We Need Jobs

For years and years, the defenders of neoliberalism (the likes of Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, et. al. -- a.k.a. the fat cats) argued that Bubble-nomics was the best of all possible systems, because even if wealth wasn't trickling down, the US was creating tons of jobs.

Not anymore.

The job-destruction unleashed by the Great Implosion of neoliberalism is staggering. Eight million jobs have been erased since 2008. Alas, the official 10% unemployment rate is the tip of the iceberg, because millions of Americans are dropping out of the workforce entirely. They are going to school, turning to the underground economy, or moving in with family. Add them in, and the unemployment rate easily hits 13% -- a level last seen in the Great Depression.

According to the BLS, the employment-to-population ratio, one of the best indicators of overall job loss, fell from 62.8 in January 2008 down to 58.2 in December 2009 (this is for folks 16 years and older).

58.2 is the lowest figure since 1983, and there's still no sign of a rebound.

When you break down the numbers by gender, it turns out the loss of jobs for male workers has no precedent in post-WW II history. The employment-to-population ratio for men averaged around 82 in the late 1940s and 1950s, before drifting slowly but steadily down over the decades to about 70 in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2008, the ratio collapsed down to 63.2.

The comparable figure for female employment was 30 in the 1950s, an era when women were expected to stay at home. Over the next decades, women entered the workforce in increasing numbers, and the ratio rose to an all-time high of 58 in 2000, before falling to the current 53.4 (the lowest since 1988).

In a nutshell, the job market is the worst it has ever been for men in 70 years, and the worst it has been for women in 20 years.

The free market is not going to solve this problem. Only Big Government has the resources to put 8 million people back to work. And there's plenty of work for them to do: our railroads, infrastructure, and schools are in dire need of investment, and our economy desperately needs greening.