Length of the average job search in America
The Senate is expected to approve an extension of unemployment benefits early this afternoon, right after the swearing in of new West Virginia's new Democratic senator, Carte Goodwin. Ezra Klein writes that it doesn't amount to much, or as much as it might have, since Republicans have filibustered away provisions like funding for keeping teachers in their classrooms. The limit for state and federal unemployment benefits remains at 99 weeks.
The chart above is hideous in a couple of ways -- aesthetically, of course, since it comes straight from Bureau of Labor Statistics website. It follows the average job search since the BLS began keeping records in 1948. More hideous, I think, is the news it conveys. You'll notice our generation is living at the very high end of the line graph, with an average job search of 35.2 weeks.
No generation on record has had to look longer or harder to find new work than this one -- not one, not ever, not in the bad old 1970s or '80s or '90s. When they tell you that your grandparents haven't seen times like these, this is part of what they're talking about.
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One major difference between then and now is that in the past, there were always jobs to return to when the economy improved. Today, once you are out of a job, the job itself is probably gone too, to places like China and India. How can we possibly have any kind of real recovery when corporations move everything offshore, from headquarters going to tax shelters like the Cayman Islands, to jobs being outsourced to China?
You've got it. Now, why can't the government stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas. Figure a way to make it hit their bottom line. They have no incentive to keep jobs here. If it cost them more to send work overseas then to keep Americans working they would surely be hiring Americans - "novel" way to reduce our unemployment
Attacking the stupid is like cursing the rain instead of building a dam.
The democrats say that we need to worry more about stimulus than deficit this year while the GOP worries about their deficits but say that tax cuts always pay for themselves.
Therefore neither side can possibly object to paying the employment tax from general funds for all new hires through the end of next year. As the employment tax is targeted against the poor (it's capped at $90K or so) this will help the working poor by both putting more money in their pockets and making it more cost effective to hire them.
Just remember that stupidity is our greatest natural resource so we should harness it for the greater good wherever we can.
Unemployment benefits are a bandaid, and have always been meant to be nothing more, as it was always expected that employment would pick up with economic recovery after a couple of years. Unfortunately, this "recovery" will be different than any past recovery, as there is unlikely to be any significant recovery at all. A credit for hiring new workers is also likely to be ineffective, because no business is going to do much hiring when consumer spending continues to be anemic. Why hire a dozen new workers at a company when there is no increase in demand? Even if a company decided it needed to hire more workers, why pay an American to do the job when you can hire a dozen Chinese workers for the cost of one American?
The system has been rigged for the sole benefit of corporations by the corporate-sponsored politicians.
It may be intended as a bandaid, but when you have so few people working, thus few people spending money, it's one of the few things that can keep money moving around the economy. It may not be much, but it's certainly better than nothing... plus, the whole moral equation of not allowing out of work people starve because they can no longer afford to feed their families. Anyone who has collected unemployment for any length of time knows it's not a solution, it's a stopgap measure until you can find work again. Often it's barely enough to live on, especially for a larger family, so if anything, it's an encouragement to get a job, not to stay on unemployment.
The problem in the end though really is the supply side economics. What incentive does a corporation, headquartered in the Caymans or Dubai to avoid paying taxes in the US, have to hire US workers, when they can hire people in India, China or Mexico for a fraction of the salary and also not have to cover things like benefits or deal with labor laws? We need a serious overhaul to find ways to encourage corporations operating in the US to headquarter in the US, and hire US workers, and pay US taxes. It's really in our collective interest.
Then there's also worker safety issues, like oil rigs being registered in the Marshall Islands to avoid the regulations US flagged ships have to meet. Shouldn't every ship operating in US waters have to meet full US regulations? But I digress...
We are in total agreement. We need the unemployment benefits to continue, but we absolutely have to do something to reverse the incentives that companies have to escape to tax shelters like the Caymans, and outsource work to foreign countries. Why aren't our elected officials even talking about this? Because they work for their biggest campaign donors, the corporations, and they are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. They all know that if they ever leave Congress, either willingly or because of the ballot box, they have a lucrative future ahead of them as a lobbyist for one of those big corporations.
