The U.S. has 2 million less jobs now than we had at the end of 1999. Think about that: 10 years, nothing but job losses. And now we see that trend really ramping up. Right now it is a safe bet that there are 26 million people in the U.S. who are either unemployed or involuntarily working part time: 2.2 million who would like to work but haven’t been able to land a job and aren’t receiving benefits, 9.2 million involuntary part-timers and 15.1 million formally unemployed.
The real devastation is occurring to our young people. “The number of young Americans without a job has exploded to 53.4 percent — a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. — meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time.” (New York Post)
Folks, it doesn’t matter what the stock market does: these numbers mean real human pain, and there isn’t anything on the horizon that will make it better. Since we are such a good-news culture, most people are not hearing these numbers, or if they do, they are tuning them out. How can we stand by and let more than half of our young people go jobless? This gap, these missing productive years, will really take a toll on our country down the road.
