Jobs: how does this recession compare to others?

[Hannah Bell]

The stimulus is running out, millions lose health insurance in 12 days as COBRA subsidies start to run out, unemployment benefits also start running out, all while the unemployment rate is rising. Foreclosures are up. At the same time out-of-money states are laying off hundreds of thousands of employees, beginning with teachers. (But hey, who needs teachers?) They are deferring infrastructure maintenance like roadwork and water/sewer systems and other public investments that employ people while creating the conditions that enable to economy to grow.

In fact, the stimulus is not only running out, but these state layoffs and other factors mean that government is now a net drag on the economy. The hope was that the stimulus would be enough to hold off the effects of the downturn and provide enough of a boost to get the "economic engine" running again. But for various reasons much of the stimulus was cut back or wasted on ineffective tax cuts, so as it runs out there are signs that the economy could sink back down.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010052018/stimulus-shifts-reverse-where-congress

[notesdev]

1. Roughly eyeballing the trends

I'd guess that we're looking at another 24 months before there are the same number of jobs as we had when this depression started... and that assumes that we've hit bottom and another leg down is not in the cards (which is not at all a safe assumption).

[NNN0LHI]

2. I don't remember 99 weeks of unemployment during any other recession I lived through

39 weeks is all I can ever remember getting. No such thing as COBRA either.

Huge difference for the better as far I can tell.

Don

[DailyGrind51]

3. We really need a WPA for 2010, and a repeal of NAFTA and GAT!

[blindpig]

6. Yes, but we'll never see that.

This administration seems to have a rather libertarian approach to all things except personal freedom.

[leftstreet]

9. +1

[eilen]

4. Personally speaking, this one is way worse than any other

I've experienced. There were other jobs for people in the past. In the 70's my parents worked in real estate and it fell through the floor. They were able to find jobs in other sectors. Now, everything is bad. My friend just lost her job d/t cuts in state funding. She used to job coach the newly released from incarceration.

[Hannah Bell]

5. yep. the reagan recession was bad, but it didn't hit public employees that hard.

so that was a safe haven.

student jobs in the 70s/early 80s were plentiful.

not this time.

that was the worst recession in my lifetime, & it didnt last this long.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Two years into Reagan's term the unemployment rate hit 10.8 %

That was 1982. Remember it well. I was laid off from my job for nearly two years during that recession.

It hit my family pretty bad. It set us back a long time. Didn't have any 401K's back then. Just a union negotiated defined pension. So we are doing OK now.

Don

[Hannah Bell]

10. I remember it too. I also lived through it & my brother almost went homeless because

construction was so bad. My hometown's main street basically died.

But my friends in public jobs were fine. No one got laid off, no one took a pay cut. And the UE rate didn't stay at 10% for years -- as it has in this one.

[NNN0LHI]

12. What used to pay the wages for all those people in public jobs that are getting cut?

It was workers in good paying union industrial jobs that we used to have in steel, auto, appliances, etc., that were paying taxes into the treasury. Heavy taxes because they made good money.

Now that we have exported most of these good paying jobs the workers that used to be working these kinds of jobs and paying into the treasury are now working at Walmart, McDonalds and other low paying jobs that make most of them eligible for government assistance just to get by. Even with a job.

So instead of the withheld taxes from workers in our now almost extinct industrial base going into the treasury every payday these new low paid workers are being forced to take money out of it just to survive.

We can't keep doing this very long. But do you see how people cut their own throats when they don't support union products when they can? Pretty soon none of us have a job.

Don

[eilen]

11. Yea, jobs were really tight when I graduated HS in 1983.

I think that is when the overcredentialling requirements started. It seemed you couldn't get a foothold without a college degree. Then when we got one, it was experience they were looking for. I coudn't afford college till much later so I pretty much worked shitty jobs and tried to take classes part time.

[dmallind]

8. Anybody notice how the upward trends mirror the downward?

So about two years looks right - of fairly steep growth