Jim Hightower: Jobless 'Recovery' Requires Us to Rebuild America

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:




Published on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 by Creators.com
Jobless 'Recovery' Requires Us to Rebuild America

by Jim Hightower


The good news is that America's economy continues to grow. The bad news is that most people's personal economies continue to shrivel.

The June report on jobs glows with the happy news that America's unemployment rate has fallen to 9.5 percent - the best we've had in a year! "We are headed in the right direction," trumpeted President Obama.

Great ... if true. However, the ballyhooed jobs statistic is a mirage. It looks good only because 650,000 more Americans became so frustrated with their fruitless search for work last month that they quit looking. In StatWorld, such "discouraged" seekers are - abracadabra! - no longer considered unemployed, even though they are. There are now 1.2 million Americans in this statistical purgatory.

That's not the only shadow on June's economic glow. Those lucky enough to have jobs, for example, saw America's average workweek shrink. It's now down to only 34 hours - which means less income for "full time" working families.

There also was another drop in the average hourly wage. Fewer hours, lower wages. That's not what most people would call an economy "headed in the right direction." Indeed, the strongest job growth in June came from the low-paying service sector, and nearly half of the 46,000 jobs added there are temporary positions. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/14-4

[griffi94]

1. so when you give up your job search

as being futile, you're no longer counted as unemployed. wow
that's like when the previous administration tried to say that flipping burgers was a manufacturing job.

[4lbs]

4. It's been that way for 30 years. That's how they compute the unemployment rate, and how one must

actually double the stated rate to get the actual number of unemployed people.

The BLS defines an unemployed person as one not currently working but WILLING to work. It considers a person unemployed if they've actively sought work in the last 3 months of the measurement. If not, as they've given up searching, they are no longer in the WILLING category and thus not unemployed according to the BLS.

Reagan's admin changed forever how the unemployment rate was calculated and it really hasn't changed since 1981. Maybe the length but not how.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend - even our Democratic Party friends spin

These bad numbers like they are good.

With friends like these...?

[Demeter]

3. A "Jobless" "Recovery " is NO Recovery at All