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Thread: Unemployment: Just sayin'

  1. #1
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Unemployment: Just sayin'

    Before laurels start getting thrown at Trump's feet following the Bureau of Labor Statistics' news that unemployment dipped to the lowest rate since 2000, I would like to point out this chart: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

    I believe the downward trend was actually started with Obama's presidency in 2008.

    And BTW, if you look at the trend line since 1992, there was also a steep downward trend during Clinton's administration, until, of course, George Bush 43 took over.

    Just sayin'
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
    www.silententry.wordpress.com

  2. #2
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    Also, “it’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job. It’s a depression when you lose yours.”
    here’s what my “recovery” looks like:
    rising housing costs.
    dd2 (bachelors in graphic design, concentration in marketing) is underemployed and having difficulty getting interviews
    heart daughter (bachelors in polisci, masters in sociology with a concentration in youth issues and development, 16 years teaching) is severely underemployed and having trouble getting interviews (this woman looks amazing on paper and is even better in person)
    dd1 is facing possible layoff due to her company (construction!) losing business
    dd2’s best friend (associates business) just chose to quit her job as her employer asked her to engage in illegal accounting practices and she has no prospects.
    local restaurant closed after 4 months.
    local ice cream parlor closed after 30 years, for sale over a year, no nibbles.
    feed store has cut full time staff to one minimum wage high school kid.
    local bar is expanding seating area.
    fewer people coming to the food bank, but more of them coming in groups in shared cars. Donations are also down, so in spite of lower demand, we run out of things more often.

  3. #3
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    Also, “it’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job. It’s a depression when you lose yours.”
    here’s what my “recovery” looks like:
    rising housing costs.
    dd2 (bachelors in graphic design, concentration in marketing) is underemployed and having difficulty getting interviews
    heart daughter (bachelors in polisci, masters in sociology with a concentration in youth issues and development, 16 years teaching) is severely underemployed and having trouble getting interviews (this woman looks amazing on paper and is even better in person)
    dd1 is facing possible layoff due to her company (construction!) losing business
    dd2’s best friend (associates business) just chose to quit her job as her employer asked her to engage in illegal accounting practices and she has no prospects.
    local restaurant closed after 4 months.
    local ice cream parlor closed after 30 years, for sale over a year, no nibbles.
    feed store has cut full time staff to one minimum wage high school kid.
    local bar is expanding seating area.
    fewer people coming to the food bank, but more of them coming in groups in shared cars. Donations are also down, so in spite of lower demand, we run out of things more often.
    so, not one, even ONE positive economic thing is happening in your sphere? I find that hard to believe.

    And to cherry pick your examples, I would never use the closing of a new restaurant as an economic indicator. Even President Trump cannot reverse the fail rate of new restaurants. It is healthy that no one is taking on the ice cream parlour, smart people.

    I could detail the empty shops and restaurant in our tiny business district but since I was skeptical anyway about them when they first opened, I was less than surprised when they closed. Why every woman here she can open a little shoppe with little fussy pieces of crap and others will flock in to buy the crap is beyond me. And the restaurants there, several in the same spot, were poorly conceptualized and capitalized.

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    I think it's usually ridiculous to give much credit or blame to presidents for the favor of the economic gods, especially during their administration. I think it may be our way of simplifying complex systems and allowing us to scapegoat or lionize a single figure. The more conspiracy-inclined might also offer up the Fed, "banksters" or their billionaire of choice as the hero/culprit.

    In my State of Wisconsin the May unemployment rate of 2.8% is about 1% below the national average. Anecdotally, I am being told that it could go even lower if people with the needed skills and sobriety were available.