I believe the creation of new jobs associated with alternative energy and the technology that comes with that is critical ...we need to start now...
It's not been just about losing a job...it's about the job just going away. It's not going to happen in a day....but has anyone noticed we are falling?
Corporate America has already decided that all the jobs lost in this recession will never come back. They are making too much money by leaning harder on the workers that are left. I see no intention by ANY large business to hire in the near future (most large businesses aren't even thinking of beginning to hire until 2012). The recession is just an excuse, albeit a very legitimate one, not to hire any workers and bleed as much profits out as possible. Business is good (as in profits), as America's workers are being taken advantage of (no one can quit in this economy, as you will never find another job).
FLORIDIANS WILL NOT RECEIVE EXTENDED UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS
I am an unemployed Floridian and I will not receive the extension of unemployment benefits because I live in Florida. The Florida Legislature had to modify the present law in their special session today, but after only 46 minutes in session, the republican majority voted to adjourn without taking up the issue. This lack of caring on their part will leave thousands of Floridians without access to the federal lifeline. The Florida Legislature MUST act or thousands of Floridians will continue to not receive their extended unemployment benefits even though the federal government has approved them.
A friend of mine has predicted a "civil war" of sorts. She said it will be rooted in race and jobs/homelessness. I was like, "naw". Now I feel I am seeing the beginning of what could be a really ugly period in U.S. History if it isn't bad enough already...but I guess the rub would be a violent response to the path our government and corporate America is taking...
Personally....I am making plans to get off the grid...
I am more than a little afraid your friend is right, to a point.
It may not be civil war but there certainly could be an extreme amount of violent social unrest.
I'm personally curious why no one in the media ever talks about this social unrest that is bound to happen when 4 million American people lose any means of financial survival.
I am talking about the "99ers" who were not helped today, in fact were cast aside by both parties with no thought of the impact on the society at large. The violent impact.
Do the politicians and pundits think everyone of them is going to bow their head and shuffle off to report to the nearest homeless shelter glad that they still, at least, live in America?
I think not.
There will be no America for them, it will exist only as a representation of brutal oppression if anything. They will owe nothing to a society that has decided to discard them and their families. Do you honestly think that many people, filled with unfathomable rage and despair are not going to strike out blindly to make sure their pain is felt by everyone else?
How many of them do think will leave their lost houses with nothing more than that rage and their guns?
More than a few I fear. There are a lot of guns out there.
So I wonder, is the media afraid to bring this up? Do they think that talking about it would be the first domino?
Where are the "journalists" grilling politicians on the country's preparedness to meet the challenge of keeping these destroyed people intact enough to keep them from harming others? I am not talking about one or two at a time I am talking about shopping malls and movie theaters.
Don't think it could happen?
I guess we all shall see, it is obvious that neither democrats or republicans, liberals or conservatives give a damn, really, about these individuals.
I am sure if the carnage develops they will all be on TV blaming each other once again.
Once again.
So like I said, I'm just curious why the subject never comes up.
sounds like time to get up and go to work. from one floridian to another, I had to go find my work. Stop sitting around and travel to where the work is.
So the unemployed in Florida get screwed by these politicians. Can Gov. Christ do anything or is his hand tied? If anyone can I'm sure he will. God bless all you suffering because of these republican scumbags. Vote them out...get all those unemployed people with no extension to stand outside the polls with their families and let the voters see what they did to their own neighbors.
Michael you, sir, have no heart and no real understanding of this national crisis.
So Michael, are you recommending that people grab a hoe or some other farming implement and catch a freight train like the hobos (hoe-boys) of old? Move to where the work is. Who needs a home? Homelessness ROCKS. Go out there and be a migrant farm worker, take BACK your job from those filthy illegals YEAH! Good thinkin' Michael. Real Grapes of Wrath stuff going on there. Good to know where we stand as a nation. Thanks for reminding us.
