Armando, the BLS has a graph for that as well. It’s the U6 time series instead of the U3 one. It includes underemployment and people who have left the labor force.
As you can see, it is about the same as the graph Tom posted, but it hasn’t quite returned to 2008 peak employment levels yet. U6 is currently about the same as it was in 2004-2005.
What these graphs don’t show at all is that, while people are able to find work, the pay sucks for most of them.
As a guy who’s gotten a grand total of 1.5% in raises over 5 years (and thus lost a good chunk of money due to the ~6% inflation in that same timespan), I can agree with that :P
I dunno. On the one hand, I want to be like Craig and feel all rah-rah-rah over our very significant and measurable recovery of the national economy, particularly giving credit (where it’s due) to the actions of both late-stage Bush and early-term Obama.
On the other, I want to be like Bernie and pooh-pooh the notion, given how fantastically little of that recovery wound up going to the people who need it most desperately.
(I recognize those two feelings are not mutually exclusive, necessary)
Basically, for the year, wages have increased by about 2.6% through July. This is tempered, somewhat, by a year over year inflation rate of just over 1% (year to date for 2016 is higher at about 1.9%), but it does mean wages are growing somewhat in real terms.
I wouldn’t say ‘rah rah’, not particularly. I am well aware of how the wealthy leveraged the crisis to put the screws to the working and middle classes in order to preserve their perch upon the throne. I am absolutely livid over that.
But I’m also pragmatic about such things, and am clear eyed about what the range of possible outcomes was. Given things in 2008, and how our choice was for more austerity or not, I recognize that our path, while full of issues, was superior to that of a nation like Great Britain, where the working class got even more hosed, and is still facing downward pressure.
It’s really taken until this year, and really Q2 of this year, for wages to show meaningful growth, despite the economy growing strongly over the last few years. I know exactly where that blame lies, and would love nothing more than to turn around and put the screws to them.
I know, and tried to intimate that with the last line in my post, as you and I are generally closer on politics than I am with most posters on this board :)
The Q2 data you mentioned upthread is actually a little encouraging, if nothing else!
This is my feeling as well. I don’t think most people understand how close we came. I think the collective world belief in the US economy basically allowed us to bullshit our way through.
Planet Money is my recommendation if you want to understand the root cause. They did a great series called Toxie where they actually bought some mortgage backed securities and watched them die.
I too graduated in 2008, from a private school, with (only really 20k in debt, I got a lot of scholarships and grants for singing etc) but, I have a biology degree.
While I was able to find a job easily in May 08, I got dumped like a bad habit in the fall of 2009, and was on unemployment until 2010. (July, where I got my current job I have now)
I hate the media used that term, Great Recession… as if we hadn’t seen anything like it before when we have.
No… they’re not exactly the same but we have seen some high levels in modern history before… the Savings and Loans crisis is an interesting read actually.
Sure, but I guess my point is… we’re talking about normal and abnormal recessions when we know that having highs and lows are actually normal. We just have systems in place now with the idea that the highs won’t be so high so the lows won’t be so low. We’re talking within the last handful of decades though that we saw a lower low and actually a pretty high high.
The way people talk about 2008/2009 you’d think we didn’t have 70/80 right in the rear view mirror when we do. Unemployment is a lagging indicator anyway, not leading. But with unemployment rising you see other service based industries, like mine (Healthcare), get hit later. Unemployed individuals tend not to have health insurance or at least not for very long and often don’t opt for elective surgeries, examples. But unemployment is the result of a economy doing poorly not the cause of it.
Well, that one is easy. They lost the Presidential election. Of course, they also controlled Congress, but don’t look at that. They did nothing with said control, other than repeatedly try to repeal the ACA. And take vacations.
Gah, Mr. Grumpy’s NYT article is behind a paywall and it’s only the 8th! I run out of my free monthly articles pretty quickly.
I’m not following you. How does that relate to the Republican assertion that the economy is in shambles? I have as much contempt for today’s Republican Party as the next guy, but for the purposes of this thread, I’m not really interested in assigning blame. I’m interested in looking at how the data doesn’t square with the Republican narrative (i.e. “We’re gonna create jobs, we’re gonna get the economy back on track, etc.”).
Republicans think that the unemployment rate and the inflation rate are both sham statistics that hide the “true” numbers. There is a site they like to quote called “shadowstats” that claims that unemployment is in the double digits and hasn’t gone down at all since the peak in 2008, and that inflation is totally out of control.
These assertions have been roundly and repeatedly debunked using actual data.
The economy isn’t in shambles, and unemployment is not exceedingly high. We used to target around 4% unemployment, and we’re just under 5%. There has been talk about not reporting the underemployed or those who just gave up for years, decades even. That’s the shadow stats, and it’s real but it’s not… unique to 2016 or one party. If you tried to account for that you’d have to go back for years and reevaluate not just the bad years but also the good and then probably target something other than 4%.
Here’s the thing though, we’re back to the perception or the idea that the real difference between a recession and depression is whether you lose your job or I do. We definitely have displaced workers from factories, call centers, timber… just areas that haven’t seen a rebound. We should do better for them… regardless of which party is in charge.
You can’t say the other guy did a good job and things aren’t terrible, that isn’t a winning narrative, especially when you’ve demonized said guy to be the worst thing to ever happen to the nation. So you ignore anything that disagrees with your narrative and put it out there anyway.
There is a lot of truth to underemployment and the like, but the GOP as a whole has never really given a crap about that. If you work at McDonalds it’s generally “your fault” and you should be looked down upon for failing as a human being and treated as such. Invisible hand of the market, blah, blah, suck it up profits are up.
I think some of you guys think I don’t understand Republicans. I got that. What I don’t understand is how to interpret unemployment stats. :)
That is hilarious. Not surprising, I suppose, given their approach to things like climate change, the media, and Benghazi. “If we don’t like the facts, we’ll come up with our own!”
yvshka, wow, awesome trick. I even feel a little guilty doing it.
