For America's "99ers," jobs crisis is hard to escape

[Starry Messenger]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/For-Americas-99ers-jobs-rb-3590083070.html?x=0&.v=2&.pf=career-work&mod=pf-career-work

SEWELL, New Jersey (Reuters) - Mary Kay Coyne has just filed what she says is her 1,862nd job application since being thrown out of work three years ago.

She is one of millions of Americans whose unemployment benefits have expired -- after 99 weeks in many states -- as the United States suffers its highest level of long-term unemployment since 1948.

<snip>

More than 14 percent of the U.S. unemployed have been out of a job for 99 weeks, or longer.

The Labor Department’s report on Friday showed that the unemployment rate climbed to a six-month high of 9.2 percent in June.

[sakabatou]

1. Bush: Mission accomplished!

:puke:

[Starry Messenger]

2. He was certainly an efficient color guard for capitalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour

His argument is that as capitalism develops, the organic composition of capital will increase, which means that the mass of constant capital grows faster than the mass of variable capital. Fewer workers can produce all that is necessary for society's requirements. In addition, capital will become more concentrated and centralized in fewer hands.

This being the absolute historical tendency, part of the working population will tend to become surplus to the requirements of capital accumulation over time. Paradoxically, the larger the wealth of society, the larger the industrial reserve army will become. One could add that the larger the wealth of society, the more people it can support who do not work.

However, as Marx develops the argument further, it also becomes clear that, depending on the state of the economy, the reserve army of labour will either expand or contract, alternately being absorbed or expelled from the employed workforce. Thus,

"Taking them as a whole, the general movements of wages are exclusively regulated by the expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army, and these again correspond to the periodic changes of the industrial cycle. They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now absorbed, now set free."

Marx concludes that: "Relative surplus-population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works." The availability of labour influences wage rates, and the larger the unemployed workforce grows, the more this forces down wage rates; conversely, if there are plenty jobs available and unemployment is low, this tends to raise the average level of wages - in that case workers are able to change jobs rapidly to get better pay.

We need a jobs program. I have a feeling that it isn't coming, though.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. This is the result of the free trade agreements we were sold by telling us we'd have new jobs

Yeah, new jobs from where? Wave a magic frikkin' wand and they'd appear? Why did Americans not protest all free trade agreements, beginning with everything to do with China?

[Starry Messenger]

4. Well, there have been protests.

But you are correct, not nearly as massive or as organized as needed. Do you think that too many people believed the companies who swore that they'd never move out of the US, but then did it anyway?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

20. I think Americans are gullible. They become hypnotized when they see the flag.

Once they're presented symbols of patriotism, they're willing to allow anything to be done to them and their country.

[Starry Messenger]

21. Well, at a certain point I hope basic survival instincts reassert themselves.

I don't think we are inherently gullible, but people trusted the team when it was constantly in the majors, winning all of the games. Now that the conditions are rapidly shifting, perhaps there is opportunity for people to develop a sense of solidarity to each other rather than to the system.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

23. Hopefully! nt

[Starry Messenger]

5. Hmm, where are all the folk who swore themselves blind that the 99ers were helped by Obama?

[Starry Messenger]

15. *crickets*

[LooseWilly]

6. "WASHINGTON (AP) — The job market is defying history."

Bad news: It's not just for 99'ers anymore...

http://news.yahoo.com/flat-jobs-data-signal-weakest-recovery-decades-211320802.html

A dismal June employment report shows that employers are adding nowhere near as many jobs as they normally do this long after a recession has ended.

Unemployment has climbed for three straight months and is now at 9.2 percent. There's no precedent, in data going back to 1948, for such a high rate two years into what economists say is a recovery.

The economy added just 18,000 jobs in June. That's a fraction of the 90,000 jobs economists had expected and a sliver of the 300,000 jobs needed each month to shrink unemployment significantly.

The excruciatingly slow growth is confounding economists, spooking consumers and dismaying job seekers. Friday's report forced analysts to re-examine their assumption that the economy would strengthen in the second half of 2011.

<snip>
{bold added}

Could it be that stagnant wages across the country for 30+ years might finally be catching up to an economy that relies on consumers having money to spend? Not to mention spiking unemployment...

[defendandprotect]

12. This has been a depression from the first -- and it still is ...

and we've obviously had purposeful denial of that reality --

Because in a "depression" we all understand what would be done --

Calling this a recession is like calling an Oak tree an acorn --

[LooseWilly]

28. Depression or not, what's done is always whatever can be "gotten away with"

Rioting by unionists and communists in the '30s led FDR to lead the Democratic Party toward adopting some part of what was being demanded, as much in order to consolidate popular support as for any other reason.

Maybe the Wisconsin demonstrations and numbers are a start, or maybe the fixation of the crowds on politeness and non-violence are just a sign of imminent failure.

And maybe the multiplicity of interpretations causes too much wondering and consideration of the virtue of "giving the benefit of the doubt".

One thing's for certain... the "top 2%" won't be giving anything back over "patriotic" considerations for their "fellow citizens"... if those calls are all the Democrats are going to bother with, laughter is the only result they should expect.

Restorative as laughter might be, it only rarely pays for food or rent...

[indepat]

7. Our government makes it clear 99 weeks are sufficient for the long-term unemployed

to receive governmental largess, but 30+ years is insufficient for the uber-wealthy to continue their sucking frenzy at the public welfare teat. :patriot:

[xphile]

8. And you hardly hear anything about them. It's disgusting how you have people

rendered invisible who need help. And we're talking about cutting money to programs to help those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

[Starry Messenger]

10. Exactly.

The silence is deafening. These people are being made to feel that they don't really exist.

[defendandprotect]

13. Is Obama talking about the poor or homeless -- are the Democrats talking about them?

Corporate money has bought the SILENCE of our Democrats!!

[xphile]

19. Indeed it has. Democrats should be pounding this point home and rallying people

behind this. Instead nothing.

[ck4829]

9. K&R

[AsahinaKimi]

11. I fear this

is only going to get worse, before it becomes better. This is really very sad.

[Starry Messenger]

14. I feel the same.

A lot worse.

[blindpig]

16. k&r

[Dulcinea]

17. No one cares about the unemployed.

This will get worse before it gets better. I was out of work for nearly 2 years before I found something part-time at less than half of what I used to make.

I'm now working on my Masters degree. This will never happen to me again!

[Starry Messenger]

18. You are right. No one cares about the unemployed.

I was out of work for two years and took the first job I could find, a lot lower pay than a Masters in my field used to get when the arts were funded better. Good luck in your program!

[SoDesuKa]

27. Graduate Education

I'm now working on my Masters degree. This will never happen to me again!

A graduate degree makes for a more impressive resume, but it's no guarantee you'll continue to find work. You can just as easily be unemployed with a Master's degree as without one.

[TBF]

29. I do hope it doesn't happen to you again -

but an advanced degree is no guarantee. Even in the early part of the decade I had a hart time finding jobs with my Masters, and it didn't help with salary at all. Finally I decided to just stay home with my kids for awhile. Now I fear that getting back into the working world would be impossible after the time off.

[leftstreet]

22. K&R

[Karmadillo]

24. Let them eat bipartisan debt reduction agreements.

nt

[Starry Messenger]

25. Ouch. n/t

[amborin]

26. K&R