Have you heard any of our fellow patriots bitching about the fact that Obama has not solved the recession problem in his first year in office?
The surprise awaiting you is that this nice American you've over heard is possibly a secret billionaire! One of MeanMesa's favorite quotes is from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). He told us two years ago "Not everyone is having a bad time under the Bush (W) economy. The richest 400 hundred Americans have seen their personal wealth increase by $630 billion in the last eight years."
For the overly casual MeanMesa reader, that is a $630 billion dollar INCREASE, not a $630 billion dollar net worth. The economy was thoroughly looted by the criminal elements in the W's autocracy, and the train wreck which is left is so grave that the full impact of the damage is just now manifesting here on Main Street.
MeanMesa has carefully "cut and pasted" some direct information from two interesting internet sources. Anyone finding this suspiciously manipulative, aside from possibly having too much time of their hands, can follow the links to see the full content.
The Huffington Post
February 10, 2010
'No Labor Market Recession For America's Affluent,' Low-Wage Workers Hit Hardest: STUDY
It's truly been a tale of two unemployment crises.
Though the national unemployment rate dipped slightly in January to 9.7 percent, a new study suggests that not only have low-income workers been the hardest hit by the jobs crisis -- but, shockingly, there has been "no labor market recession for America's affluent."
The study from Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada and Sheila Palma at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies suggests that the unemployment problem is largely a problem for low-wage workers (hat tip to the Curious Capitalist).
At the New York Times, Bob Herbert delved into the study and noted, "The point here is that those in the lower-income groups are in a much, much deeper hole than the general commentary on the recession would lead people to believe."
According to the study, approximately 50 percent of households in the bottom decile of American income distribution are underemployed; in the second lowest decile, 37 percent of households can't find enough work. The authors write: "These extraordinarily high rates of labor underutilization among these two income groups would have to be classified as symbolic of a True Great Depression."
and, from the Curious Capitalist which is cited as the source for the Huffington Post article:
Commentary on the economy, the markets, and business
February 10, 2010
Rich people still have jobs, poor people don't
Bob Herbert's column in yesterday's New York Times pointed out that the unemployment crisis is not hitting all parts of the income spectrum equally. I was pretty stunned by the numbers, which go like this:
| Range of incomes (by decile) | Unemployment rate |
| $12,160 or less | 30.8% |
| $12,160-$20,725 | 19.1% |
| $20,725-$29,680 | 19.7% 15.3% |
| $29,680-$39,000 | 12.2% |
| $39,000-$50,000 | 9.0% |
| $50,000-$63,000 | 7.8% |
| $63,000-$79,100 | 6.4% |
| $79,100-$100,500 | 5.0% |
| $100,150-$138,700 | 8.0% 4.0% |
| $138,700+ | 3.2% |
The data, which are for the fourth quarter, come from a new study (PDF) by Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada and Sheila Palma at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. The researchers conclude that "what has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets."
Furthermore:
At the end of calendar year 2009... workers in different segments of the income distribution clearly found themselves in radically different labor market conditions. A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution, a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top. There was no labor market recession for America's affluent.
I didn't post about this yesterday because I had a question about the extent to which people fall into lower income brackets precisely because they are unemployed. Lose your job for a year, and there's probably a decent chance you've gone from living in a household that makes $60,000 a year household to one that makes $30,000, right? Then that's where you get counted as unemployed.
I emailed Andrew Sum and he wrote back:
The paper is based on family income including all other members of family and includes theoretically all cash transfers including unemployment insurance. It is true that a person who had a job a year ago and lost it and has no [unemployment insurance] coverage or other income can get pushed down to a much lower income but they are an overwhelming exception.
We ran this model before the recession started and results show overwhelmingly that low income workers were far more adversely affected. There are few job losses at top.
In other words, even in good times unemployment hits people in lower income brackets harder. I imagine that might have to do with the prevalence of temporary and seasonal work.
UPDATE: Here is how the numbers compare between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2009.
The current economic climate has certainly exacerbated the effect. And that is true not just for unemployment, but also for underemployment (people working part-time even though they'd rather be working full).
More from the report:
Workers in the lowest income households faced an underemployment rate of nearly 21%... The incidence of these underemployment problems also fell steadily and considerably as we move up the income distribution, dropping to 6.1% for workers in the fifth decile to 3.6% in the eighth decile and to a low of only 1.6% for those workers in the top decile of the income distribution. Employed workers in the lowest income decile were 13 times as likely to be underemployed as workers in the top decile of the nation's income distribution in the fourth quarter of 2009. Again, workers at the bottom and top of the income ladder were encountering dramatically different labor market problems.
Although such an extensive direct quotation of other material may be somewhat out of MeanMesa's usual content policy, this information is simply too compelling not to share with all interested visitors! For any American still media addled enough to assume that the current recession is no more than an expected, cyclical correction in our economy, you know, "just one of those things," get over it.
Hey, MeanMesa visitor, what do YOU plan to do about all this? Does anyone else have time to be a citizen?
Thanks to the autocracy, the richest people in this country are literally awash in cash. They are watching American workers become more and more desperate by the day, willing to accept worse and worse wages and benefits when they finally allow a few jobs to begin to return. The plutocrats will finally decide to allow the economy to begin recovery when they feel their advantage has become great enough.
They are watching the price tag on all sorts of businesses plummet. When those prices get low enough, they will painlessly buy whatever they want. They are watching the price of real estate careening downward, too. When they end the recession, they will have purchased all the property they wish to own at bargain basement prices.
As working class people, it will fall to us to scratch up enough folly to start chasing all those foreclosed houses. It will be our job to drive the real estate appraisals back up to "bubble status" so our billionaire countrymen can cash in once again, you know, at their leisure.
The oligarchs have demonstrated to us -- without any "wiggle room" left to ponder -- that they own the Senate and already have plenty of patriotic "friends" in the House. We can not reasonably count on our failed democracy to protect us from the bankster gangsters, the insurance thugs, the torture queens or any of the other bottom feeders the W unleashed on the country, free to loot everything that wasn't bolted down. If those wounds were not enough, we're now expected to take the McCains, Cheney's and Palins seriously.
Hey, MeanMesa visitor, what do YOU plan to do about all this? Does anyone else have time to be a citizen?
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