Beyond Unemployment, the Damage Resonates
EmailThe employment numbers released today underscore what an ugly time it is for the American workforce – a reality that, as our polling shows, resonates beyond the economy to the health care debate, politics and public health alike.
September’s unemployment, 9.8 percent, is at a level unseen since the 1981-82 recession; it peaked at 10.8 percent in November ’82. We haven’t seen these levels previously in a federal data series extending to 1948, and thus very likely since the Great Depression.
Add in discouraged ex-workers – those no longer looking for a job – and it’s worse still: That jobless rate is 17 percent, up from 11.2 percent a year ago and the highest in available data back to 1994.
Workers who still have their jobs are getting knocked around another way: Less work. The government says non-supervisory workers had an average of 33 hours of weekly work last month (this includes part-timers), tying June for the fewest in data back to 1964. The lowest annual average was 33.6 hours last year. This year it's running lower still.
For hourly workers, of course, hours worked equals dollars earned. In August (the latest data available), real disposable personal income fell by 0.2 percent, on top of a 0.1 percent decline in July and a 1.6 percent decline in June.
What’s it mean? We reported a couple of weeks ago that 47 percent of Americans tell us they’ve sustained a job loss or cut in pay or work hours in their household in the last year. Consider:
- For the health care debate: Among that nearly half the population that’s taken the hit of a job loss or layoff, 26 percent – one in four – don’t have health insurance. (Among the rest of the population, by contrast, far fewer are uninsured, 9 percent.)
- Economic difficulties make for troubled politics. Unemployment peaked in the last month of the 1981-82 recession, but the repercussions started far earlier and lasted far longer: Ronald Reagan went from 73 percent approval shortly after taking office in January 1981 to 48 percent in February 1982, and hovered around there for the next year, bottoming out at 42 percent approval in January 1983. The recession was technically over, but recovery was far from being fully felt.
Consider as well the 1990-91 recession: Unemployment was milder and an even-more lagging indicator; it peaked at 7.8 percent in June 1992, more than a year after that recession had technically ended. Recovery was so slow as to be fatal to the first President Bush’s re-election effort; so slow, indeed, to contribute to the out-party Republicans’ whopping 52-seat gain in 1994.
- And there are other, personal impacts. Polling this year has painted a stark picture of the financial and psychological damage of this recession. Among people who report a job loss or pay cut the past year, for example, 72 percent report personal stress as a result of the economic situation; nearly half of them say it’s “serious” stress.
The reality portrayed by these figures is worth keeping in mind as economists suggest the downturn’s bottomed out and the recession may be over. By the classic metrics, OK. But it can take months, even years, for rising GDP to make itself felt at the kitchen table. For many Americans, as today's data show, economic realities remain dire – with potential political, policy and public health impacts yet to unfold.
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Very sad numbers. The middle class is disappearing.
Posted by: Huh | October 2, 2009, 2:04 pm 2:04 pm
Is everybody being willfully blind?
What happens when the laid off workers run out of unemployment benefits?
What happens when they have NO money to spend or pay bills?
More store closings for lack of sales and more people laid off.
More corporate lay offs because no one can buy their products.
More foreclosures because even with refinancing they can’t pay their bills.
This “recession” is not going to end until the U.S. Government forces “American” companies to build products and hire in America, not China, not Mexico, not Japan, or Korea, or anywhere else. America needs jobs and all those jobs are STILL going overseas.
Posted by: Ted Jonston | October 2, 2009, 2:38 pm 2:38 pm
I am in foreclosure and had to hire a bankruptcy attorney. All too common today to be worth a mention.
I survive because I work at home in a small business. It barely pays the bills and is declining.
I have experience in construction and as an electrician and handy man service is in demand as people fix and make do when they can’t buy new.
Here’s the catch. I have arthritis that restricts my ability to walk and stand. It could be fixed, allowing me to earn more money, and could have prevented foreclosure and bankruptcy. But I don’t have health insurance and can’t get it due to pre-existing conditions, even if I could afford the premiums.
Classic Catch 22. I could work, if I could walk. I can’t get my hip fixed because I can’t afford the surgery. I can’t afford the surgery due to lack of income…and around we go.
How many others are stuck is this cycle?
Posted by: Paul Kruger | October 2, 2009, 2:48 pm 2:48 pm
very sad. we need to have this administartion and congress focus on reality. no more cap and trade and other hocus pocus. we need jobs and not government jobs. we need tax credits to the private sector for people they hire. this socialism attempt is failing miserably as it always does.
Posted by: catman | October 2, 2009, 3:59 pm 3:59 pm
To fix the economy you have to stimulate small business. Something this administration knows nothing about. Government jobs only last as long as the grant funds are available and do not last beyond that, with no long term benefit to the economy. Instead of making demons of small business owners they might actually consult them on what is needed to improve the economy.