I had written about this in an earlier posting and incorporated it into my blog:
http://donquixokie.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-had-turned-economy-around-after.html
What our nation requires is a Domestic Marshall Plan, back-filled with corporate wellfare to defray the cost of paying Americans to do manufacturing and possibly study how the Germans do it since it proved so successful and lucrative for them and because that is where American jobs were first exported to in the first place.
Maybe this wouldn't work, but I really don't see anything less than this working either. I cover it in further depth in my blog. Peace.
Don, I think the past 30 years have shown that no matter how much free money you give to corporations to corporations, they will just use it to beef up their bottom line and pay obscene salaries and bonuses to the execs. The Marshall Plan was great for Europe because they still did manufacturing at that time and place...they just needed to rebuild the infrastructure. Today, we are in the opposite position: we have the infrastructure, but we don't do the manufacturing any more. What we need is to figure out what this country can do that nations with a low-cost labor market can't do, because any job that can be done here for $10 an hour can be done in China for pennies an hour, and we will never win that game. Even industries that had a near-monopoly for America, such as commercial aircraft manufacturing, are facing ever stiffer competition. Boeing sold less than Airbus last year, and even if they edge ahead with sales of the new 787, they are facing new competition from China, Russia and Canada. Even a large portion of the 787 is built overseas.
So, how do we turn this around without starting a nasty trade war? By creating new industries. Become a leader in alternative energy solutions. Revitalize the space program to take advantage of resources, technology and skill sets that almost no one on earth can match. In addition, change the tax laws that all but encourage businesses to set up shadow headquarters in a PO box in the Cayman Islands so they can avoid taxes.
Actually I tackle alot of these problems. Its not enough to reward companies with tax breaks for just making money, you have to reward them for employing Americans. As I detail in my blog, you do that by giving employers a small return on payroll taxes...proportionate with the salary of the employees, providing incentive to pay them well, with bonuses for additional services i.e. quality health insurance, child care, literacy classes, etc.
It would essentially be tax based sharecropping (taxes being the crop,) this would yield NO benefit for those who manufacture outside of American borders (screw you Nike!) provide incentive to hire Americans, and increase tax revenues (more tax payers pay more taxes lightening the tax burden for everyone) which would ameliorate the deficit without sacrificing social services, would lighten the burden on social services by providing incentive for business to take on many of those same roles, and provide the rising tide that lifts all ships by putting money in the economy that increases demand for goods and services.
Hows that Uffdaguy? In return for higher rates of employment and tax collection, a trade war would be a necessary evil...but it would be years before we would satuarate our own markets. By then it would be time for new innovations and arrangements could be revisited.
Because the Republicans are now going back to their Alternative Budget and Alternative Stimulus I took a look at them. Not only don't the numbers hold up but their budget would cost more and be unfunded more than any budget proposed by Democrats. What is interesting is that they proposed continuation of Unemployment Insurance and offered no way to pay for it in their own budget. In their stimulus they show an increase in 6 million new jobs in the first year but don't say how this would happen. I guess they propose "fairy dust" to stabalize the housing market which they also call for in the first year. The Paul Ryan budget would however kill Social Security, Medicare, medicaid and healthcare while cutting taxes for small business, the rich and significantly lowering funds for anything in the budget which they freeze except for military spending. This is a dream sheet but they have yet to be called on it.
The repubs have yet to understand that there is a difference between enriching their friends and solving the nation's problems. They don't care about the deficit. That is a convenient excuse for eliminating social programs, making American workers even more dependent on crumbs tossed from the tables of corporations and the ultrarich. The current economic crisis is a boon for big business. They got taxpayer bailouts to rescue them from their risky, perhaps even criminal, business decisions, so they continued with the obscene bonuses and salaries on our dime. In return, we got the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. What does that breed? A lot of desperate people willing to work for a lot less than they would have in the past, and for longer hours than they ever would have. Another win for corporations....increased productivity, lower labor costs, bigger profits and salaries and bonuses, and a guarantee from the government that if they have problems in the future, the taxpayer will bail them out. The system has been gutted by the corporatocracy, and the citizens of this country are being treated as an expendable commodity, sheep to be fleeced for as long as there is still a penny in their wallets, overworked until they get too sick to continue, after which they are laid off to be replaced by the next desperate long-term unemployed worker.
