Hey hey! Turns out one in ten Americans might be unemployed this year -- and I am one of those, uh, ones. Let me bring the numbers first, then wander into the personal.
The minutes of last month's Federal Reserve meeting have been released, and there's a wee bit of unsurprising news in them [.pdf]. Since April's meeting, the group has "moved up their unemployment rate projections and continued to anticipate that labor market conditions would deteriorate further over the remainder of the year." They're predicting unemployment will be between 9.8 and 10.1 percent, the first time the committee has seen 10 percent as a possibility.
They also said that overall GDP is expected to increase next year, but I feel a particularly personal tug toward focusing on these unemployment numbers, because as of this week, I have joined their ranks. More on that in a bit. Let's talk bad [WSJ]:
"Labor market conditions were of particular concern to meeting participants," the Fed said, adding that with the recovery expected to be sluggish, "most participants anticipated that the employment situation was likely to be downbeat for some time."
The unemployment rate is currently 9.5%, a 26-year high. According to officials' quarterly projections, released along with Wednesday's meeting minutes, jobless rate forecasts for the end of 2009 range from 9.7% to 10.5%. One official expects the unemployment rate to reach 10.6%, though most expect the rate to fall next year.
I currently live in, and am seeking a job in, a state with 12.6 percent unemployment. There's no better way to phrase this: It sucks. I know people who have job-hunted for a year -- people with the same qualifications I have, up to and including a shiny master's degree.
So now I'll narrow down to me, as uninteresting and unenlightening as that may be. I mentioned this the last time I wrote about the absolute suckitude of high unemployment: the less secure everyone feels in their finances, the less mobile they are, and the less choice is available to them. I wrote that and then made what may be a very bad choice anyway -- to turn down a law school scholarship to stay in a place I love and try to find work I enjoy. This means giving up a lot of security for the next few years, but it will also, I hope, mean giving up the old, tired, ever-lasting dollar chase that I was headed toward. It will eventually mean less debt, but right now, it means less sleep and less certainty; less hope and more fear; less time to write, and more time to worry.
This is how I feel about unemployment, too, Mr. President.
My situation is different, and less dire, than most: I have made a choice to pursue an uncertain path. I still have more sympathy for nearly every unemployed person in the United States than myself, and am neither asking for nor expecting any of that from, well, anyone. This jobless frame is where I'm writing from at the moment, though, and it seemed important to lay that out.
So, in short, I hate this economy, now more personally than ever. Ten percent, man -- that's a national nightmare.
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Catherine Forsythe
Writer to the Stars
Emily Holleman
Iron Skillet
Leslie Harpole
old new lefty
Salon.com
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My husband (laid off in Feb) is planning to retrain over the next couple of years with an eye on the next career...something...in the realm of healtcare. (It hasn't gotten more concrete than that).
And it's gonna be rough. Really rough.
Deborah -- the uncertainty demands some kind of faith, I guess! Mine is usually in numbers, but... they aren't helping at all right now. :)
Verbal, good luck to you and your husband. Rough seems an accurate word.
Cruelwench, it totally does suck, doesn't it? I still have hope that things will -- must -- improve, but... I guess we'll see.
Good wishes and best of luck to you, Ms. Smith. So far this hand you’ve been dealt hasn’t been kind...
Went through the 5-100 stages in joblessness. Wrote umpteen CVs trimmed ones and real. No takers. Like I said in my blog..... The President assures us that staying school is the key..... hmmmmmmmmm. So should I work towards a double PhD then? Or perhaps train in Rocket Science... oops! My specialty IS proteomics/metabonomics/masspectrometry and bioinformatics which is nearly that! Maybe its just Buffalo. Or maybe its my age.
So I am kept chained and tethered with a temporary while the world of Job-haves swarm around me in their empathetic smiles, jokes,endless lunch breaks, chit chats and their endless web surfing.
ME??? I just lugged myself to Toronto last weekend and attended a workshop in Bioinformatics and am looking to implement 14 software applications to interpret genelists from -omics platforms. AND I dont have a job?? If it weren't so sad I'd be laughing up a storm.
