Widespread long-term chronic unemployment was something that America was never supposed to see again.
Most Americans still do not understand just how bad the economic horror we are facing really is. Today, millions of Americans are living as paupers in the land that their foreathers built even as America’s infrastructure is literally being sold out from under their feet by corrupt politicians. The “official” unemployment rate in the United States has been at nine and a half percent or above for 14 consecutive months, and today it takes the average unemployed American about 35 weeks to find a job. However, the “official” unemployment rate is misleading, because it does not include workers that have quit looking for work or that have had their hours cut back to part-time. According to 60 Minutes, when you add those “discouraged workers” and “underemployed workers” into the equation the actual rate is about 17 percent, and in the state of California the actual rate is about 22 percent. Meanwhile, foreign nations are using sovereign wealth funds to buy up staggering amounts of U.S. infrastructure. America is quite literally for sale in 2010. All across the United States, highways, ports, toll roads and even parking meters are being gobbled up by foreign powers. We have shipped massive amounts of wealth and jobs to other nations, and now those very same countries are turning around and buying huge amounts of U.S. infrastructure with the gigantic piles of dollars that they have accumulated.
Widespread long-term chronic unemployment was something that America was never supposed to see again. Our leaders promised us that the U.S. financial system was so strong that we would never have another “Great Depression” in our lifetimes. But then the financial crisis of 2008 happened. Unprecedented numbers of Americans started losing their jobs and the U.S. Congress did something that it had never done before. Congress decided to extend unemployment benefits all the way out to 99 weeks.
Doing that has cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $100 billion dollars to this point, but we were promised that it was a “temporary” fix and that it would give displaced U.S. workers a chance to find new jobs.
Surely any industrious American worker could get another job within 99 weeks, right?
Wrong.
Today, there are at least 1.5 milion “99ers” – those Americans that have completely exhausted all 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and that still do not have jobs.
Sadly, as bad as that number sounds, it is likely to keep growing. Today, over one-third of all unemployed Americans have already been unemployed for at least one year. If this trend continues, we are going to end up with millions of “99ers”.
60 Minutes recently did a report on some of these “99ers”. Many of them are very highly educated and very highly qualified. If you have not seen this 60 Minutes report yet, you have got to take few minutes to sit down and watch it. This video is so shocking that many of you will have your jaws on the floor by the time you finish watching it….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CwpdGyIY2fQ
So is there much reason for these “99ers” to be optimistic?
No, not really.
In fact, there are some indications that unemployment in America is actually getting worse. Gallup’s measure of unemployment, which is not adjusted for “seasonal factors”, exhibited a sharp increase in the month of September. According to Gallup, unemployment has increased from 8.9% in July to 9.3% in August and to 10.1% in September.
In addition, the seasonally-adjusted “Alternate Unemployment Rate” compiled by Shadow Government Statistics also indicates that unemployment in the U.S. is going up once again. The Alternate Unemployment Rate calculated by SGS reflects estimated “long-term discouraged workers”, which the U.S. government stopped keeping track of back in 1994….
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