Job losses from the start of the recession are by far the worst since WWII in percentage terms. Employment peaked in December 2007. The depth and potentially the length of significant unemployment is illustrated in the graph below from calculatedriskblog.com.
"Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours."
~ Ronald Reagan
 Perhaps you had a hunch. And perhaps you were correct: According to a new study, the elites do NOT feel the plight of the unemployed and underemployed. The recession is hitting mostly lower income people and not only have low-income workers been the hardest hit by the jobs crisis -- but, shockingly, there has been "no labor market recession for America's affluent."
The study from Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada and Sheila Palma at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies suggests that the unemployment problem is largely a problem for low-wage workers.
Workers in different segments of the income distribution found themselves in radically different labor market conditions at the end of calendar year 2009. A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution, a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top. There was no labor market recession for America's affluent.
From the study:
- Households earning over $100,000 per year are near a "full employment environment." Households with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent, those with incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent. Unemployment rates below 5% have tradionally been considered "full employment."
- Households with incomes of $12,499 or less. had an unemployment rate of a staggering 30.8 percent. That's more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Great Depression.
Bob Herbert at the New York Times noted, "The point here is that those in the lower-income groups are in a much, much deeper hole than the general commentary on the recession would lead people to believe."
 New York Times Columnist and Economist Paul Krugman weighs in.
NoJobSurvivors say: Please Obama, heed this call!
January 26, 2010, 9:01 am
A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?
It’s appalling on every level.
It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)
It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.
And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, “I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy.”
Now, I still cling to a fantasy: maybe, just possibly, Obama is going to tie his spending freeze to something that would actually help the economy, like an employment tax credit. (No, trivial tax breaks don’t count). There has, however, been no hint of anything like that in the reports so far. Right now, this looks like pure disaster.
Eric Lotke of OurFuture.org sets out to make sense of Obama's upcoming State-of-the-Union proposal. "Mostly, the new initiatives don’t create jobs. Doubling the child tax credit, limiting student loan payments to ten percent of income, expanding tax credits to match retirement savings – they’re just relief. They are designed to help underpaid or unemployed people to cope when they don’t have enough money. They don’t create jobs or generate wealth."
Read: Good Obama Middle Class Help. But What About Jobs?
Jobless Rate* Increases Across 43 States in December
 Forty-three states and the District of Columbia recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, four states registered rate decreases, and three states had no rate change,* the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the year, jobless rates increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Twenty-one states reported statistically significant over-the-month unemployment rate increases in December. Louisiana and Mississippi experienced the largest of these (+0.8 percentage point each). The national unemployment rate dropped to 10.0 percent in December.
January 8, 2010 Robert Reich: The Bad Job Numbers and the Secret Second Stimulus The Labor Department reports that 85,000 jobs were lost in December. The official rate of unemployment (which measures how many people are looking for jobs) held steady at 10 percent nonetheless. That's because so many more people have stopped looking. Reportedly, 661,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force last month, deciding there was no hope of finding a job. Had they continued to look, the official unemployment rate would have been 10.4 percent.
These statistics mask an even more troubling reality. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, around 8 million jobs have been lost. But this doesn't include all the people who, in a growing national population, would have entered the labor market had there been jobs for them. These "never entereds" amount to an estimated 2.5 million. So, in truth, the national economy is down by 10.6 million jobs overall. There's no way to make this up for years.
The most painful political truth for Democrats is the nation won't possibly be out of this jobs hole by the presidential election of 2012, even if the recovery is vigorous. Do the math. In order to get out of the hole, we'd need an average monthly increase of 400,000 jobs between now and then. But even at the peak of the 1990s jobs boom, the highest we ever got was 280,000 jobs a month. At the peak of the last recovery, in 2005, we got no higher than 212,000 jobs a month. Bottom line: Obama will be going into an election year with a higher total level of unemployment than before the Great Recession. He will have to argue that, were it not for his policies, things would be even worse. Counter-factuals like this do not sit well on bumper stickers.
 December 4, 2009 The government reported today that only 11,000 jobs were lost in November, the fewest lost since the start of the recession.