So in that spirit, I just want to offer a word of encouragement based on personal experience . . . it is absolutely a fact that opportunities abound in every economic environment. But they can be more difficult to spot because they look different in this kind of climate than they do in easier times.
I've often thought that downturns should be called "upside-down-turns" because they don't erase opportunity so much as turn it on its head. And there's a wonderful energy flowing all around us when everything -- and everyone -- is in flux. It's like the shifting of tectonic plates that produce the Grand Canyon over there, and the Rocky Mountains over *there*.
It's not only incredibly brave of you to follow your heart and your instincts when they seem to fly in the face of conventional wisdom -- it's also incredibly SMART. If you refuse to give in to despair, and can remain flexible and open, I think in hindsight you'll look back on this period of your life as a time of unusual creativity and opportunities you could never have imagined. You clearly possess the instincts to create that in your life.
And to that end, may I gently suggest that you stop reading the bad news? Just refuse to engage it. It's not telling you anything about your own possibilities, only how others are currently viewing *their* prospects. ;)
America's best and brightest are cooling their heels at home, while those with a job at the Fed use euphemisms: "Labor market conditions were of particular concern to meeting participants," the Fed said. Those meeting participants, likely all wealthy white men, just see us as "the labor market," not as their fellow Americans, not as the canaries in the mine shaft of our crumbling economy. What they didn't say, and want to avoid saying, is that millions of men, women and children are going hungry, losing their homes, are becoming terrified and soon will be very, very angry at those rich white men who did this to them.
Just keep on writing. Anywhere. Just so we can keep on reading you. I also liked BBE's suggestion. If you really love the place where you live, maybe there are similar opportunities there.
And if the Salon editors don't come through, there are other sites out there, you know...
The farther down the economic ladder, the worse off you will find yourself. As a younger man, I could always find a job in manufacturing. Those days are gone. Until corporate America decides to look beyond the next profit statement and decides to reinvest in America and it's people, I don't see many of us being able to afford what ever it is that they are selling.
They have in effect, taken the ability of the lower middle class and below, to be able to afford to be consumers. After rent or mortgage, utilities and food there isn't anything left for consuming. Credit ratings have been destroyed for many and I don't see that being addressed by Congress at all. There should be some level of credit amnesty for those who are hurting to help free up the market because let's face it, until Americans are once again allowed to borrow money to become consumers again, this situation isn't likely to improve.
Second, everyone who sees an ad they are legitimately interested in on Saturn's blog needs to click on it. Actually, I'd say do that for everyone's blog, but what the hell do I know.
Third, the figure people need to look at to see how bad the job situation really is has the name U-6. You can see it here.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
That figure is at 16.5 percent.
Don't worry, though. They're old and will die off. Or if they're young, they're already bitter old people. Either way, they may as well be dead.
Today? I'll be applying for jobs that only require a high school degree and hoping my Masters degree doesn't disqualify me from them.
Not all of us have the lovely option of fleeing the country to work for non-profits. But those of us that do, should take them.
I have to say, though, I'm rather relieved when you said you were chucking law school. I'm sure you know the stats about the incredible attrition of recent law school grads from the field within a year or two after law school. So it's a degree that you work terribly hard to get and then don't want to use (even those that stay in law often hate it, even when they do well). So I think too many people go that route. (I also think too many people go off to grad school without any inkling of what they'll do with their degree or if they'll like what they can use it for. And I say that as someone who has a grad degree....) Anyway, I think it's better not to get into a lot of debt, lose 3 years of your life to something you're not sure even now that you want to do.
I don't know what your work experience is so far, but my advice to people at your stage of life is always the same: think of something you want to do, or an org you want to work for, and then take any job you can get, no matter how menial, to get started there. You'll be able to work your way up if you're smart and work hard.
Of course in this economy, you may just have to take any menial job you can get! And there are opportunities in any job, including to gain experience. And you can keep looking for work, as employers always prefer people who are already working anyway.
What I mean to say is, that we cannot emphasize enough the role Wall Street, the larger financial industry, and the upper class has had on these dismal and horrifying employement numbers.