It doesn't surprise me that Republicans want to screw teachers. It's what they do. Children and teachers in our country are second class citizens by their standards. Just ask my wife.
Teachers are the backbone of our future...without them the future generations suffer. I remember all my teachers and when I see them I thank them.
For your consideration, a movement in Texas allowing parents to keep their children out of any educational program...that would include public, private and home schooled children. The anti-education movement is something that is starting up and we as a society will really suffer in a few years. Proponents say we lack quality teachers and an over funded school system has brought many in the movement to say they have god given rights to decide if their children need any formal education. I really can't find a link to this but its been on my mind how crazy its getting out there.
Congressional Cowards
These cowardly scumbags in congress are so worried about the deficit, a false concern. The last time I checked the accounting equation is still, Assets = Owners Equity + Liabilities, meaning that the national debt is part of this country’s total assets. The Owners Equity is the Invested Capital that we as Americans use to create real GDP. The Rebpublican'ts, Democan'ts, and the Tea Baggers all try to scare the people with large numbers. They take the entire national debt and divide it amongst the 300 million or so Americans and come up with some number and use it to scare the people. This is what each individual would pay if the debt had to be paid today, and that is highly unlikely. This is nothing more than an old wives tale and has been used by politicians for about fifty years to get themselves elected. All we do is refinance the debt at a rate of less than 2 percent of GDP. Which is less than it was in the 1990's when it was over 3 percent of GDP. So, their argument about our children and grandchildren paying this debt does not hold water. What they fail to tell the people is that we not only pass on the Liabilities, we also pass on the Owners Equity to our children and grandchildren. Just ask your ACCOUNTANT or an ECONOMIST.
I suggest that we 16 million plus unemployed Americans look at how these spineless bastards voted to fund unemployment benefits during this depression and vote those un-American yellow bellies out of office. The last three Presidential elections combined were decided by less than the number of unemployed in this country. What these un-Patriotic losers do not understand is that if 16 million plus Americans do not have money to spend on necessities we will see the unemployment rate increase by new and even deeper cuts in jobs nationwide and prolong this depression. Even some of those who say the long term unemployed just don’t want to work will also be one of us. For those who believe the unemployed do not pay taxes on unemployment compensation should read the tax code changes made during the glorious "Reagan Years". The Congressional fellatio artists should take their collective lips off the corporate phallus just for a moment, and do the right thing and extend unemployment benefits to all that are unemployed through no fault of their own, or the November job cuts will be theirs.
If our children and grandchildren do not eat today, I don’t think they would be around years from now to worry about any deficits because they would have starved to death by then.
A Harry Johnson
If you voted Democrat then you did do this to yourself. But in either case you can get up and go find a job. There is work all over this country. There is work going on everyday for those who choose to get thier lawnmower going or scarp some metal while cleaning the enviroment. The fact is that it is probably too much work for you or beyond your intellectual ability/ You appear to be waiting for it to be dropped at your front door;
Just when I think people can't get more ignorant, I'm able to stumble across folks like yourself. Haven't you seen your straw man argument blown out of the water yet? If not, let me have the pleasure of doing so. According to statistics from the federal government and employment agencies, there are approximately 3 million jobs available right now. Unfortunately, there are officially around 15 million people unemployed right now, and that doesn't include those who have been out of work so long that they have either run out of jobless benefits or just plain gotten discouraged and given up looking. So, genius, that means that for every job opening available, 5 people are trying to get that job. Even if all those jobs were snapped up today, at least 12 million people would still be unemployed. You are obviously one of those math-challenged repubs who got us into this economic mess in the first place. You probably still believe we need to make the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, which will add $3.5 trillion to the deficit in the next 10 years, far more than the healthcare bill that repubs fought so hard to kill. This despite the fact that the CBO and former members of Reagan's economic team say that the tax cuts cost more than they brought in.
