Forgotten Millions Still Matter

Divided families, dwindling finances, foreclosed homes, totally jobless – that’s what life has meant for millions of Americans from 2007 to today. Yet for the employed, especially politicians in Washington, not much has changed.

Turn on the TV news today and you see little about the jobless and underemployed – 13.7 million and 8.3 million Americans, respectively. It might be argued our leaders care more about the Mideast and the federal budget deficit.

The April edition of Reader’s Digest offers the ugly truth about the greatest economic collapse in United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s:

“More than half of all U.S. workers either lost their jobs or were forced to take cuts in hours or pay during the recession,’’ RD says. “The unluckiest suffered prolonged unemployment, bankruptcies, or foreclosures, which are now at 65-year highs.”

The icing on the cake, by way of New York Times Op-ed columnist Paul Krugman, is simply this:

“More than three years after we entered the worst economic slump since the 1930s, a strange and disturbing thing has happened to our political discourse: Washington has lost interest in the unemployed.

Difficult To Escape

“It might not be so bad if the jobless could expect to find new employment fairly soon, but unemployment has become a trap, one that’s very difficult to escape,’’ Krugman says.

“There are almost five times as many unemployed workers as there are job openings; the average unemployed worker has been jobless for 37 weeks, a post-World War II record.

Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, asserts our nation is well under way to creating “a permanent underclass of the jobless.”

How can that be?

Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, says part of the answer may be that the jobless tend to stay that way, and those who still have jobs are feeling more secure than they did a few years ago.

Layoffs and buyouts spiked during the crisis of 2008-09 but have fallen since then, perhaps reducing the sense of urgency, Krugman says.

The U.S. economy now suffers from low hiring, not high firing, so things don’t look so bad — as long as you’re willing to write off the unemployed and underemployed, according to Krugman.

Closer To Home

Take, for example, a former employer of mine, Gannett Co. Inc., the largest publicly owned newspaper publisher in America.

Under CEO Craig Dubow, GCI has eliminated 20,000 jobs since 2005 -- nearly four of every 10 employees, according to the Gannett Blog, an independent daily journal about the company.

It’s not a stretch to believe a good number of those former Gannett journalists remain unemployed or underemployed. And keep in mind this is just one of many industries slammed by the recession.

The Great Recession was a cold slap in the face for many of us who enjoyed the 1990s boom, when technology advances and soaring stock prices offered unlimited potential – even a hint of early retirement, or at least a secure one.

The Bitter Pill

Today’s reality is quite another matter. Even so, millions of unemployed and underemployed should not simply be written off because it’s politically convenient to have them fade from the spotlight.

For those among us who survived the recession relatively unscathed, good for you and your family!

But while you continue to enjoy the fruits of your labors, please take a moment to remember the less fortunate, your former co-workers.

Urge your elected officials to do the right thing by enacting a “real” jobs bill that puts people back to work permanently, not in some temporary make-work (pork) project.

Stealing some lyrics from the Police song, “Invisible Sun,” nobody should be relegated “to play the part of a statistic on a government chart” and why should they?

Let's all keep that in mind as we move forward and out of this mess, together.

Ken Cocuzzo

Boomers Can Make The Pieces Fit

The economic outlook offers a skewed puzzle of confusing jobless figures and fleeting glimpses of the future: multi-tasking, more training and varied skills. For Baby Boomers, those born from 1946 to 1964, it means a dizzying array of choices and challenges.

The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans, especially those in middle age. Job openings in their old fields exist, but they no longer qualify for them, according to the Associated Press. The job descriptions have changed, with new skills, certifications and other education now required.

The jobless are running into a trend that took root during the Great Recession. Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers. Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties — ones that used to be spread among multiple jobs. Now, someone who hopes to get those jobs must meet wider demands.

Employers, who hold all the cards because of so few job openings, want "two skill sets in one human being," says Harry Griendling, chief executive of DoubleStar Inc., a staffing firm outside Philadelphia.

The trend reflects the push that companies made during the recession to control costs, squeeze more output from their staffs and become more productive. Productivity measures output per hour worked. Economy-wide, it soared 3.5 percent last year. It was the best performance in six years.

"There are jobs available, but the worker just has to have more skills than before," notes Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, whose U.S. headquarters is in Dearborn, MI, a state hammered by the Great Recession.

Even so, employers faced with slow sales and a weak economy see little reason to boost hiring. Frustrated in their efforts to find qualified applicants among the jobless, employers are turning to those who are already working to fill select openings.

