MetaFilter posts tagged with Economy and unemployment

The new faces of day labor

Joe Beese — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:34:52 -0800

It sounds like a George Lopez joke. “Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.” Except it’s true.

The jobless rate for people like you

Afroblanco — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:33:26 -0800

The jobless rate for people like you.

Recession over in France and Germany

malapropist — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:18:13 -0800

The economy is abjectly terrible, right? It's so bad that nowadays, a picture is only worth 200 words. On the other hand, the recession is over in Germany and France, and in the United States, the unemployment rate dropped just a smidgen last month. To be fair, the recession wasn't as severe in France and Germany, and didn't start so early. Still, this seems a far cry from talk of a second depression.

How green was my valley

KokuRyu — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:51:06 -0800

How green was my valley: California's economic meltdown The fields of wheat, cotton and cantaloupe that sustained his family for three generations are gone. The land is a mess of fallow fields, cracked earth and swirling dust. (PDF - By some estimates, 12.8% of the United States' agricultural production (as measured by dollar value) comes from California, and the majority of that is in the Central Valley). However, his particular scene of devastation, Mr. Allen argues, has nothing to do with the credit crisis, the housing crash or the downturn that has California in a vice grip. It has to do with a seven-centimetre-long, semi-translucent, steel blue fish known as the Delta smelt. This is not a story about fish. Rather, it is a story about how efforts to save the fish through a court-ordered water shortage have pushed a region already brought to the brink by recession over the edge... "In the Central Valley regional area, we've got 40,000 unemployed people. General Motors had 30,000 and got a government bailout. We're getting nothing." See also: California v Texas

Many Left Uncounted in Nation's Official Jobless Rate

gman — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:03:35 -0800

Paul Solman examines how the number of jobless people who fall outside of official unemployment counts (video) offer a different picture of the nation's economic recovery. Transcript here. "Who here thinks it's higher than 12 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent? How many people think it's 20 percent? And 20 percent may not be far-fetched, it turns out, because of two other groups never counted as unemployed. One is those on government disability: 7.5 million Americans, like 57-year-old Bob Zawacki, a Chicago carpenter."

Going Dutch

goodnewsfortheinsane — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:20:34 -0800

[E]ven if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of [vacation money] from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.
[...]
But does the cartoon image of [the Dutch system] — encapsulated in the dread slur "socialism," which is being lobbed in American political circles like a bomb — match reality? Is there, maybe, a significant upside that is worth exploring? [...] I think it’s worth pondering how the best bits might fit.

After a year and a half of living in the Netherlands, American writer Russell Shorto compares the Dutch "welfare state" to the tax, health care and social security systems of the United States.

No Working No Die

dersins — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:13:57 -0800

Unemployment: good for the heart and the soul. "In studies over the past 10 years, Ruhm has consistently found death rates decline during recessions and rise when the economy expands. If unemployment rises 1 percent, he estimates the death rate will fall by about half a percent."

Are US Inflation and Employment Underestimated?

salvia — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:55:16 -0800

"Hard Numbers: The Economy is Worse than You Know" [full article for Harper's subscribers, a different abridged version] discusses how the Consumer Price Index and other US economic statistics have been manipulated over time. Among other things, the article claims, these changes make Social Security checks 70% lower than they would otherwise be. According to Barry Ritholtz of the Big Picture blog, "the longstanding official myth that [US] inflation is modest and contained is starting to be recognized for the fraud that it is." He believes that these bad statistics give false answers to even bigger questions, like "are we in a recession?" A New York Times graphic shows what's in this basket of consumer prices, which prices are going up, and which are not. To learn more about what's not counted, visit Shadow Government Statistics, which tracks (for subscribers) what inflation would be under earlier formulas. (Previously.)

US Census Bureau's DataWeb

Gyan — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:03:28 -0800

TheDataWeb - a network of online data libraries on topics including census data, economic data, health data, income and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, vital statistics data

bakesales! lemonade stands!

luser — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 09:21:46 -0800

Dick Cheney claims that disappointing jobs numbers are undercounting ebay power sellers. The man is on a tear!

The Caller You Have Reached is Unavailable and/or Annoyed

archimago — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 07:10:11 -0800

The day the dinnertime phone calls stopped. We've previously discussed the new national do-not-call list on Mefi, but this Salon piece puts a new spin on the subject. Millions of rural Americans will inevitably lose telemarketing jobs because telemarketing will be regulated out of business. But the government isn't regulating them out of business, it is just providing a way for people to choose not to participate in this business scheme. The people who add their names to the list are the people who are going to hang up in the telelmarketer's face anyways, so where's the harm in this list? And what about the DMA's 10 reasons to protect the teleservices industry?

Happy Days Are Here Again: Tax Cuts and The Jobless Recovery

y2karl — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 23:38:14 -0800

The change in private employment, two years after recession began, for 1953 to Present.
Details: The jobless recovery continued in March 2003 as the nation's payrolls contracted by 108,000, according to report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). These losses are in addition to last month's payroll declines, which also were revised up to 357,000. Taken together, the economy has lost 465,000 jobs in the past two months. In the two years since the recession began in March 2001, total payrolls have fallen by 2.1 million and private sector payrolls are down by 2.6 million.
The Jobless Recovery.
Low growth accompanies record trade deficit:
Last month in Beijing, Robert Zoellick, President George W. Bush's international trade ambassador, had nothing but praise for China's growing trade surplus. Meanwhile in St. Louis in January, the president stumped for more tax cuts, standing before a facade of boxes with the words "Made in China" covered over in tape.
2001 Tax Cuts and the Proposed 2003 Cuts
Details: Discarding pretense of tax cut equity
Also: Economists Voice Opposition to Bush Tax Cuts