It seems that there is a lot of concern over the economy, the credit crunch, the falling US dollar, rising oil prices and unemployment. How much worse can things get? A lot.
The fact of the matter is that unemployment in this country is super fantastic, but if you have been watching the news recently, I doubt you know that fact. Let's look at the unemployment numbers I downloaded from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Year to date, the unemployment rate is at 4.6% in this country. That means that out of 100 people who want to work, 95.4 of them have jobs. But how does that compare to the roaring 80s? It beats every one! How does that compare with the last 25 years? This year has the fourth lowest unemployment rate of the last 25 years. Since 1982, the average unemployment rate has been 6%; only three years had a lower unemployment rate than 2007. Those years were 1998 (4.5%), 1999 (4.2%) and 2000 (4.0%) - all during the height of the dot com boom.
I believe in giving credit where credit is due. The economy as far as unemployment is concerned is doing great. If we had one quarter of 1983's 9.6% unemployment rate, then we would have something to complain about. But we do not, and there is still no one saying how great things are.
Don't worry, there is always a way to spin things; with unemployment this low, it is that much more likely to go up in the future! How high can it get? A lot higher. And that could change after the '08 elections.
What do you think? How good are things in this country?
Kevin Kersten is an Options Analyst with InvestorsObserver.com. Disclosure note: Mr. Kersten owns and or controls a diversified portfolio of long and short positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-30-2007 @ 11:52AM
BigSteve said...
The fact is that the statistics are not consistent for the time span you show. A. During the Reagan administration they changed how long somebody was unemployed before they stopped counting them. As a result, there are now almost 20,000,000 Americans who would have been called "unemployed" a generation ago, but who are not counted now. B. Reagan "cured" inflation the same way...he just took housing out of the statistics. C. Right now there are more than three times the number of unemployed as there were at the height of the Great Depression.
12-03-2007 @ 3:04PM
BigSteve said...
In 2000 there were 5,000,000 short term unemployed. Now there are over 10,000,000. And the average wage for over 95% of Americans has gone down, no net savings, and the only thing of value for most of us, our house, is depreciating even faster than the value of the dollar...which is worth 50% of what it was when Clinton left office. This is NOT a great economy unless you own an oil well or provide the fascists with military equipment and personnel.
11-30-2007 @ 1:21PM
James Grandeo said...
A typical Bush supporter. Please lets not forget that after your benefits are exhausted you are no longer unemployed. Also lets remember how many people are working in low paying jobs because they couldn't find adequate work in their own industry. Yes the economy is just great. I hope that the Republicans that lose in this next election get employment in the new reassignment of manufacturing positions created by Bush. Burger King, McDonalds, Subways, Arby's just to mention a few.