Some good news...

[Peter_Puget]

unemployment down

[Dru]

poverty up

 

"Hi, Welcome to Wal-Mart"

[Peter_Puget]

Hey Dru the correct term is "Long Pig"

[Jim]

unemployment down

 

uh-huh

 

Summer of Our Discontent

By Paul Krugman

The New York Times

 

Friday 26 August 2005

 

For the last few months there has been a running debate about the US economy, more or less like this:

 

American families: "We're not doing very well."

Washington officials: "You're wrong - you're doing great. Here, look at these statistics!"

 

The administration and some political commentators seem genuinely puzzled by polls showing that Americans are unhappy about the economy. After all, they point out, numbers like the growth rate of GDP look pretty good. So why aren't people cheering?

 

Some blame the negative halo effect of the Iraq debacle. Others complain that the news media aren't properly reporting good economic news. But when your numbers tell you that people should be feeling good, but they aren't, that means you're looking at the wrong numbers.

 

American families don't care about GDP They care about whether jobs are available, how much those jobs pay and how that pay compares with the cost of living. And recent GDP growth has failed to produce exceptional gains in employment, while wages for most workers haven't kept up with inflation.

 

About employment: it's true that the economy finally started adding jobs two years ago. But although many people say "four million jobs in the last two years" reverently, as if it were an amazing achievement, it's actually a rise of about 3 percent, not much faster than the growth of the working-age population over the same period. And recent job growth would have been considered subpar in the past: employment grew more slowly during the best two years of the Bush administration than in any two years during the Clinton administration.

 

It's also true that the unemployment rate looks fairly low by historical standards. But other measures of the job situation, like the average of weekly hours worked (which remains low), and the average duration of unemployment (which remains high), suggest that the demand for labor is still weak compared with the supply.

 

Employers certainly aren't having trouble finding workers. When Wal-Mart announced that it was hiring at a new store in Northern California, where the unemployment rate is close to the national average, about 11,000 people showed up to apply for 400 jobs.

 

Because employers don't have to raise wages to get workers, wages are lagging behind the cost of living. According to Labor Department statistics, the purchasing power of an average non-supervisory worker's wage has fallen about 1.5 percent since the summer of 2003. And this may understate the pressure on many families: the cost of living has risen sharply for those whose work or family situation requires buying a lot of gasoline.

 

Some commentators dismiss concerns about gasoline prices, because those prices are still below previous peaks when you adjust for inflation. But that misses the point: Americans bought cars and made decisions about where to live when gas was $1.50 or less per gallon, and now suddenly find themselves paying $2.60 or more. That's a rude shock, which I estimate raises the typical family's expenses by more than $900 a year.

 

You may ask where economic growth is going, if it isn't showing up in wages. That's easy to answer: it's going to corporate profits, to rising health care costs and to a surge in the salaries and other compensation of executives. (Forbes reports that the combined compensation of the chief executives of America's 500 largest companies rose 54 percent last year.)

 

The bottom line, then, is that most Americans have good reason to feel unhappy about the economy, whatever Washington's favorite statistics may say. This is an economic expansion that hasn't trickled down; many people are worse off than they were a year ago. And it will take more than a revamped administration sales pitch to make people feel better.

[kix]

imagine if we all tried to collectively change things instead of the time we post on climbing forums.

 

nah.

[Dru]

imagine if we all tried to collectively change things instead of the time we post on climbing forums.

 

nah.

you first.

 

oh by the way, the guy who founded Burning Man has this to say:

 

If you can live anonymously and vicariously (online) with your little icon and your assumed fake personality and spend hours of your time and probably your boss's time making wisecracks of one sentence because you have attention-deficiency syndrome, then (the internet's) a social cancer. I don't want to offend Wired readers, but you know who you are. If you fall into that category, get away from the screen. Get a life. Then come back to the screen. And then you'll know what you're talking about and you might have a sense of whom you're talking to.

 

[Peter_Puget]

Jim -

 

I am about to leave work so I'll make this quick and ask a simple question: Since the BLS directly measures the demand side of the labor market in several ways, why does your fav polemist use inference and guesswork?

 

Answer: Maybe because the answer is it is pretty much and upward sloping trend!

 

 

Data source: BLS series JTS00000000JOR

Edited September 2, 2005 by Peter_Puget

[ChrisT]

imagine if we all tried to collectively change things instead of the time we post on climbing forums.

 

nah.

you first.

 

oh by the way, the guy who founded Burning Man has this to say:

 

 

BTW Is TLG at Burning Man? She's been conspicuously missing lately...

[JayB]

You also have to look at total compensation versus wages....

[lummox]

i am saving $$ on my car insurance.

[kix]

If you can live anonymously and vicariously (online) with your little icon and your assumed fake personality and spend hours of your time and probably your boss's time making wisecracks of one sentence because you have attention-deficiency syndrome, then (the internet's) a social cancer. I don't want to offend Wired readers, but you know who you are. If you fall into that category, get away from the screen. Get a life. Then come back to the screen. And then you'll know what you're talking about and you might have a sense of whom you're talking to.

 

 

ummmm, actually I've had enough of the 'world out there', I do have a life and I know what I am talking about, I just do not care to do it online, and I am perfectly content to not know who I am talking to while I am not a talking about the things I know about. if I want to make inane or funny litle one-liners on my bosses time, so be it, I accept the companies often inane demands and intrusions into what should normally be considered my time on a weekly basis, sans any funniness whatsoever.

 

not that I spend much time onlne.

[lummox]

kix: nice bike. ever take it off any sweet jumps?

[Off_White]

imagine if we all tried to collectively change things instead of the time we post on climbing forums.

 

nah.

 

You're over-employed anyway, lets give half your hours to someone who deserves it more. That way you can scrub more boulders, everyone wins.

[Jim]

Jim -

 

I am about to leave work so I'll make this quick and ask a simple question: Since the BLS directly measures the demand side of the labor market in several ways, why does your fav polemist use inference and guesswork?

 

Answer: Maybe because the answer is it is pretty much and upward sloping trend!

Data source: BLS series JTS00000000JOR

 

This doesn't look like guess work:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But although many people say "four million jobs in the last two years" reverently, as if it were an amazing achievement, it's actually a rise of about 3 percent, not much faster than the growth of the working-age population over the same period. And recent job growth would have been considered subpar in the past: employment grew more slowly during the best two years of the Bush administration than in any two years during the Clinton administration.

 

It's also true that the unemployment rate looks fairly low by historical standards. But other measures of the job situation, like the average of weekly hours worked (which remains low), and the average duration of unemployment (which remains high), suggest that the demand for labor is still weak compared with the supply.

 

According to Labor Department statistics, the purchasing power of an average non-supervisory worker's wage has fallen about 1.5 percent since the summer of 2003. And this may understate the pressure on many families: the cost of living has risen sharply for those whose work or family situation requires buying a lot of gasoline.

 

 

--- And if you're point is that job demand is up - I agree - it's way up because wages and other compensation is down. Across the board people are getting slimmer medical care insurance packages.

[kix]

all these statistics and hopeful outlooks are pointless in the face of Peak Oil and the after effects.

 

 

bike was not necessarily a jumper. more like a muscle car.

[kix]

"I got got 14 jobs mon."

 

scrubbing is my full time second job.

 

no actual money, but a great payoff.

 

just waiting for the leaves to fall so I can locate that next great Seattle-ish area to commit mass eco-terrorism upon the moss.