Jobless Rate “New Abnormal” Normal

. Monday, December 28

So says David Levy of Jerome Levy Forecasting Center. We are now facing a “new era of chronically high unemployment, averaging 8 percent or more over the next decade.

With the jobless rate holding a steady 10 percent, the number of unemployed is now standing at 15.4 million, according to MSNBC, and it will take until 2015 for the rate to drop back down to the “historically normal” 5.5 percent.

Not saying it out loud, the feeling is that this is “the deepest and most enduring recession since the 1930s has battered America's work force.”

With a loud snort of snarky indignance, this whole shaky picture is only aimed at the fate of the middle class, now shrinking into the oh-so-pitiful lower class. Incomes are at a standstill. Employers are now used to squeezing more out of their workforce and have no interest in hiring to fill cut positions again or give raises when there are so many people standing in a long line outside their doors just begging for a job.

What’s also not said is just how sharply working conditions have worsened, seeing as how productivity is so up that employers don’t need to hire.  If they do hire, they will hire part time with no benefits or out-source to an off-shore service entirely.

Well folks, this is proof that the Trickle-Down theory works. Too bad you couldn’t say that when the economy was “good.”

Come on.  If you’re going to blow sunshine up my backside, at least weed out the clouds. We’re just not as dumb as we’re taken to be.

2 comments:

Gargantua said...

Yeah, the job situation is disgusting these days. We've sent so much of our industry overseas, that I honestly don't see us recovering until the government decides to stop taxing the heck out of everyone and everything and begins to offer incentives to get industry back into the US. With the current administration, I don't see this change very likely...

Unknown said...

Sigh. Me either. It's going to be a long road...