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Posts Tagged ‘unemployment’

Middle Class Shrinking; Poverty Class Expanding

January 25, 2011 Comments off
No Jobs, No Hope, No Future: 27 Signs That America’s Poverty Class Is Rapidly Becoming Larger Than America’s Middle Class

In the America that most of us grew up in, most Americans considered themselves to be part of the “upper middle class”, the “middle class” or “the lower middle class”.  Yes, there have always been poor people and homeless people, but they were thought to be a very small sliver of the population.  Well, today all of that is dramatically changing.  America’s emerging “poverty class” is exploding in size at the same time that America’s middle class is rapidly disappearing.  You won’t hear it on the mainstream news, but the truth is that the United States has lost ten percent of its middle class jobs over the past decade.  Only the top 5 percent of income earners in the U.S. has had their incomes increase enough to keep up with the rising cost of living over the past 40 years.  The truth is that today there are a whole lot of people aggressively jostling for the small number of good jobs that are actually available and each year millions more Americans are being squeezed out of the middle class.  The number of Americans that are financially dependent on the U.S. government continues to set new records month after month.  The number of Americans that are participating in the labor force continues to go down.  The sad reality is that the “American Dream” that so many Americans used to take for granted is being ripped away from us.  If you still believe that the United States is guaranteed to always have a very large, very prosperous middle class then you really need to read the statistics listed below.

If you told most Americans ten years ago that in 2011 over 43 million Americans would be on food stamps hardly anyone would have believed you.

But yet here we are.

The U.S. economy simply is not producing enough good jobs anymore.  Most of those that are able to acquire one of these jobs have been able to cling to middle class status, but for millions upon millions of others economic desperation has become “the new normal”.

In fact, more Americans than ever seem to have Read more…

Categories: America, Economy Tags: , , , , , , ,

Fed chief expects high unemployment, economic growth in 2011

January 24, 2011 Comments off

Vicki Needham

Unemployment will remain high, the nation’s economy could expand by 4 percent and interest rates may need go up, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said Monday.

“If economic growth in the United States continues to gain traction and the prospects begin to look ever better, it might be time for us to begin thinking about how do we begin to gradually take our foot off the accelerator,” Plosser told reporters after a speech at the Central Bank of Chile in Santiago, according to news reports.

Plosser said he may favor a rate increase if economic growth necessitates a change.

“It might. I’m not going to rule that out,” he said.

The central bank has said that it plans to keep short-term interest rates low for an “extended period.”

During Monday’s speech, Plosser also predicted that the U.S. could grow between 3 percent and 4 percent this year.

The Fed’s plan to purchase $600 billion in government debt will probably continue through June while the nation’s 15 million unemployed look for work, although Plosser didn’t rule out pulling the stimulus funds back earlier.

“It could end earlier if economic conditions call for it, but right now I’m not sure that that’s the most likely outcome,” he told reporters. “It obviously creates challenges for some countries because of appreciating currencies. But I think that will pass. Those are short-run issues.”

Plosser has expressed concern about whether the Fed’s quantitative easing, also known as QE2, will spur economic growth while lowering the jobless rate that has remained above 9 percent for 20 months.

“Monetary policy is not going to be able to speed up the adjustments in labor markets or prevent asset bubbles, and attempts to do so may create more instability, not less,” he said.

“Expecting too much of monetary policy will undermine its ability to achieve the one thing that it is well-designed to do — ensuring long-term price stability.”

QE2 has brought harsh criticism from some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who argue that the plan could devalue the dollar and cause inflation.

Categories: 2011, Economy, jobs Tags: , , , , , , ,

State bankruptcy bill imminent, Gingrich says

January 23, 2011 Comments off

Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON— Legislation that would allow U.S. states to file for bankruptcy will likely be introduced in Congress within the next month, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and a powerful Republican party figure, told Reuters on Friday.

California Governor Jerry Brown’s Finance Director Ana Matosantos (R) holds his budget proposal in Sacramento, California January 10, 2011. REUTERS/Max Whittaker
Although Gingrich, considered responsible for the “Republican Revolution” of the 1990’s, is no longer in office, he has deep ties to Congress and is frequently named as a potential presidential contender in 2012.

For months he has championed letting states file for bankruptcy in order to handle their long-term budget problems despite resistance from states and investors in the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market.

“We’re faced with the danger that the states are going to try to show up and say to Washington: You have to give us money,” Gingrich said. “And I think we have to have an alternative that allows us to say no.” Read more…

Categories: bankruptcy Tags: , , , ,

More than a million immigrants land U.S. jobs

January 22, 2011 Comments off

Stepped-up enforcement is not deterring trend of foreign-born employment

DALLAS — Over the past two years, as U.S. unemployment remained near double-digit levels and the economy shed jobs in the wake of the financial crisis, over a million foreign-born arrivals to America found work, many illegally.

Those are among the findings of a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data conducted exclusively for Reuters by researchers at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

Often young and unskilled or semi-skilled, immigrants have taken jobs Americans could do in areas like construction, willing to work for less wages. Others land jobs that unemployed Americans turn up their noses at or lack the skills to do.

With a national unemployment rate of 9.4 percent, domestic job creation is at the top of President Barack Obama’s agenda and such findings could add to calls to tighten up on illegal immigration. But much of it is Hispanic and the growing Latino vote is a key base for Obama’s Democratic Party.

Many of the new arrivals, according to employers, brought with them skills required of the building trade and found work in sectors such as construction, where jobless rates are high.

“Employers have chosen to use new immigrants over native-born workers and have continued to displace large numbers of blue-collar workers and young adults without college degrees,” said Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. Read more…

Categories: America, jobs Tags: , , , , ,

Home Price Declines Greater than Great Depression

January 21, 2011 Comments off

 

Source – Reuters

(Reuters) – Home prices fell for the 53rd consecutive month in November (the latest data available), taking the decline past that of the Great Depression for the first time in the prolonged housing slump, according to Zillow.

Home prices have fallen 26 percent since their peak in 2006, exceeding the 25.9 percent drop registered in the five years between 1928 and 1933, the housing data company said in a report on Monday. Prices fell 0.8 percent over the month.

It is a dubious milestone for the U.S. housing market which has failed to gain much traction despite a host of government programs to reduce delinquencies and encourage demand with temporary tax credits and lower interest rates. Many economists expect further price drops, even if there are some anecdotal signs of growing demand, such as in pending home sales data.

“For the next six to nine months, the larger factors affecting the housing market that will produce more home price declines will be the excess inventory of homes, high negative equity and foreclosure rates, and weakened demand due to elevated employment, Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist, said in a blog post.

Declines are accelerating, and it will take a while before falling unemployment and other signs of economic improvement support the market, Zillow said.

Home prices fell at a 0.78 percent pace in November, the fastest since February 2009, the company said.

Categories: Housing Tags: , ,