Posted on 08/04/2014 6:45:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For all the fuss made and dollars spent it is not clear that the 2007-2009 recession was worse than the 1980-1982 downturn when Fed Chairman Paul Volker defeated inflation. For example, unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent then, higher than the 10 percent maximum in the most recent recession. However, this most recent recession and the weak recovery that has followed has been the undisputed champion for long-term unemployment.
The U.S. government defines long-term unemployment as a period of unemployment that lasts 27 weeks or longer, roughly six months or more. While overall unemployment was relatively normal for a severe recession, long-term unemployment peaked in April 2010 at nearly double its previous record high, with 6.8 million people counted as long-term unemployed. Such long-term unemployment is particularly important because of the potentially permanent damage done to human capital.
Economists debate whether long bouts of unemployment make applicants less attractive to employers with at least a little evidence that when overall employment is high, a long time between jobs is not held against you. However, the consensus is that job skills erode, hurting earning potential. Worse, at some point, especially for older people, a long spell of unemployment may become involuntary early retirement. If long-term unemployment causes the permanent loss of human capital, then policy makers should be addressing the problem.
A key point of debate among economists and policy makers has been over whether the repeated extension of unemployment benefits was encouraging long-term unemployment by allowing a longer job search in hopes of a better job. There were even worries of a large, permanent population of unemployed people, a return to the days when people stayed on welfare for decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
Did they cook the books back in the early 80s like they do today to come up with the unemployment numbers?
What is the number of working age Americans currently unemployed in America today? Something like 100 million?
What was the number in the early 80s?
um... no. They just keep changing the definition of what constitutes “unemployed” to get their desired number.
Ha haaaaaaa!!!
Are these the same economists who are perpetually surprised at the economic numbers regardless of whether they go up or down?
Yes. Of course it. That was a silly question. Disregard it.
The difference this time is that the only reason unemployment is going down is because the employment rate is going way way down.
The unemployment rate basically measures how many people are looking for jobs. In prior recessions the unemployment rate dropped as people found jobs. In the Obamanation people have permanently stopped looking.
Jeffrey Dorfman-Kent Dorfman’s brother?
It is not clear?
Good grief, please save us from folks to whom elementary mathematics is a mystery never to be solved.
Buddy, if it’s not clear to you, just go somewhere, place a plastic bag over your sorry little brainless head, and do us a favor by not taking it off...ever.
They're doing the same thing w/ inflation. I went to the grocery store on Sat. and almost had a heart attack at the prices (I haven't been there in a while). Spent $200 and no where near a full cart.
None of the info coming out of DC or NYC can be trusted. The lies are blatant.
As a percentage of the population as a whole, that is something like 33%.
If you compare it to the pool of working age Americans alone, it's probably closer to 40%.
You can't tell me the early 80s was anywhere nearly as bad.
And, of course, if you’re not in the “labor force”, you can’t be unemployed.
RE: And, of course, if youre not in the labor force, you cant be unemployed.
If you own a small business, are you in the labor force?
that is something like 33%
Wasn’t total unemployment during the Great Depression (1930s) something like 15%?
Notice what happened to the employment rate beginning in 2006, when the Democrats took control of Congress. Then look at what happened to the employment rate in 2008, when Our Glorious Leader took charge.
And only part time jobs, to avoid Obamacare.
anyone remember the NewsWeek magazine with the cover with the balloon that said “The Recession is Over!”
I believe that was from 2010.
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