"They're hiring a known quantity that already has this specific experience on their resume," said Cathy Farley, a managing director at Accenture. "It is slowing some of the re-hiring from the ranks of the unemployed."

The unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent last month, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The jobless rate has now topped 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1930s, when the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression.

Nearly 14.8 million people were unemployed in September. Including those who have given up looking for work, and those who were working part time but wanted full-time jobs, the so-called "underemployment" rate jumped to 17.1 percent last month, from 16.7 percent in August. That reflected an increase of more than 600,000 involuntary part-time workers.

The most rampant layoffs of teachers and other local government workers in nearly three decades more than offset weak hiring in the private sector in September, resulting in a net loss of 95,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department.

"We have to keep doing everything we can to accelerate this recovery," President Obama says. "The only piece of economic news that folks still looking for work want to hear is, `You're hired.' And everything we do is dedicated to make that happen."

The combination of weak hiring by businesses and more governments layoffs expected means unemployment could rise to 10 percent again this year or next. When Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.7 percent, the AP notes.

Still, the Obama administration is promoting stronger partnerships between two-year public colleges and big-name U.S. employers, such as McDonald's and The Gap, as a way to help better match workers with jobs during the economic recovery and beyond.

Whether the "Skills for America's Future" initiative will gain any traction nationally remains to be seen since, traditionally, community colleges have focused on local employer/worker needs.

For their part, community colleges are short of cash, jammed with laid-off workers and students who in better times would attend four-year schools, and spending heavily on remedial education for students ill-prepared for college.

So what does all this economic turmoil mean for graying Boomers?


WMB believes it means we have to find ways to balance our needs, along with that of our children and our own aging parents. The what-next is key in our consideration of choices that address each of these generations. It’s a tough juggling act for sure and the road ahead, of course, is filled with potholes.

If our job or industry vanished/downsized during the Great Recession, do we train for a new career (assuming something is of interest and reflects one’s aptitude) or do we attempt to rebuild our former career with more education? Reinventing one’s self sounds great, but what does it take to accomplish it and do we have the will to see it through?

Given the speed and breath of the recession’s devastating impact on jobs across many industries, there are many of us mulling the answers to these questions right now. But there is no one-size-fits all when it comes to solutions. In some cases, it’s going to be trial and error (and I’m no exception to this rule).

Make no mistake, there is hope because Americans, on the whole, are a resilient people who dream big things, regardless of the obstacles. That separates us from many other cultures on the planet. Some older folks call it the “can-do” attitude, the idea of achieving something bigger than us.

The Boomers sought to remake the world into something better (not just a bunch of self-absorbed, spoiled, drug-taking kids, as some critics still insist). The Boomer ideals have shifted and changed with the times, but the early lessons learned still apply and resonate.

WMB believes Boomers can leave a legacy by reclaiming our lives and recovering from a downturn that is one for the history books. An earlier generation overcame the Great Depression and led us into a post-World War II prosperity.

It’s our turn now. Whatever you do, get inspired!!!

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com. If you like this post, please share it.

Recession Over, Not Its Misery

Call it an economic hangover, but the fragile U.S. economy is not recovering with any great speed. Sure, some life signs are apparent, but the patients – consumers, taxpayers and, most of all, the unemployed – are far from out of danger.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a panel of academic economists based in cerebral Cambridge, MA., recently declared the recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009.

To make its determination, the nonprofit NBER looked at figures that make up the nation's gross domestic product, which measures the total value of goods and services produced within the United States. It also reviews incomes, employment and industrial activity.

The national economy started growing again in the July-to-September quarter of 2009, after a record four straight quarters of declines. The recession was the longest and arguably the most severe America has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Thus, the April-to-June quarter of 2009 marked the last quarter when the economy was shrinking. At that time, it contracted 0.7 percent, after suffering through much deeper declines. That factored into NBER's decision to pinpoint the end of the recession in June 2009.

Assuming the NBER is correct about the recession’s end, then the economy lost 7.3 million jobs during the 2007-09 slide — the most in the post-World War II period. Nearly 15 million Americans remain unemployed because of the Great Recession.

Any future downturn in the economy would now mark the start of a new recession, not the continuation of the December 2007 recession, NBER says. That's important because if the economy starts shrinking again, it could mark the onset of a "double-dip" recession. For many economists, the last time that happened was in 1981-82.

We at WMB, however, see a double-dip recession as a very real possibility since we’re not convinced the recession, technical definitions and politics aside, is really over in America. Just look at the mounting evidence:

•Unemployment rose in 27 states in August, more than half of all states, with the highest rates in Nevada, Michigan and California, according to CNNMoney.com.

