How did the unemployed become invisible?

[woo me with science]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/the-unemployed-somehow-became-invisible.html?_r=1

Somehow, the Unemployed Became Invisible
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: July 9, 2011


GRIM number of the week: 14,087,000.
Job Growth Falters Badly, Clouding Hope for Recovery (July 9, 2011)

Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.

Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.

What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?

The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.

But unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem. The budget deficit, not jobs, has been dominating the conversation in Washington. Unlike the hard-pressed in, say, Greece or Spain, the jobless in America seem, well, subdued. The old fire has gone out.

In some ways, this boils down to math, both economic and political. Yes, 9.2 percent of the American work force is unemployed — but 90.8 percent of it is working. To elected officials, the unemployed are a relatively small constituency. And with apologies to Karl Marx, the workers of the world, particularly the unemployed, are also no longer uniting.

Nor are they voting — or at least not as much as people with jobs. In 2010, some 46 percent of working Americans who were eligible to vote did so, compared with 35 percent of the unemployed, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at George Mason University. There was a similar turnout gap in the 2008 election.

No wonder policy makers don’t fear unemployed Americans. The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible.

...(more at link)

[hfojvt]

1. I know, the President didn't even bother to mention them

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=8238987

:sarcasm:

Of course, many of his proposals there are crap. Extend the payroll tax holiday? Sheesh, what a bunch of trickle down that is. Never mind too, that it won't have any impact - zero, until January of next year.

[woo me with science]

2. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x560332

[patrice]

3. In an "at will" employment environment in which people CAN be terminated for what they think,

many of the employed are quite likely afraid to get involved in political action, until it is all but too late to do anything effective about it, i.e. when they vote.

[gkhouston]

4. They can't afford to buy anything, so they no longer matter. n/t

[saras]

5. This part - "but 90.8 percent of it is working." proves the falsity of the rest.

The claim that 9 out of 10 Americans have legal, above-the-table jobs sufficient to support themselves (I don't care about the 'poverty line', I just care that the job enables them to actually pay all their bills, including medical costs) is patently, and obviously, ludicrous to anyone who has any exposure to the world of employment AT ALL.

[Dulcinea]

6. No one cares about the unemployed.

In all the talk about the economy, debt ceiling, etc., there's no mention of job creation except to say, "Don't tax the job creators!" WHAT job creators?!

There's no will on the part of business or government to do anything about unemployment.

We'll never get out of this recession till joblessness is addressed & on the road to being resolved.

[high density]

7. OK, Business section of the NY times: Why aren't BUSINESSES hiring people?

Government obviously isn't in a position to do it all.

No amount of populist anger is going to affect corporate greed.