Posted by: Jeff | October 2, 2009, 4:02 pm 4:02 pm
Ted Jonston hit the nail on the head with his comments. We need to be producing IN THIS COUNTRY–not even Canada or Mexico. “Made in the real USA”, not some north american continent area. That’s the only way we’re going to dig ourselves out of this mess–that and more effective regulation of banks and investments.
Posted by: Barry W. Shook | October 2, 2009, 4:51 pm 4:51 pm
The reason there is NO JOB’S in the U.S.A. most of the manufacturing plant have been out source to other countries for cheep labor!!!! shame on the CEO’S of these manufacturing plant !
“Our government let this happen to the working class people of the U.S.A. “!
USA DON’T MAKE ANYTHING ANYMORE!!!
YOU CANT FIND LABELS ON ANYTHING YOU BUY STAMP WITH THE USA LOGO ON IT IN WAL-MART, KMART OR THE MALL’S!
BRING BACK THE MANUFACTURING PLANTS and you will put the America people back to work!
We the U.S.A. use to be a self sufficient country of economic consumption
not no more it was removed from our hands.
U.S.A. WAS “the country’s largest manufacturer” ITS GONE NOW !
“BAN THE OUT SOURCED MANUFACTURING PLANTS FROM SELLING THERE PRODUCTS
BACK TO THE U.S.A” TEACH THEM A LESSON FOR MOVING THERE PLANTS OUT OF THE U.S.A.!
Posted by: Brendett NC | October 3, 2009, 7:43 am 7:43 am
PUT THE GOLD STANDARD AND MANUFACTURING PLANTS BACK IN PLACE FOR THE U.S.A.!
AND WE WILL TURN THE UNTIED STATES AROUND FROM THIS RECESSION!
Posted by: Brendett NC | October 3, 2009, 7:55 am 7:55 am
The economy and unemployment will completely turn-a-round when it appears that the games in Washing has stopped. When you have groups calling for the POTUS to fail, everything slows down. Also, making the U.S. look like a bunch of idiots live here does not help at all. If he fails, everyone fails, especially the middle class!
Posted by: Viola C Parsons-Sturdivant | October 4, 2009, 3:39 pm 3:39 pm
Why is the Senate debating about giving raises to their staffers? Why aren’t their salaries frozen…why do they get raises and I can’t get a job in 15 months of being laid off and now my unemployment has run out…thank you Congress for not extending benefits because your staffers need a raise.
I previously lived in the Washington DC area, have worked all of my adult life, paid my bills and my taxes, owned my own home, supported myself. I recently was forced to rent out my house, move to Texas to live in a room in a my son’s house and try to find work here. The competition is just too great, I’m a secretary and can’t get a decent paying job. I have no health insurance and if I get sick or injured, I’ll be a burden to my family or to society. This whole situation is just ridiculous, all for some greedy people in the government, banking industry, etc. all who get raises or bail-outs, and the middle class gets eradicated.
Posted by: Pat Van Cleaf | October 9, 2009, 7:08 pm 7:08 pm
I was laid off 1 1/2 years ago. I look for work every weekday (VERY depressing as there just aren’t jobs to apply for). I am on unemployment. Just began my first extension. Just lost my COBRA health care benefit. How in the world am I supposed to afford individual health care??? Even minimal coverage costs even more than the COBRA did! I had investments, which I lost when the market tanked. I had a year’s worth of savings. It is now gone. Unemployment doesn’t even cover my mortgage (my mortgage alone – never mind taxes, which keep coming and all of the other expenses of life). I have diabetes and asthma. Even if I could afford it, if I try to change carriers these illnesses won’t be covered – “pre existing condition”. I am also being treated for extreme depression and extreme stress. I get so angry I can barely stand it when I hear Republicans (used to be…) blocking Health Care Reform or Mortgage/Foreclosure Protection Act just so they can “get Obama”!!! They obviously couldn’t care less for all of us out there struggling and sinking!!!!
Posted by: socalnewswatcher | January 27, 2010, 5:23 pm 5:23 pm
What I like about small business owners is that they are not afraid to take huge risks and lay it all on the line. But, I agree they do need a lot of help with their marketing. I think having them go the social media and email route is not only the least expensive but its also the most effective. Thanks for the stats!
With Facebook and Twitter being among the leaders of the Social networks, marketing as a small business is being transformed..
Respondents according to the Vertical Response survey appear to need some differentiation with the use of SE marketing and Social media Marketing
Posted by: davidbaer | January 28, 2010, 12:56 am 12:56 am