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    The bar and the housing prices? Maybe the food bank use, but signs are that’s at least partly an access issue.

    the restaurant was actually a successful food truck for over a year before they decided they could become a restaurant. I know that is always a gamble, it’s Just a data point.

    dh’s company is increasing the number of interns it takes - but not hiring new employees - and he is currently in a multi-year wage freeze.

    i bought a “new” used car - because the old one was dead, and I now have a car payment, but it was economically good for someone?

    the place I work was down 50% on contributions to our annual fundraiser this year. Enrollment is about the same, but more kids are requesting scholarships.

    ds got promoted - but he lives in another state. Dd2 has recently expanded her job search to that state.

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    LDAHL - cross post - that’s the state.

    maybe we should be examining wisconsin’s Economic policies....

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    LDAHL - cross post - that’s the state.

    maybe we should be examining wisconsin’s Economic policies....
    I'm sure Scott Walker and our legislators would be pleased to take the credit, but I think it's more due to forces largely out of their control.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    CL: rural areas always have a tougher time economically. We are booming here. Our downtown and midtown areas have been revitalized and full of shops, bars and stores because we have the population to support it. We have always had to move to where the jobs are despite being highly educated. Many are unwilling to do that. Economically the country always does better when the democrats are in control ��

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    Booming in jobs that pay minimum wage which does not pay rent. But yea the local minimum wage job is hiring! A homeless person is now living in a car right outside my apartment and I debate whether to disturb him or just let him be because uh bleeding heart battles with practicality (it's not really that practical to have a homeless person there uh ...!). He seems so far as I've seen to be very normalish (not mentally ill, an addict etc.), he could very well be among the 25% of homeless that have worked in the past few months, I could literally see that guy going to a job. While homeless are not right outside everyone's apartment, they are in the alley outside my boyfriends apartment, until they were moved by the city on the block of his mom's apartment etc.

    Break up your relationships and move where the jobs are? Just because I could get a job elsewhere perhaps much more easily than here doesn't mean that my boyfriend will get a job there at all. Although at least it's clear that marriage and kids truly are for idiots - they don't work with the present economy, where it's every man for himself. Or should one only ever be married to those in the same field so one is sure the job market will be the same when one relocates? Whether a location is a good one for jobs or not seems to depend largely on one's field.

    dd2’s best friend (associates business) just chose to quit her job as her employer asked her to engage in illegal accounting practices and she has no prospects
    I was that moral when I was young, I still am as I haven't been asked to do anything like that, but whether I would be that moral these days, oh probably ha, however I'd give it a heck of a lot more thought than I did when young, because the world yea ... However there are legal consequences of that stuff too, and unemployment sucks so badly, but hey so does prison even if you are guaranteed 3 not even hot meals and a cot.

    I think it's often hard for the young, of course at 50 you become nearly unable to get a job at all as well, there are few good years in between IF you are lucky.

    ----

    I don't think the economy is as bad in the depths of the Great Recession, but that seems to have been a depression for anyone affected, I read their stories a lot now (well I would) and it was a depression. But things are good now? No, not even. Just relative to the depths of an economic depression they are, of course. With labor force participation they say that some retired, and no doubt that is a little of it, but not all of it at all. And I read idiocy online about it like: "let's confine it to people in prime working years age 25 to 54". Oh FU! Most people will NOT have the money to retire at 55, they may have once, but not now in an age without pensions or employers covering healthcare in retirement etc.. And at the other end of it, certainly some fresh college grads want to work, they aren't all aiming for the graduate degree until they enter the real world. But at least the young often but not always, have some family support if they become desperate enough to humbly accept it (and with some families at the cost of sanity). Those between 55 and 62 are just totally screwed, headed fast for homelessness.
    Trees don't grow on money

  10. #10
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    We moved as a family so looked for places where we both could get jobs. This was before the internet so much harder to get information but it can be done. Did we want to move away from family when we had kids? No but we needed too. Here if you are not skilled cocktail waitresses, waiters etc are making 50k/ year working 4 days/week. This is the crummy day shift. Night workers make more. We have cocktail waitresses and bartenders in there 60’s that don’t want to retire because the money is so good. We also have manufacturing jobs paying good wages along with crappy jobs too.

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