Hi. Friday, I'll post some of the responses to yesterday's article about
women and the Taliban. Keep 'em coming.
Ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html?th&emc=th
The Horror Show
By Bob Herbert
NY Times Op-Ed: August 10, 2010
The employment situation in the United States is much worse than even the
dismal numbers from last week's jobless report would indicate. The nation is
facing a full-blown employment crisis and policy makers are not responding
with anything like the sense of urgency that is needed.
The employment data for July, released by the government on Friday, showed
that private employers added just 71,000 jobs during the month and that the
unemployment rate remained flat at 9.5 percent. But as bad as those numbers
were, if you look beyond them you'll see a horror show.
Government workers were walking the plank from coast to coast. About 143,000
temporary Census workers were let go, and another 48,000 government
employees at the budget-strapped state and local levels lost their jobs. But
the worst news, with the most ominous long-term implications, was that the
reason the unemployment rate was not higher was because 181,000 workers left
the labor force.
With many of them beaten down by the worst jobs situation since the Great
Depression, they just stopped looking for work. And given the
Alice-in-Wonderland way in which we compile our official jobless statistics,
they are no longer counted as unemployed.
Charles McMillion, the president and chief economist of MBG Information
Services in Washington, is an expert on employment and has been looking
closely for years at the issue of labor force participation. "Over the past
three months," he said, "1,155,000 unemployed people dropped out of the
active labor force and were not counted as unemployed. Even ignoring
population growth, if these unemployed had not dropped out of the labor
force, simple arithmetic shows that the official unemployment rate would
have risen from 9.9 percent in April to 10.2 percent in July, rather than -
as it has - fallen to 9.5 percent."
Because of normal growth in the working-age population, the labor force
increases by roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people per month. If those folks
were factored in, said Mr. McMillion, "unemployment now would be even higher
than 10.2 percent."
We are not even beginning to cope with this crisis, which began long before
the onset of the so-called Great Recession. The economy is showing
absolutely no sign of countering the nation's staggering jobs deficit.
"We have a large number of people who have just given up hope of finding a
job," said Mr. McMillion. He pointed out that there are record numbers - "I
mean lights-out record numbers" - of long-term unemployed people who are
still looking for jobs. Of the 14.6 million men and women officially counted
as unemployed, nearly 45 percent have been out of work for six months or
longer.
The Times's Michael Luo wrote a moving article last week about the people
who have started calling themselves the "99ers," meaning they have been out
of work for more than 99 weeks and thus have exhausted the absolute maximum
in unemployment benefits. Nearly a million and a half people have been out
of work for at least 99 weeks - and not all of them qualified for jobless
benefits.
Said Mr. McMillion: "When you combine the long-term unemployed with those
who are dropping out and those who are working part-time because they can't
find anything else, it is just far beyond anything we've seen in the job
market since the 1930s."
They may be thinking about this in Washington, but they sure aren't doing
much about it. The politicians' approach to the jobs crisis has been like
passing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Millions are suffering and the entire
economy is being undermined, and what are they doing? They're appropriating
more and more money for warfare while schizophrenically babbling about
balancing the budget.
At some point we're going to have to claw our way out of this denial. With
14.6 million people officially jobless, and 5.9 million who have stopped
looking but say they want a job, and 8.5 million who are working part time
but would like to work full time, you end up with nearly 30 million
Americans who cannot find the work they want and desperately need.
We've got more and more people in our working-age population and fewer and
fewer jobs to go around. Mr. McMillion tells us that there are now 3.4
million fewer private-sector jobs in the U.S. than there were a decade ago.
In the last 10 years, we've seen the worst job creation record since 1928 to
1938.
We're not heading toward the danger zone. We're there. The U.S. will not
remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not addressed
head-on - and soon. You cannot allow joblessness on this scale to fester. It's
wrong, and the blowback will be as destructive and intolerable as it is
inevitable.
