Enter
Times’ Catherine Rampell, “the figure economists cite as the minimum
number of additional jobs needed
to keep the unemployment rate flat
is about 150,000 to 200,000” each
month. We’ve been doing a better
job lately, but remember, we’re also
digging out of a hole.
3. THAT SHRINKING
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE CAN COVER
UP A NUMBER OF SINS.
Such as: the U6 unemployment
rate, which measures the unemployed, the underemployed, and
those too discouraged to look for
work. In November 2013, this rate
stood at 13.2 percent.
4. WHAT WILL THE FUTURE
OF JOBS LOOK LIKE?
Remember: all the people from
Mac McClelland’s story about
Amazon fulfillment center workers show up on the positive side
of the U4 unemployment rate. As
people get back to work, we have
to start asking what sort of jobs
are we going back to? And do they
offer real dignity?
Finally, don’t expect much help
from your Beltway centrist elites,
who’ve lately been doing a lot of
disingenuous moaning about em-
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
ployment, many years after it would
have been useful. That’s by design,
by the way. Washington Monthly’s
Ryan Cooper closed out the year
with a piece I’ve not been able to
forget. Specifically, this part:
I think ... the new centrist focus on jobs is best viewed as a
tactical retreat cloaking the
traditional elite agenda of austerity and deficit reduction,
which has been discredited due
to its utter intellectual collapse.
There are a variety of cultural,
financial and political reasons
for this kind of thinking (best
outlined by Michal Kalecki) but
the important thing is that they
have nothing to do with jobs or
growth, so they’re completely
impervious to traditional evidence. And this makes perfect
sense — as Paul Krugman
points out today, the American elite has almost never been
in such a dominant position.
Who needs a stronger job market when profits are high and
workers cowed?
Oh, yeah, and you should
probably worry about health
care, too, right?
Happy New Year!
HUFFINGTON
01.12.14