The nation’s unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as employers slashed 84,000 jobs, dramatic proof of the mounting damage a deeply troubled economy is inflicting on workers and businesses alike.
The Labor Department’s report, released Friday, showed the increasing toll the housing, credit and financial crises are taking on the economy.
The report rattled Wall Street again. The Dow Jones industrial average was down about 40 points in midday trading. All the major stock indexes tumbled into bear territory Thursday as investors lost hope of a late-year recovery. With the employment situation deteriorating, there’s growing worry that consumers will recoil, throwing the economy into a tailspin later this year or early next year.
The jobless rate jumped to 6.1 percent in August, from 5.7 percent in July. And, employers cut payrolls for the eighth month in a row. Job losses in June and July turned out to be much deeper. The economy lost a whopping 100,000 jobs in June and another 60,000 in July, according to revised figures. Previously, the government reported job losses at 51,000 in each of those months.
So far this year, job losses totaled 605,000.
Kendall “Malthus” Harmon is at it again. Apparently, the only economic news that Kendall ever seems to post is dreary. Last week the Commerce Dept. announced that the annual GDP was raised to 3.9%. Good economic news, but did it make it as a post-no! Of course, not all news “is fit to print” on Titusonenine, but the continual posting of all bad economic news does make a reader wonder.
Average unemployment from August 1994 through August 1997 — the heart of the “Clinton Prosperity” — was 5.9%. There has been no three year period in the Bush presidency averaging as high as 5.9%. The breathless coverage of one month at 6.1% means only “maybe we can beat up Republicans on this because almost no one will remember.”
When we enjoyed the “Clinton prosperity,” the Congress was Republican. With the “Bush Depression,” the Congress is in the hands of the Democrats.
The palin simple fact is the the economy moves on without the input of the President or the the Congress.
#4 But the issue is whether anyone cares about the losers. It’s the Republicans that remain the Party of “Sink or Swim.” And they still preach “de-regulation” after all the financial tragedy it caused and we and the global economy are now living through.
But then there’s the taxpayers for that bailout. Wait, what about the tax cuts …..
You want bad news – review Jimmy Carter’s term – 20% interest and continual 7.5% unemployment – and gas lines.
You want good news ? Last week the World Bank et al announced that US annual GDP 2001-2008 was 2.2% annually. The US economy is 19% larger than when George W took office. That’s powerful stuff.
GDP is a smokescreen to obscure straight talk about the guy who use to have a union job and now works at Walmart.
Working at Wal-Mart still beats being sent off to work at a CCC camp for an indeterminate length of time to earn .25 a day.
#8. I fail to see how that’s relevant except that a Walmart and Dollar Store economy makes those CCC camps profitable. I think you’re making my point all the more so.
Actually, my point was that people who used to have to work at the CCC camps in the 1930’s and 40’s would have jumped at the chance to work at a job like those at Wal-Mart.
You try working 10 hour days digging holes in rock under the blazing sun for .25 a day, no benefits vs then working at above minimum wage in air-conditioning.
That’s not saying that Wal-Mart could not do better towards their employees than they are now, but it sure beats what the Government offers!
#10. I guess I’m dating myself here. I thought you were referring to the work camps in China. Is there a fate worse than Walmart? Sure, for us. But let’s look at the seamy underbelly of that economy.
I do miss the days when Sam Walton was alive and proudly proclaimed:
Wal-Mart carries items Made in America by Americans!
Wal Mart has bought into a real political and economic problem when they sell about 10% of the PRC’s GNP. It makes them a target for all sorts of criticism, justifiable or not.
13. You mean like selling American flags made in China? The whole mess is almost unbearable.
There was a time in this country when an 8% unemployment rate was as near to “full” employment as possible. 6% unemployment is not a bad rate. NOTE: there is NO such thing as 100% employment; there will always be people in transition. The economy will always expand and contract — it breathes. If it stopped breathing, then we’ve got problems. Regarding unions: A company whose employees had a union wanted to re-tool and update their ability to compete in the global marketplace. The union leadership at this plant convinced the employees to vote no. The union pulled the same, tired, us vs. them rationale and now the plant is closed and hundreds lost their jobs. Another plant, same company, where the employees voted yes, are still employed. My point: Unions are probably the biggest drag on the economy of this country next to taxes.
