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http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/10/unemployment-rate-is-still-far-from-normal/4411359/
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Although the recent times have seen many great strides in terms of the recovery of the economy in the United States, the figures of growth are rather poor when compared to the recent past. From 1995 to August of 2008, when the economy was generally prospering in most areas, unemployment rates never rose above six percent, and job growth was very large. Since the late 2000's, the economy has been recovering from a recession, and recently, unemployment rates, which had approached ten percent a few years ago, has seen an upturn as well. Unfortunately, the current rates and figures are very poor when compared to that aforementioned period between 1995 and 2008. Experts suggest that a very strong and successful economy should be functioning at around a five percent unemployment rate like what was seen during that period. Today, although the unemployment rate has greatly decreased, it is also still around seven percent, which means it has a long way to go before widespread consideration of things being back to "normal" can be suggested.
Personally, I don't think it is completely fair to compare our current economic situation to the times before the recession. First of all, international affairs, government officials, and all of those other factors from then are not at all the same as they are today. Now, the economy has brand new factors to deal with every day that were not seen ten or more years ago. And, chances are, in about twenty years or so there could be people trying to compare their situation to ours, and it simply isn't fair or justified. Sure, the unemployment rate is close to two percent higher than it was before, but the population is also nearly twenty percent larger than it was in 1995. This means that there are nearly fifty million people that need to be accounted for, and it's possible that there are just more people willing to work than their are jobs, regardless of any economic situation.
Ehhh. I don't know how I feel about your population argument. Since 1995 we've also seen a technological revolution that has increased the amount of jobs tremendously.
ReplyDeleteThe unemployment rate is worse that it seems because of all of the discouraged workers that happen to be just sitting around not doing anything. So yeah, obviously the unemployment rate is not where we want it, but the only way to fix it is to get the uncounted discouraged workers to start working again.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with the argument that there are a lot more people and not as many jobs to go around. I think that the jobs are there but the people are not willing to occupy those jobs because they think they are too "good" for those jobs. I do agree that it is unfair to compare economies though, There are completely different circumstances. It would have been real easy for the people of the depression to say that the roaring twenties had a better economy than they had.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the factors surrounding the situation are different than they were. However the 50 million more people isn't really accurate because business would have expanded to for the most part to compensate for the increased population.
ReplyDeleteThe unemployment rate no longer seems reliable since discourage workers din't count and I don't think many people know that so all the numbers are skewed. Plus the more people in the world the more people to be unemployed.
ReplyDeleteI don't trust the unemployment rate since measuring it is way too complicated. In my opinion, the population grows way faster than jobs so unemployment rate rises as population rises is not a surprise.
ReplyDeleteAccording to many environmental science books, such as "A World Without us," states that we are well beyond the carrying capacity of Earth. I do believe there are way too many people than jobs available but on the other hand there are a ton of jobs that can be occupied currently but people are generally too lazy today to make commitments of the such; in my opinion.
ReplyDelete1) I am soooo sick of the lazy argument. Like, I'm dyin here.
ReplyDelete2) Also, I think it would be a lot more effective if we literally just reported how many people who can work do not have jobs. The current way the unemployment rate is calculated is simply a manipulation of the numbers in order to emphasize or deemphasize certain points the government wants to make (on both sides).
I find the unemployment rate by itself to be very misleading because of the discouraged workers and everything. I'm not surprised that as the population rises the unemployment rate rises, because there aren't enough jobs. I wonder though that how many people would be without a job if we didn't have any discouraged workers and if people were willing to take any job even if their skill set has surpassed the skill of the job, then look at how many people are really without a job because there are not enough jobs. That scenario would never happen but if it did then that question crosses my mind.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are also discouraged workers out there that are not being counted. Plus there are workers out there that are underemployed. The economy still has a way to go before it becomes strong enough to have an unemployment rate around 5%.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that not counting discouraged workers is dumb and confusing. Discouraged workers are not contributing to the economy and therefore should be counted as well.
ReplyDelete