The money which Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and others continue to suck up for themselves is a DIRECT cause of middle class pain. These companies, with the cooperation of their bought and paid for whores in government (Republican and Democrat alike), use leverage and market manipulation to squeeze everything they can out of healthy companies (and government programs) and eliminate surplus for anyone but themselves. They preach austerity, efficiency and free markets while making irresponsible, billion dollar bets (and these are bets) with other people's money AND a guarantee that their government whores (Republican and Democrats) will use our money to cover their losses.
Here is just one scenario: Goldman Sachs gets a government stooge (probably a Democrat) to invest money from a public employee pension fund he or she runs into one of its (Goldman Sachs's) funds. Then the almighty Goldman use that money to buy a public company and take money from ITS pension fund to bet on an increase in the price of oil. They lose the bet, two pension funds lose money and Goldman, who has insured its bet with a company like AIG, gets paid back by the taxpayer. FOUR parties lose (the public employees, the private employees, the insurer and the taxpayer) while Goldman somehow manages to earn another record quarter.
Fuck Goldman Sachs, its high-flying bets and its government guarantee. Fuck the men and women who perpetuate this theft.
Next time you meet an investment banker, shun him or her. They deserve to be told what they really are.
Employment will not come back until we take it back from these selfish, intellectually dishonest scumbags.
Anyway, over these many months I've come to the conclusion that the folks who can manage to keep afloat, who are able to tread water the longest, who are able to avoid a catastrophic event (i.e. have a little luck) will eventually pull through. Endurance.
Wishing for better days ahead for you, my family and all of the other writers on Salon.
Nelly.
Were you bitching and moaning back in the 1990s, when Goldman and the rest of the Wall Street firms were doing the same thing but 22 million jobs were created?
The rants against Goldman from people on the left are as amusing and as factually inaccurate as the rants from people on the right about ACORN.
One can know for certain that the actual % is higher. This is because they derive the official % by calculating the number of people who are collecting unemployment benefits. They stop counting you when your benefit expires, regardless of whether you have found a job. There are many people in this class.
Saturn also makes the point that the newly college graduated aren't counted because they haven't previously been in the workforce.
In sum, the real number is considerably higher. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The problem--and it's not such a bad one--is once you have a law degree you get paid a lot more for what you write as a lawyer than as a journalist. My writing income last year was less than 1% of the total--I couldn't afford to eat at McDonald's if all I did was write.
Best of luck whatever you decide.
Good write John "They're nothing but punk ass bitches who talk a lot of noise but do nothing but whine and complain. See their hero, Sarah Palin. Don't worry, though. They're old and will die off. Or if they're young, they're already bitter old people. Either way, they may as well be dead."
Somehow I don't think I sound like the bitter old one, and I'm not the one asking for a handout or for people to simply be given things and I don't think I ever said a single thing about Palin -- very clever deduction. Way to do all most Saloners do, defeat a point with no fact, just say it is wrong or so something about Bush or Palin or McCain, definitely find someone to blame. If we only had more people like you, clearly all the problems of the world would be gone!
The only segment of job producers that is growing is the government, so I think that's your best bet. Of course, the intellectual stimulation there will make being a lawyer seem like nirvana, but it will put bread on the table at least for the time being.
Perhaps your refusal to pursue the dollar by going to law school is a case of getting what you wished for. No law school, no dollars.
There are some dots that need to be connected here, but I'm not going to press the point when you're in distress.
Good luck.
I predict significantly higher unemployment than the Fed.
We have a structural problem now that if we do not deal with healthcare the right way will get worse. Lots worse.
I just get by thinking : "this is just a temporary derailment of my life" :). rated for evoking so many emotions.
Honestly, I'm no sure your situation would change even if the employment rate were better. You have something more important than a job, you have a vocation. You're a writer. So your choices aren't really all that complex or tragic.
You could use the MFA to find a teaching job. Or you start thinking like a freelancer. You turn your MFA in to a book proposal. You look over your posts and see if there's anything in there that is a subject you might want to pursue in depth for a while. You start pitching, you moodle another book proposal. The fact that you're so regularly featured in Salon gives you enough credentials to get editors to look at your work. In time either you get a job, or you forget about this job thing and enjoy the luxury of writing about things you care about, and cobbling together a living from that.
Although I'm happy to echo those who think Salon should give you a full time gig. You're a great blogger and any magazine that hires you would be better for it.
