A decade of losses for working families

[IndianaGreen]

A decade of losses for working families

Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of The State of Working America 2008-2009, spoke to Lee Sustar about the problem of long-term unemployment that is gripping the U.S. economy.

October 23, 2009

YOU'VE TALKED about a 10.7 million jobs deficit in the U.S. economy. Can you explain that?

THE NUMBER is actually based on what we would need to get back to 2007 employment rates--not 2000 employment rates. In the late 1990s, we had unemployment rates below 4 percent. (In the 2000s business cycle), we never got near that. The lowest unemployment rate in the business cycle of the 2000s was 4.4 percent in March of 2007. So that 10.7 million jobs gap is based on getting back to that level.

The 2000s was one of the weakest business cycles on record, as far as the labor market goes. It had extremely sluggish job growth. We had this relatively weak recession in 2001, and then jobs just never came back. We had an extended period of joblessness. And the expansion didn't last very long.

And for the first business cycle on record, family incomes never even recovered by 2007 the real value that they had in 2000. Now, families are thrown into the worst recession in 70 years without having any kind of cushion that a more robust recovery prior to that recession may have afforded them. In other words, family incomes haven't grown since 2000.

And now comes this dramatic increase in unemployment and weakness in the labor market. Just in 2008--which is the tip of the iceberg--we saw an enormous decline in family incomes. And that's likely going to continue at least through 2010.

So we're talking about more than one decade of not only families not making any gains, but actually seeing substantial losses, from 2000 to 2010-2011. I don't think we'll make up for that for many more years afterwards.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/10/23/losses-for-working-families

[barb162]

1. These points can't be repeated enough.

I doubt jobs will pick up ever again in this country.

[OHdem10]

2. Thank the Free Traders for unwise and poorly managed policies.

Not Protectionism, here. Fair Wise and Just Trade Policy,

[Demeter]

3. Stagnant or Falling Wages Since 1973 Is Much More Than a Decade

It's a lifetime.

[mule_train]

4. maybe we should have kept Nixon - lol

things have gone downhill ever since

[Demeter]

5. There Could Be Some Connection

Ever since, the GOP has been out for blood, and they don't care whose.

But as they were out for blood before Nixon, I don't think it would make much difference....they are just more blatant and uglier about it now.

[mule_train]

6. "they are just more blatant and uglier about it now"

to me, 'they' would be BOTH parties

I'll take Nixon's policies toward the middle/working classes over a free trader/open borders democrat any day of the week

[Demeter]

7. yeah, me too.

[Oldtimeralso]

8. I Know this might get me a pizza but I personally think...

That Bill Clinton (whom I met in 1996) was the best Republican president since Teddy Roosevelt. NAFTA, pro-deregulation, and a balanced budget.