For the last month or so, we've been subjected to a lot of so-called economic "experts" telling us the recession is over. Well, that's just baloney! The rich may be getting richer once again, but for everyone else the recession just keeps getting worse.
All you have to do to know this is just look at the jobs situation, and that is still heading downward. The same pundits that are telling us the economy is recovering, predicted we would lose 180,000 more jobs in September. I haven't figured out how both of those things could be true, but it doesn't matter because they were wrong about both. There were actually another 263,000 jobs lost in September.
Since the recession began in December of 2007, the United States has lost a total of 7.2 million jobs. The government says that has pushed up the unemployment rate to 9.8%. That sounds bad enough, but if you add in the people who have given up looking for a job and those who have accepted a part-time job because they can't find full-time employment, you arrive at the REAL unemployment rate of 17%.
That is fast approaching the unemployment rates of the Great Depression, and I'm still not convinced the real unemployment rate won't top 20%. And don't expect things to get better anytime soon, because the indicators of a real recovery are still getting worse, just like the unemployment figures.
The economic pundits and experts (who are wrong more often than the TV weatherman), had predicted that the demand for manufactured goods would rise by 0.7% in September. Instead, it dropped another 0.8%.
The average weekly wage fell again -- this time by $1.54. And the average hourly work week fell to a record low of 33 hours. This is bad because employers will increase the hours of current workers before they hire new workers. It is also expected that employers will hire temporary workers before hiring new full-time employees, but there was a loss of 1700 temp jobs in September.
So don't believe all this "happy-talk" about an economic recovery. Things may be good if you're a millionaire or better, but the rest of us are still sliding down the economic hill and wondering if there is a bottom.
The economic recovery won't be real until the United States starts creating more jobs than it loses, and that day is still a long way off.
No comments:
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.