Only in the mind of a repub can cutting income equal increased income. Only in the mind of a repub can 15 million people trying to fill 3 million jobs equal lazy people who love being unemployed. Lets hope that those of your ilk will never, ever get a chance to cause further damage to this country. Unfortunately, the damage you have done may well be permanent and irreparable.
One thing that I would like to see change is the value education has in the United States. As a teacher, I listen to students wanting to have careers that get paid highly; athletics, pop star, etc. Developing alternate energies, taking advantage of science learned through NASA, and developing new jobs takes an education and takes a society that will value this work. We need to be willing to give up the old and embrace the new. Business will probably not do that unless the powerful in business can personally benefit.
This is my value as an american. I am educated through the system that was much worse than today's system. It is not more education that will make us great, it is the values instilled from our fathers on how to make money, make business, build new things due to necessity, and desire. Our school system is good and outside of that it is the spirit of the man or woman that will push us past. More changes or increases to education are not needed at this time.
Once again, more ignorance proving that the system is nowhere near as good as you say. If you look at where Americans rank among other nations in education, you will see we rank far below most developed nations. Take a student from Japan, or almost any European nation you wish, and you will find we trail far behind in math and science. Language skills in America are almost laughable compared to other nations, where a second language is not only common, but generally required as a condition of graduation. Meanwhile, top repubs like Bush and Palin seem to have difficulty with just one language, which is reportedly English, but is difficult to prove.
My father commited suicide when I was six, so do you want to explain this family values thing to me again? I've out-lived him by seven years already, is that seven years too long not following in his footsteps?
Don't concern yourself with this guy, don. He's proven he can't do even the simplest math, and like so many right wingers, he loves to bloviate about things that he knows nothing about.
Spoken like a true Republican...we don't need to pay for education = TRANSLATION: All us rich people can afford to send our kids to the good schools, so we don't understand why we have to pay for these poor minorities to be given a chance at life.
"It is not more education...it is the values instilled from our fathers on how to make money, make business" - sorry to break it to ya, but you need an education to learn how to make money. Not everyone has a hedge fund manager for a father.
Let's make this easy... call your closest REPUBLICAN and demand a list of available jobs. After all they tried their best to block unemployment saying it "made you to lazy" to take the "...jobs that are out there." I assume they have a list of these jobs or they would not make these claims...right?
Go here to find Republicans and request a jobs list. Make sure to explain you heard them declare that there are jobs but Americans are too lazy to take them and want a list of those jobs because you are NOT too lazy.
http://www.house.gov
http://www.senate.gov
Rachael...please spread the word to tell those "lazy unemployed Americans" to call their Republican representatives for a list of jobs. That will get their attention !
Paul Kruger
www.joethevoter.org
SUGGESTION: I would like to see a "Filibuster Counter" that starts when a filibuster starts and counts how much of the taxpayers money the "politicians" are wasting by the second (a very fast moving counter) when they choose to impede rather than enhance governmental efficiency.
I know there is a huge amount of money spent on transportation, accommodations, power consumption, support services, food, salaries of government officials as well as security and other personnel, etc. The electric bill alone must be massive.
How many thousands per minute - hour - day.
It starts when the filibuster starts and ends when the bill passes or fails for whatever reason. Then it can be used in a short comment on the show and become a regular feature happily ticking away in the corner of the screen.
The counter can actually go on all night as the teams of custodians clean up after the senate and prepare the facilities for another day of obstruction.
Maybe putting a running tally on the filibuster will make enough people mad enough to try to influence their elected officials.
How many peoples unemployment benefits could have been paid with the money that went to feed "The Nothing"?
Now that's a good idea. I like that.