Unemployment: How bad will it get?
The jobless rate rose above 10 percent in October for the first time in decades
Tensions rise in the working world as unemployment tops 10 percent (© Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis)
The unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October -- the highest in 26 years -- up from 9.8 percent the month before. President Obama called the return to double-digit joblessness "sobering," even though the economy has started growing again, signaling an end to the recession. How much worse can the unemployment rate get? (watch an Associated Press report on unemployment topping 10 percent)
It's going to get worse: "It’s beginning to look like America’s unemployment rate is going to get worse before it gets better," says Laurent Belsie in The Christian Science Monitor. That will increase pressure on President Obama and Congress to create more jobs. But economists aren't so worried -- the unemployment rate is volatile, but steadier employment data suggests "the 22-month rise in unemployment is slowing appreciably."
"After dismal jobs report, unemployment rate could hit postwar high"
Obama is making things worse: President Obama promised the massive economic stimulus package would keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8.25 percent, says Desmond Lachman in Forbes. The "sad reality" is that we're now worse off than Obama said we'd be without his stimulus, and economists say unemployment probably won't peak until next spring. Let's hope the administration "smells the coffee" and finds a better economic policy before it drives us into a "double-dip" recession.
"What Jobs?"
All we need is a better stimulus: Job-creation efforts aren't the most efficient way to fight unemployment, says Paul Krugman in The New York Times. "Tax cuts and transfers in the hope that people will spend them; aid to state governments in the hope of averting layoffs. Even infrastructure spending is routed through private contractors." Maybe it's time to for the federal government to consider a WPA-type program and hire people directly. Cut out the middlemen and we might put more people to work.
"Why not a WPA?"
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4 Comments
Posted by Sobering?, Friday, November 6, 2009, 5:19 pm Obama called it sobering? Now? Only now? Really? Every independent economist and research body out there told you this would happen if the porkulus was rammed through. Maybe the prez is still drunk from the Beer Summit? Wake up. The REAL numbers, which do not omit people who's welfare has run out or took part time jobs, are closer to 20!! The rest of us have been sober for a good long time, thank you.
Posted by Abel Malcolm, Friday, November 6, 2009, 6:32 pm Less than 1 of the population owns more than 50 of the wealth. The last time we had this type of imbalance was in the 1930's, during the Great Depression. Clearly, the middle class has been decimated. It took the 2nd World War to get us out of the last Great Depression, but only because taxes were raised to 90 on the richest bracket, and then wealth was redistributed downward, thus a middle class was recreated. We need to do the same thing again, by raising taxes. I hope we won't need another world war to have the excuse to do this.
Posted by Abel Malcolm, Friday, November 6, 2009, 6:56 pm Less than 1 percent owns more than 50 percent of the wealth. The last time we had this type of imbalance was in the 1930's, during the Great Depression. The middle class has been decimated again. The 2nd World War got us out of the last Great Depression, but taxes were raised to 90 percent on the richest bracket, and then wealth was redistributed downward, thus a middle class was recreated. We need to do the same thing again, by raising taxes again. I hopw we won't need another world war to have the excuse to do this.
Posted by TC, Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 4:23 am I think the only answer to the Unemployment happens to be more taxes. Import taxes or consumption tax similiar to Europe. At the present, outsourcing jobs is rewarded both by lower cost and reduced taxes. We need to remove the tax incentive and start charging taxes for the services and goods that are produced offshore similiar to the taxes that would have been paid if the jobs had remained in the US. An offshore call center would need to pay a tax on the cost of providing that service. Import taxes need to be raise from the current 36
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