The Horror Show
By Bob Herbert
NY Times Op-Ed: August 10, 2010
The employment situation in the United States is much worse than even the
dismal numbers from last week's jobless report would indicate. The nation is
facing a full-blown employment crisis and policy makers are not responding
with anything like the sense of urgency that is needed.
The employment data for July, released by the government on Friday, showed
that private employers added just 71,000 jobs during the month and that the
unemployment rate remained flat at 9.5 percent. But as bad as those numbers
were, if you look beyond them you'll see a horror show.
Government workers were walking the plank from coast to coast. About 143,000
temporary Census workers were let go, and another 48,000 government
employees at the budget-strapped state and local levels lost their jobs. But
the worst news, with the most ominous long-term implications, was that the
reason the unemployment rate was not higher was because 181,000 workers left
the labor force.
With many of them beaten down by the worst jobs situation since the Great
Depression, they just stopped looking for work. And given the
Alice-in-Wonderland way in which we compile our official jobless statistics,
they are no longer counted as unemployed.
Charles McMillion, the president and chief economist of MBG Information
Services in Washington, is an expert on employment and has been looking
closely for years at the issue of labor force participation. "Over the past
three months," he said, "1,155,000 unemployed people dropped out of the
active labor force and were not counted as unemployed. Even ignoring
population growth, if these unemployed had not dropped out of the labor
force, simple arithmetic shows that the official unemployment rate would
have risen from 9.9 percent in April to 10.2 percent in July, rather than -
as it has - fallen to 9.5 percent."
Because of normal growth in the working-age population, the labor force
increases by roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people per month. If those folks
were factored in, said Mr. McMillion, "unemployment now would be even higher
than 10.2 percent."
We are not even beginning to cope with this crisis, which began long before
the onset of the so-called Great Recession. The economy is showing
absolutely no sign of countering the nation's staggering jobs deficit.
"We have a large number of people who have just given up hope of finding a
job," said Mr. McMillion. He pointed out that there are record numbers - "I
mean lights-out record numbers" - of long-term unemployed people who are
still looking for jobs. Of the 14.6 million men and women officially counted
as unemployed, nearly 45 percent have been out of work for six months or
longer.
The Times's Michael Luo wrote a moving article last week about the people
who have started calling themselves the "99ers," meaning they have been out
of work for more than 99 weeks and thus have exhausted the absolute maximum
in unemployment benefits. Nearly a million and a half people have been out
of work for at least 99 weeks - and not all of them qualified for jobless
benefits.
Said Mr. McMillion: "When you combine the long-term unemployed with those
who are dropping out and those who are working part-time because they can't
find anything else, it is just far beyond anything we've seen in the job
market since the 1930s."
They may be thinking about this in Washington, but they sure aren't doing
much about it. The politicians' approach to the jobs crisis has been like
passing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Millions are suffering and the entire
economy is being undermined, and what are they doing? They're appropriating
more and more money for warfare while schizophrenically babbling about
balancing the budget.
At some point we're going to have to claw our way out of this denial. With
14.6 million people officially jobless, and 5.9 million who have stopped
looking but say they want a job, and 8.5 million who are working part time
but would like to work full time, you end up with nearly 30 million
Americans who cannot find the work they want and desperately need.
We've got more and more people in our working-age population and fewer and
fewer jobs to go around. Mr. McMillion tells us that there are now 3.4
million fewer private-sector jobs in the U.S. than there were a decade ago.
In the last 10 years, we've seen the worst job creation record since 1928 to
1938.
We're not heading toward the danger zone. We're there. The U.S. will not
remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not addressed
head-on - and soon. You cannot allow joblessness on this scale to fester. It's
wrong, and the blowback will be as destructive and intolerable as it is
inevitable.
***
----- Original Message -----
From: Leonard Potash
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 7:26 PM
Subject: Rally for Jobs with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
Sen. Barbara Boxer, others
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