shocking fact.
