Joblessness Still Hangs Over An Improving Economy
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unemployment under President Barack Obama has remained high for the longest period since the Great Depression. Despite a slowly improving job market, the millions of Americans without jobs underscore weakness in the recovery, drag down consumer spending and still roil the nation's politics.
Wall Street has had its jitters but the stock market remains high, consumer confidence has improved and the housing market is making a solid comeback.
Yet, while economic conditions change, much remains the same.
On Friday, the government will release its monthly jobs report, and economists predict that U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in June. That's fewer than in May and far short of the number of new jobs needed to push the unemployment rate down significantly from its current perch at 7.6 percent.
Unemployment has dropped from a high of 10 percent in October 2009. It also is the last consequence of a recession to show improvement in a recovery. But the jobless rate has remained at or above 7.5 percent for 53 months, a period that has left an unusually large number of people out of the work force for so long that some of them will likely never work again. Nearly 12 million people are searching for work and millions more are underemployed in involuntary part-time jobs.
MORE...
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_ECONOMY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-03-18-09-15