27 Million Americans

Normally I find stuff in my readings that appears to be good blog fodder. I seldom go out looking for subjects, subjects generally find me. This week is different. I have been thinking, praying, and asking others to pray for the unemployed and the underemployed. I wondered if I could find current articles to provide enough background for a new blog post. I found more current articles than I could possibly use for one post. The problems are simply overwhelming.

There are approximately 27 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed using government definitions that actually mask the true extent of the problem. 15.3 million Americans are unemployed and actively seeking employment. 2.5 million American workers are categorized as “marginally attached,” those who are unemployed but have not actively sought work in the last four weeks. Finally, 9.2 million Americans are working part time jobs because they can not find full time employment.

27 million Americans.

This number does not begin to capture the extent or the seriousness of this problem. It does not include Americans who have simply become so discouraged that they are no longer trying to find a job. It does not include college graduates are flipping burgers or returning to graduate school to wait out the recession (not a bad idea if they can avoid student loans).

The last decade was a bust. After three catastrophes, the internet bubble, the near collapse of the financial system, and the real estate bubble, the stock market ended pretty much where it began the decade. Americans, who are lucky enough to have a job, are working longer hours for less money. The American standard of living has been on the decline for more than one decade. For the first time since the 1930s America did not have a net increase in the number of jobs.

Many of the jobs lost in the current recession will not return in the foreseeable future. The 6 million manufacturing jobs lost in the last decade will not return. The 1.6 million construction jobs lost when the real estate bubble popped will not return, at least not in the next decade. This number does not include real estate sales jobs, or the ½ million jobs lost in the finance and mortgage industry.

Some of the job loss is structural, a byproduct of changing taste and technology. Newspapers are dying as cable news and the internet provide free news on demand, as it is happening. Who wants to pay 50 cents or more for day old news that then has to be carried to the curb in a recycling bin? Digital photography is a revolution that happened faster than anyone predicted. Now photofinishing is a doomed business. Sadly, record stores (note: the use of words gives away my age) are disappearing as MP3 and I Pods are the new norm. These changes would happen, recession or no recession.

Finally, these employment figures are impacting government at all levels. Something like 45 out of 47 states reporting (don’t remember where I saw that number) are suffering from serious drops in revenue. 39 states are looking at serious shortfalls in revenue as the cost of maintaining their social services net increases even as their tax base declines.

Believing that we can educate our way out of this catastrophe is simple nonsense. As I have mentioned once before. I thought I was a pretty smart fellow until I returned to engineering school and ran into courses like Calculus and Thermodynamics. Since I was paying my own way and never ever wanted to return to a factory, I was highly motivated. I was 30 years old, married, and a Christian so I did not suffer from the typical undergraduate distractions offered by beer, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Still engineering school durn near killed me. I realized that most of the folks who worked with me in the saw chain factory could never make through computer science courses or any other training that could offer them what were the “new jobs” of the 1980s. Today we have a backlog of unemployed computer programmers. These people are young, healthy, and experienced. They can not find jobs. Who is going to hire a 50 year old assembly line worker with a network certificate and no experience when they can have a better employee who will work for less money?

In a recent article posted on CNBC’s web site, hardly a source of right wing opinion, the author made some of the same points I mentioned in my review of The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman.

“A potential wave of new regulation and higher taxes may be scaring many businesses from hiring, prolonging any rebound in employment, say business groups and economists. “The prospect of increased federal and state regulation and taxes has been particularly disruptive to the hiring plans of small- and medium-sized businesses, which have historically generated about two-thirds of the nation's jobs.

"I don't really see the private sector hiring much in the next few months," says Brian Bethune, an economist at Global Insight. "For the small-business sector there is just too much uncertainty about what happens beyond 2010."

It is a time for prayer and repentance.

Psalm 102
[1] Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee.
[2] Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.
[3] For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
[4] My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.
[5] By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.
[6] I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.
[7] I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.
[8] Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me.
[9] For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,
[10] Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down.
[11] My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.
[12] But thou, O LORD, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.
[13] Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come.
[14] For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.
[15] So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.
[16] When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.
[17] He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.
[18] This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD.
[19] For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth;