With the official national unemployment rate down from 10.2% to 10% and the economy shedding “only” 11,000 jobs last month, you may be wondering why the joint ain’t jumpin’.
More personally, you may be wondering why you, or a family member, or a friend, can’t find a decent job.
Mint Life (“Know your money. Live your life.”) provides a handy-dandy graphic roadmap so that you can figure out why 10% unemployment feels so bad.
Free budget software – Mint.com
Something not talked about much in the mainstream media is that the official unemployment rate leaves a bunch of people uncounted.
These “marginally attached” workers include those not working as many hours as they’d like as well as students, parents of young children, people who are ill, those who are semi-retired…
…and “discouraged” workers.
That last batch are folks who have been looking for work for so long with so little luck that they’ve given up, moved in with somebody who does have an income, and taken up volunteer work at their church. (Or they sit around playing Doom in their undershorts).
They don’t show up in the talked-about unemployment number, but they do show up when the economy finally begins creating jobs again — because they clean themselves up and go back to job-hunting.
Their return to active job-hunting tosses them back into the unemployed pool — and keeps the unemployment rate high.
So expect a long, slow, dreary slog of a recovery — if we’re lucky.
And don’t max out the credit cards for Christmas.
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Tags: Business and Economy, employment, Mint.com, unemployment
