Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mongrel]

The difference between 8% unemployment and 30% unemployment is by several orders of magnitude.

Eight? EIGHT? Oh, you poor hapless fool. You're so, so lucky to not be living here.

Well, the average in Canada peaked at 8.X%, though in certain hard-hit areas such as say, Windsor, it's worse, by up to twice as much - but those are very localized problems.

In the US reports, I continually hear a national average of roughly 10% being quoted. Where do you live, Detroit?

[Norondor]

They don't count people who've been jobless since the last count, sir. As of last September, the REAL unemployment rate was around 18%.

[Mothra]

Ha! 

Our Great Depression makes their Great Depression look like a pussy!

[Royal☭]

17.2% real unemployment now, comparable to 25% during Great Depression.

That 25% figure during the Great Depression, however, is kind of close to a guess.  The US government didn't start recording employment figures until after World War II, and the 25% figure was pieced together afterwards.

[Mongrel]

Well, regardless, I still stand by my assertion that we're all a lot better off now than anybody was back then.

If there's anything else our grandparents can teach us, it's not to have an overinflated view of our own hardships.

[Kashan]

We are a lot better off right now, but mostly because we have a functional safety net of sorts.

[Norondor]

Who is "we?" I've just been contacted by the unemployment insurance agency 14 months after being laid off. I'm $10,000 in debt. I may or may not have a job starting in a week. Nothing will save me if i don't. There are millions and millions of people like me.

[Royal☭]

Shouldn't you be dead of SwinePox by now?

[Mongrel]

A man who still has an internet connection 14 months after being laid off has it better than someone who was 14 months laid off during the Great Depression.

EDIT: Not trying to belittle the shittiness of what you're going through right now Nor. No job and 10k debt is still bad times, but seriously man, I am trying to tell you that things can be far far worse and have been so in the past.

[SCD]

Was about to say the same thing.  I assume you can eat daily as well through one means or another. 

[Royal☭]

I think he's in college?  Or living with yyler?  Also there are libraries?



Either way his poorness is dirtying up these forums and if he's not going to fetch my slippers I'd appreciate it if he'd just roll over and die already.

[Mongrel]

If he's in college that doesn't exactly help his argument. :/

[Norondor]

I am waiting on money for school which i probably won't get and have lied and wheedled to stay where i am as long as i have. if it doesn't show up i'll probably be completely screwed.

[Royal☭]

Legislation brought forward to re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act, that was repealed in 1999, by... uh... John McCain.

This is a fantastic bill, actually, that is not receiving support from the White House for some reason.  It's also awkward for John McCain because his chief economic advisor on the campaign was Phil Graham, who's responsible for the repeal of Glass-Steagall in the first place.

I honestly don't know why the White House isn't supporting this.  It's not the only thing that caused the crash, but it was a pretty good jumping off point.

[R^2]

A man who still has an internet connection 14 months after being laid off

I will not perish so long as free Internet lives in the hearts of public libraries [spoiler]puff[/spoiler]

[SCD]

An interesting audio slideshow on the emptyness of Detroit

[Royal☭]

Unemployment rate drops to 9.7%.  The real unemployment rate actually made a bigger drop, from 17.3 to 16.5%.

It's a little too early to say that things are finally turning around, and even if things were this could just be symptoms of yet another bubble that'll burst, but it's probably the best news Democrats have had in months.

[Norondor]

Here's a fun article for you to read on the day after valentine's, all about how bad it is that nobody will ever have jobs again, and nothing will get better.

[Mongrel]

North America's middle classes and society in general have been losing ground since the 70's. We were just good at lying about it for a long time. Real prosperity declined and shiny gew-gaws became cheaper. Nothing new under the sun, really.

We'll never have houses, job security, retirements, or do anything meaningful, but video games and Wal-mart T shirts are cheap and plentiful! Of course, some people would consider that a fair trade, I guess?

[Norondor]

yeah, but the new research this article talks about is a real ray of sunshine.

Strong evidence suggests that people who don’t find solid roots in the job market within a year or two have a particularly hard time righting themselves. In part, that’s because many of them become different—and damaged—people. Krysia Mossakowski, a sociologist at the University of Miami, has found that in young adults, long bouts of unemployment provoke long-lasting changes in behavior and mental health. “Some people say, ‘Oh, well, they’re young, they’re in and out of the workforce, so unemployment shouldn’t matter much psychologically,’” Mossakowski told me. “But that isn’t true.”

Examining national longitudinal data, Mossakowski has found that people who were unemployed for long periods in their teens or early 20s are far more likely to develop a habit of heavy drinking (five or more drinks in one sitting) by the time they approach middle age. They are also more likely to develop depressive symptoms. Prior drinking behavior and psychological history do not explain these problems—they result from unemployment itself. And the problems are not limited to those who never find steady work; they show up quite strongly as well in people who are later working regularly.