Were the union the problem at Enron? Or the sub-prime mortgage bond crisis caused by the Teamsters? Or the Savings and Loan bailout under the prior Bush administration caused teachers union? Did the unemployed auto workers get taken care of like the executives when the plant closes?
Greed was (is) the primary problem with Enron, the banks, and the borrowers. Maybe, just maybe, GM, Ford, and Chrysler would be doing much better if they didn’t have the legacy programs to support. In the interest of full dislcosure, my father was a teamster who was cheated out of a lot of his pension by the union. I, myself was a union member who paid chunks of change to the union so it’s fat-cat bosses could be paid huge salaries (comparable to corporate execs) and got squat for my troubles. I prefer to getting paid based on my on merit, do more than what’s expected for my bosses (and be rewarded for it) versus being told to stop work because it would “kill” the job for the next shift. That kind of nonsense inflates the cost of goods and services and rewards non-productivity — a drag on the economy.
18. A very bad story. It’s inexcusable, and wrong. I’ve been through a version of it once as a city worker. Still, I know for sure that my wages and benefits were better than my non-union private sector counterparts. Surely no one is suggesting that average workers do better without a union 9 out of 10 times.
Re: unions — in my opinion, there needs to be a balance of power between unions and corporations.
The nature of capitalism is that everyone tries to maximize their gains. For the corporations, this means that they want the extract the most work out of their workers for the least cost. The incentive, carried to its ultimate conclusion, would lead to them owning their workers outright as slaves. For the unions, on the other hand, maximizing their gain means getting the most pay and benefits from the corporation for the least work. Carried to its ultimate conclusion, the corporation would pay them to do nothing.
Both ultimate conclusions are disastrous. Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot where the workers are paid a competitive wage for an honest day’s work, and both sides win. But you only stay in that sweet spot if neither the corporation nor the union becomes too powerful relative to the other.
Two factors in unemployment today;
1. Price of fuel – (big) cars, moble homes/campers/trailers are not being sold – no buyers. I drove by a huge empty motor home sales lot in Iowa this morning – out of business.
2. Union non-government employees.
Now put the blame where it actually deserves to be.
Don
None of you writing here has apparently ever done the unthinkable – work for yourself. The first time I was terminated ( at the end of a six-month period where I had opened more new accounts for the company than anyone else – in 1966 ) I decided never to work for anyone else again. Without ANY capital, I started my own business and am still engaged in it 41 years later. I suggest you all stop
whining and recognize that no situation wherein you work for someone else is going to meet all of your needs. This country was founded on freedom of opportunity.
The Democrats’ favorite index is called the “misery index” – invented by Jimmy Carter – the sum of the unemployment rate and the inflation rate. The higher it is the better they think they’ll do in an election – they love misery.
The referenced 6.1% “unemployment rate”, only includes workers looking for a job. The labor force, at 66.1% of the population, is unchanged since last month. Gov’t and education/services added 72,000 jobs since last month. Liberal newspapers and episcopalian preachers don’t tell you the whole story.
21. Juandeveras:
I was fired from SEVEN different jobs before I went to work for myself so in 1985 I began working for myself and have not been fired since (though I have considered quiting several times(-:)
Don
Solving the problem of unemployment is difficult. However, there are jobs that Governments could create which would benefit the economy.
A simple thing is infrastructure. The government subsidizes businesses to build what other businesses need to function well. People expect good hospitals, schools, roads and libraries – so do businesses. It’s hard to have a business when you don’t have other things (fires or police) to help protect them. These cost money.
If the government gives me $1million to build a road, I help the economy by buying, through the private sector, materials. I then hire 10 people who now have enough steady work that they can buy houses, which helps other capitalists. They go to the local grocery store for sandwiches.
The government does not become the ONLY link in a free-market chain. It strengthens the other chains which the free-market takes for granted.