And meanwhile, someone is making enough money to prop up prices for everything from food to furniture. In California, it's probably the retired state workers living on their bloated retirements, the drug cartel staffs, and the independently wealthy.
It IS a schizophrenic situation.
To answer your question, I have ALWAYS - since some of my most interesting and high-achieving fellow graduates sold out to Wall Street in the 80's - have believed that the financial sector of the economy was a drain on this country's long-term prospects.
I understand numbers, and the numbers going down in the trading rooms and private accounts of investment banks have never added up to reasonable fiscal stewardship. In addition, it was in the 80's that investment banks began their wholesale destruction (via leverage and hostile takeover) of healthy industrial firms with strong balance sheets, cash reserves and pension funds.
Yes, since my adulthood and my understanding of the simplest of economic principles, I have feared and hated Wall Street. And now we know that its financial speculators and manipulators have been practically treasonous in their slow war of attrition against their fellow American.
These days, even a small investor has the same tools that used to be exclusive to the big boys. Instead of complaining about how the financial services sector is so evil, how about doing what they do and enriching yourself in the process.
On top of that, I find it highly amusing that anyone thinks a guy selling something to someone who wants to buy it is an act of evil.
I wish I could respond to every message individually, and maybe time will allow later -- but right now, it's back to the job (and home) search. But thank you, again.
I'm not against the free enterprise of someone buying what you are selling. I'm troubled when the stewards of publicly traded corporations walk away rich after running their companies into the ground. I'm offended by CEO salaries that explode into the millions amidst falling revenue and layoffs. And I laugh when a self-styled titan of industry - a Republican at that - like Henry Paulson gets down on his knees before Nancy Pelosi (literally, read about it) and begs for $700,000,000,000 to keep FAILING Wall Street firms afloat.
You want to celebrate free enterprise? Me too. Let them fail....all of them. I'll take the short term pain in my stock fund (yes, I am also a shareholder) and we'll see where these Ivy League babies on Wall Street end up.
Saturn, you're not going to believe this is coming from me, but NeilPaul made some good points, whether he was being serious our ironic (I'm not sure which).
When I was much younger, I always tried very hard not to trade on my looks (well, I graduated from HS in 1971 and it just wasn't the thing to do then). It was an ethical choice. But maybe not so smart.
What I later realized was that my looks-- and personality, too-- were part of every single transaction, especially with men, whether I intended it or not.
Given that the system is biologically hard-wired that way, please don't feel that you have to completely ignore any of your feminine strengths. No need to go overboard (you know what I mean), but just be yourself. All of yourself.
;~)
I think what happened to make Paulson get on his knees and beg Pelosi to bail out the Wall Street firms is the reaction to the implosion of Lehman. I believe that we were just days away from the entire financial system of not just the United States, but the world, imploding.
At that point, it wouldn't have just been the guys at Goldman who got hit. It would be people like us. Chances are that your company has a payroll account, where they have a line of credit at a bank. They draw down those lines of credit every two weeks to make sure you get paid, and pay off those short term loans when their receivables come in.
If the financial contagion was allowed to continue unabated last fall, your employer would have had its payroll account frozen, and guess who wouldn't have gotten paid.
The system works. It works imperfectly, because humans run it and humans screw things up. Humans create CDOs that have been sliced and diced so many times that nobody actually knows what's in there other than computers. Humans create liar loans, and humans take out loans for houses they can't afford and lie about their income. Humans assume in their models that there will be no long, protracted decline in housing prices.
And before we look at socialism, have you seen the unemployment rates in Europe? They're not doing much better. Yes, they have a better safety net, but it's not like they're creating jobs, either.
Bottom line is that even in the Depression, the vast majority of people who wanted jobs had them. The unemployment rate back then was 25 percent, which means that 75 percent of the people who wanted jobs had them. And let's say unemployment goes to 12 percent, which is far beyond anything that's projected by anyone. That means 88 percent of people who want jobs have them.
It is an imperfect system run by imperfect humans but it works as well as you can expect.
Of course, if you're one of the ten percent without a job, it sucks. But I'd say go file for unemployment, think about what you want to do, and go after it.