Unemployment
Thursday, February 5th, 2009It’s said that a recession is when the person next door is out of work.
And a depression is when you are out of work.
We are losing jobs in the United States at a rate of more than a half million a month. Everyone agrees on that. New figures come out tomorrow, and the guess is about 660,000, seasonally adjusted.
That means in reality, without adjustment, it will actually be something like 700, 000 (conservatively) to 1,000,000 or more. One friend totaled up raw figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not counting retirees and others who are truly not in the job market, and he got a total of 19.5% unemployed in the United States. And that is previous to the new report tomorrow.
(more…)