Alarms And Excursions

Economic Snapshot

An article posted yesterday by Brayden Goyette at Pro Publica provided a brief and unsettling list of the current benchmark numbers in the U.S. economy:

• Annual rate at which the GDP grew this year: 1.3 percent, between April and June; 0.4 percent between January and March;
• Average annual GDP growth from 1998-2007: 3.02 percent
• Total jobs lost since January 2008: 8.7 million
• Total jobs recovered since January 2008: 1.8 million
• Recession technically ended: Over two years ago, in June 2009
• Current unemployment rate: 9.2 percent
• The "natural unemployment rate": 5 percent
• Months that the unemployment rate has been around 9 percent or more: 28
• Number of unemployed people in June, 2011: 14.1 million
• Growth in number of unemployed people since March, 2011: 545,000
• Number of long-term unemployed people in June, 2011: 6.3 million, or 44.4 percent of the unemployed
• Pace at which jobs were added throughout the late 1990s: 350,00 per month
• Jobs that were added in June: 18,000
• Jobs the U.S. needs to create to 5 percent unemployment rate: 6.8 million, as of January, 2011
• Years it will take to get back to an unemployment rate of 5 percent: Four years, if we're adding jobs at 350,000 per month; 11 years if we're adding jobs at the 2005 rate of 210,000 per month
• Unemployed workers per job opening: 4.98
• Number of people who weren't in the labor force, but wanted work, as of June, 2011: 2.7 million
• The last time the labor force participation rate was lower than it is now: 1984
• The amount of state budget spending that comes from the federal government: about 1/3, or $478 billion in 2010
• Increase in before-tax corporate profits in the first quarter of 2011: $140.3 billion
• Percentage of Americans' total personal income that comes from federal funds: almost 20 %
• Spending cuts in the proposed budget: at least $2.3 trillion, over a decade from 2012-2021
• How long you can currently receive unemployment benefits: up to 99 weeks
• The number of those weeks funded to some extent by federal aid: up to 73
• People currently relying on federal unemployment benefits: 3.8 million
How long you'll be able to receive unemployment benefits if you lose your job after July 1, 2011: 20 to 26 weeks, depending on your state
• Recovery-funded jobs, according to recovery.gov: 550,621
• Amount of stimulus money left to be spent: $122.8 billion of the original $787 billion

My favorite part is where the people on unemployment have it run out after five-and-a-half months, and then what happens to them? Or the long-term unemployed, who have their benefits suddenly cut off?

Guess the Tea Partei and our Owners didn't think about that, huh.

Or, don't care. But, hey; somebody's gettin' a bonus on Wall Street! So -- s'all good. Right?

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