If Things Weren’t So Hopeless, We’d Be in Real Trouble
That’s the lesson I take from this news:
The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since June 1983, as employers cut far more jobs than expected.
…
The Labor Department said Friday that the economy lost a net total of 263,000 jobs last month, from a downwardly revised 201,000 in August. That’s worse than Wall Street economists’ expectations of 180,000 job losses, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
So Wall Street thought that the population of Tempe, Arizona had lost their jobs, but instead an additional Dearborn, Michigan got canned too.
Lest you think that’s the sucky news, howe’er, read on:
More than a half-million unemployed people gave up looking for work last month. Had they continued searching, the official jobless rate would have been higher.
The number of people out of work for six months or longer jumped to a record 5.4 million, and they now make up almost 36 percent of the unemployed — also a record.
All told, 15.1 million Americans are now out of work, the department said. And more than 7.2 million jobs have been eliminated since the recession began in December 2007.
Did you get that? All of Albuquerque, New Mexico just gave up hope of ever finding a job—last month alone.
We covered a story the other day that many of them are retiring early, straining an already skint Social Security system. Half a million lost souls slipping out of the work force, shades of their former selves, fading into oblivion, banished to limbo by this jobless “recovery”.
Chris Brown said,
October 2, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Obama has nothing to do with the lay offs most of the states didn’t accept the stimulus money and those states that chose not to take the money are the very states that are still suffering, Florida is a big example they rather raise taxes on people who are already living paycheck to paycheck but hey that’s just my opinion so study your facts before you judge, and remember Bush started the mess.
Bloodthirsty Liberal said,
October 2, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
No one is blameless in the “mess”, Chris, but Barney Frank and the people who demanded that money be loaned to people who couldn’t afford to repay it are the guys who started it.
The people that will be the most hurt by the Obama policies are the very people who voted for him. Young adults will not find employment easily and may wait years to start their careers in their chosen fields. Minorities will become more impoverished than non-minority populations because they have fewer job skills and resources overall to begin with. The poor will become more vulnerable as money to the non-profit sector, formally gifted by employed people, dissolves. The threatening tone of the Obama administration towards business has already resulted in less trust, less investment and as a result fewer jobs. Who wants to start a new business or expand an existing one when these clowns have shown their contempt for business and the laws they encourage codify that contempt?
The Obama Economy Sucks. Bring back the Bush economy, any day of the eight year period he was in office. It beats the hell out of this.
- Aggie
Bloodthirsty Liberal said,
October 2, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
Chris,
I don’t know if I should bother—but since you took the time to write.
Most of the states didn’t take the stimulus money?? I’ll admit I don’t know who did and who didn’t, but we did here in Massachusetts, and we lost a ton of jobs last month. That’s a fact. It’s a fairly safe bet that we were not alone.
It’s also a fact that the Obama admin told us the stimulus would cap unemployment at no more than 8%. That was either an outright lie, or a blind guess. Since I’m charitable, I’ll assume they were stupid rather than criminal.
And how can Bush be responsible if Obama is blameless? I admit that the reverse is also nonsense, but only one of these guys has been president for the last nine months, only one has rammed through a failed stimulus plan, only one canceled planned tax cuts. We ran a story just yesterday about how government spending has no multiplier effect, while tax cuts do. I submit that, disappointing as Bush was to me, only one of these guys would have suggested cutting taxes as a means to ending the recession.
BTL