Yesterday we got more proof of just how badly the Republicans have mangled our economy. The Labor Department issue it's employment summary for September, and it showed that we lost another 159,000 jobs during the month. That is twice the number of average jobs lost in each of the last eight months.
Making matters worse, even though the huge government bailout was passed, economists expect October's job losses to be even greater than September's. Stuart Hoffman, chief economist for PNC Financial Services Group, called it "clear evidence that we have taken another step down into a deepening recession."
Nigel Gault, U.S. economic forecaster for Global Insight said, "The employment report is just the latest in a series of indicators showing that the economy was deteriorating rapidly as the third quarter progressed. These include weak retail sales, weak auto sales, declining durable-goods orders, and . . . the economy was on the way down even before the latest tightening in the credit crunch."
It is becoming obvious that while the huge bailout approved by Congress yesterday may help the credit crunch (or may not), it certainly won't keep us out of a serious recession (and maybe even a depression, as this blog has been predicting for a couple of months now). Wall Street may have gotten some relief, but the rest of America is headed for serious trouble.
The total number of unemployed in the United States has now risen to 9.5 million people -- an increase of 2.2 million over the last 12 months. Over 2 million of these people are long-term unemployed. In addition, there are now 6.1 million people who are underemployed (working part-time because they are unable to find a full-time job).
That means there are a total of 15.6 million people either unemployed or underemployed. That is over 10% of the total civilian labor force of 154.7 million people. Sadly, the situation is only going to get worse for the forseeable future.
The Republican experiment with "trickle-down Reaganomics" has proven to be a spectacular disaster for American workers. It should be obvious by now that we can't afford another four years of Republican policies, and that is all John McCain has to offer.
We must put the Democrats back in power and start the long slow road to recovery.
(Political Cartoon above is by Steve Breen in The San Diego Union-Tribune.)
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