More Americans Thrown Out Of Work. 16% "Real" Unemployment. Our Economy Does Not Work For The Average Person.

We now have almost 16% "real" unemployment in this country, and economists say we will continue to bleed jobs every single month for at least the rest of 2009, and high unemployment will continue in our country at least until 2011.

The only people getting rich around here are the criminals on Wall Street, in the Banks, and in the executive offices, the same ones who have looted the country and devastated the economy of the world. For most working people in this country, the economy does not work. Wages have been essentially frozen (when adjusted for inflation) since 1970 -- for 40 years, for some people, an entire working career.

While wages have been frozen, and a smaller piece of the pie went to the workers, a bigger chunk has been stolen by the executives and the CEOs, a percentage of which they use to pay kick-backs and bribes to Congress to cut their taxes and pass laws to let them take jobs out of the country.

Prices have risen dramatically, particularly in healthcare (no longer paid by employers, with the most minor procedure now costing even insured people tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket, driving many people into bankruptcy every year). Many people now pay half their take-home just for housing, a level which is, by definition, unaffordable. They exhaust their savings and, in a downturn, they have nothing. But the rich get richer and everyone else gets hosed.

Wall Street cheered and stocks again rose on the news that another 540,000 Americans lost their jobs in April. Almost 2.6 million Americans have been thrown out of work during the first four months of this year, while the government has handed billions of dollars over to the richest people on Wall Street as bonuses.

The entire goal of Wall Street, the corporate masters, and their servants in Congress, has been to throw Americans out of work, take their jobs to third world countries, open the borders and allow tens of millions of immigrants in to compete for work. Once Americans have been crushed, their life savings gone, homes gone, cars gone, jobs gone, pensions gone, then they will be willing to "compete" with third world workers, to work for a dollar day if that's what they can get.

JOBS LOST IN U.S.

December, 2008
524,000

(Sept. - Dec. 2008)
1.9 million

2008 Total: 2.6 million jobs lost, worst year since1945.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/09/news/economy/jobs_december/index.htm?postversion=2009010912

January, 2009
598,000 http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090207_598_000_U_S__jobs_lost_in_January.html'>http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090207_598_000_U_S__jobs_lost_in_January.html">http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090207_598_000_U_S__jobs_lost_in_January.html

February, 2009
706,000

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a75eifvEz47k

March, 2009
742,000
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a75eifvEz47k

April, 2009
539,000

8.9%: Current "official" unemployment rate.

15.8% Current "real" unemployment rate when including people whose unemployment benefits ran out even though they are still unemployed, and people who have lost a full-time job but have part-time work.

This is now the longest recession since World War II.

13.7 Million Americans unemployed. (Plus, see bottom, 2.1 million "marginally attached" workers weren't even included in this number, even though they were unemployed, because they did not report having looked for a job during the past four weeks.

(AP is reporting): "Looking ahead, economists expect monthly job losses for most -- if not all -- of this year. However, they hope the reductions won't be as deep."

"Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, wouldn't speculate on the future pace of layoffs, but warned that some of the jobs lost "may not come back." She urged jobseekers to get the training and education needed to be contenders for work in growing industries, such as health care, which added nearly 17,000 jobs in April. "

"The Fed says unemployment will remain elevated into 2011. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal -- meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate -- until 2013.

"Microsoft Corp. said it was starting thousands of the 5,000 job cuts it announced in earlier this year and left the door open to even more layoffs." [SOMEBODY SHOULD ASK THEM WHETHER THEY ARE THROWING AMERICANS OUT OF WORK AND JUST REPLACING THEM WITH H1B VISA IMMIGRANT CONTRACT WORKERS FROM INDIA, WHO THEY PAY $11,000/YEAR LESS THAN AN AMERICAN.]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Layoffs-slow-to-539K-in-April-apf-15180628.html

"Ranks of Discouraged Workers and Others Marginally Attached to the Labor Force Rise During Recession."

"When economic conditions deteriorate, greater attention is paid to persons who are without work and seeking jobs—the unemployed. At such times, there is also greater interest in a group of persons who do not meet the official definition of unemployment but who have shown interest in labor force participation. These individuals—referred to as “marginally attached to the labor force”—wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not actively searched for work in the past 4 weeks. The number of persons who were marginally attached to the labor force increased sharply during the current recession, rising to 2.1 million in the first quarter of 2009. From the U.S. government Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/opub/ils/ils74abs.htm