Long term unemployment, defined to be 27 weeks or longer out of work, increased to a total 5.9 million, 38.3% or over 1 in 3 unemployed people. This is 3.8% of the total labor force—far surpassing the previous peak of 2.6% set in June 1983.
The number of unemployed persons declined slightly by 463,000 to 15.4 million. The November U-6 unemployment rate was 17.2%, a small decline from October by a third of a percentage point.
The more commonly quoted U-3 unemployment rate was 10.0 percent, declining by two tenths of a percentage point from October.
 November 25, 2009 The number of new applications for Unemployment Insurance tumbled to 466,000, dropping to below half a million for the first time since January according to the US Department of Labor .
The 4-week moving average was 496,500, a decrease of 35,000 from the previous week's revised average of 513,000.
Insured unemployment ending the week November 14 decreased by 190,000+ from the adjusted preceding week of 5,613,000 to 5,423,000. The 4 week moving average continued to decline, dropping to 5,613,750, a decrease of 98,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,712,250.
WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that workers from New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) in Fremont, Califilfornia, are eligible to apply for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). EAYYZQBA9DVU
"This administration remains unwavering in its commitment both to growing the nation's economy and to creating good jobs for these and other displaced workers," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "Auto workers impacted by foreign competition deserve our support, and TAA is one tool that we can bring to bear when plant closings and layoffs threaten communities. The program will ensure that eligible workers can access greatly needed support and services during this trying economic time."
 November 19, 2009 The US Department of Labor said the number of people filing new applications for unemployment insurance in the week ending 14 November was unchanged from the revised previous week at 505,000. The 4-week moving average was 519,750, a decrease of 4,500 from the previous week's revised average of 524,250.
Insured unemployment ending the week November 7 decreased by 39,000+ from the adjusted preceding week of 5,650,000 to 5,611,000. The 4 week moving average continued to decline, dropping to 5,711,500, a decrease of 83,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,795,500.
 November 12, 2009 The US Department of Labor said new applications for unemployment dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 502,000 in the week ending November 7, from from the prior week's revised figure of 514,000. The 4-week moving average was 519,750, a decrease of 4,500 from the previous week's revised average of 524,250.
Insured unemployment ending the week October 31 decreased by 139,000+ from the adjusted preceding week of 5,770,000 to 5,631,000. The 4 week moving average continued to decline, dropping to 5,790,750, a decrease of 100,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,891,500.
 November 6, 2009 The government reported today that 190,000 jobs were lost in October.
The number of unemployed persons rose by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The September U-6 unemployment rate was 17.5%, a rise from September by half of a percentage point. The more commonly quoted U-3 unemployment rate was 10.2 percent, rising by four tenths of a percentage point from September.
Long term unemployment, defined to be 27 weeks or longer out of work, increased to a total 5.6 million, 35.6% or over 1 in 3 unemployed people.
 November 5, 2009 The US Department of Labor said new applications for unemployment dropped 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 512,000 in the week ending October 31, from from the prior week's revised figure of 532,000. The 4-week moving average was 523,750, a decrease of 3000 from the previous week's revised average of 526,7250.
Insured unemployment ending the week October 24 decreased by 68,000+ from the adjusted preceding week of 5,817,000 to 5,749,000. The 4 week moving average continued to decline, dropping to 5,886,250, a decrease of 79,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,965,750.
 October 30, 2009, History We Can Use:
Terrance Heath of OurFuture.org asks,
"Is it 1929 all over again?"
Robert Kutner, co-editor of The American Prospect responds:
ROBERT KUTTNER: Yes, this is 1929 all over again. For the same reasons. The crash of 1929 was caused by too much speculation, with too much borrowed money, with too many conflicts of interest and too little transparency. And in the 1930's the New Deal mostly repaired that by much tighter regulation of banks, much stricter supervision of conflict of interest, much greater controls on leverage and much grater disclosure for investors.
But it fixed the problem for the known universe of financial institutions, and after the '70s all kinds of new exotic financial instruments were invented. And because deregulation came back into fashion, and the right wing really took over the conversation as well as government regulators did not keep up with the new instruments that Wall Street invented. And so all the same kinds of uses crept back in, and it took about 20 years until the house of cards was so high and so rickety that you then had the same kind of crash.
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