Nevada boasts the dubious honor of having the highest rate, with 14.4 percent looking for work, according to mediabistro.com. That's up slightly from July when the Silver State had a 14.3 percent unemployment rate. The lowest unemployment rate came from North Dakota, which was an enviable 3.7 percent. South Dakota (4.5 percent) and Nebraska (4.6 percent) also had rates below 5 percent.

•Builders are struggling with weak demand for new homes caused by high unemployment and a glut of foreclosed homes on the market. They benefited in the spring from federal tax credits, but those expired in April, according to the Associated Press.

Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics, says the high number of vacant homes, mounting expectations of renewed price falls and economic constraints on households will continue to weigh on the industry.

"Homebuilding activity remains at an astoundingly weak level," Dales says, adding that construction has to be more than double current levels for the market to be considered healthy.

Building permit applications, a sign of future activity, grew by nearly 2 percent to an annual rate of 569,000. Home construction increased in August and applications for building permits also grew. The gains were driven mainly by apartment and condominium construction, not the much larger single-family homes sector.

Housing starts are up 25 percent from their bottom in April 2009. But they remain 74 percent below their peak in January 2006. Single-family housing starts are up 11 percent from their low point in January 2009, but down 78 percent from their peak in January 2006.

Construction activity rose 34 percent in the West and was up 22 percent in the Midwest and 7 percent in the South. But construction fell by 24 percent in the Northeast, the AP reports.

•Employment in private-sector industries, including wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, and leisure and hospitality, showed little change in August, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.


Still, it’s not all bad news because total private employment continued to trend up modestly over the month (+67,000), the bureau says.

In August, employment in health care (part of education and health services) increased by 28,000, with the largest gains occurring in ambulatory health care services (+17,000) and hospitals (+9,000).

Mining employment rose by 8,000 in August. Since a recent low in October 2009, employment in the industry has increased by 72,000.

Manufacturing employment declined by 27,000 over the month. A decline in motor vehicles and parts (22,000) offset a gain of similar magnitude in July as the industry departed somewhat from its usual layoff and recall pattern for annual retooling.

Within professional and business services, employment in temporary help services was up by 17,000. This industry has added 392,000 jobs since a recent employment low in September 2009.

In August, construction employment was up (+19,000). This change partially reflected the return to payrolls of 10,000 workers who were on strike in July.

We at WMB believe these numbers all add up to one thing: Our nation is scoring high on the misery index. Let’s face it, those with jobs fear for their security, see the need to save more and are loathe to spend even when the expenditure can be justified. The unemployed and under-employed just want a fair shot at improving their lots.

Until confidence is restored in our financial systems, there can be no peace of mind for anyone, whether you’re Bill Gates or John Q. Public. Listen up Dems, GOP and Tea Party folks, the man and woman on the street believe this: Health care reform is no substitute for having a decent-paying job!

An NBER researcher told the New York Times' Economix blog that "the amount of unemployment we've already got and the slowness of recovery lead to predictions that we could have 9-plus percent unemployment even through the next presidential election (in 2012)."

As it was when
Bill Clinton (far right) beat George H. W. Bush for president in 1992, it’s the economy, stupid. Address the No. 1 wallet issue (jobs) and the rest takes care of itself; it always does, a lesson worth remembering if the aim is to speed our recovery.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com. If you like this post, please share it with family, friends and colleagues!

America Isn't Working Right Now

It’s time we face the ugly truth: It will take years for the U.S. economy to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The evidence is piling up despite political blather from our elected leaders.

• Combined ranks of unemployed and underemployed remain steady.
• Employer hiring, especially for full-time jobs, continues to be anemic.
• Consumers, for the most part, are hesitant to spend except on essentials.
• Unrestrained federal spending is driving in U.S. debt to historic levels.
• Iraq and Afghanistan wars are draining our human and financial resources.

We’ll skip the immigration battle, health care fiasco, and Gulf of Mexico oil disaster because it gives all of us a collective migraine (and WMB previously dealt with those issues). Happy Birthday America!!!

Sarcasm aside, let’s examine the facts contained in the Associated Press story on the latest jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department:

Employers cut 125,000 jobs last month, the most since October, according to the Labor Department, which noted the loss was driven by the end of 225,000 temporary 2010 Census jobs. Businesses added a net total of 83,000 workers, an improvement from May but below March and April totals.

The unemployment rate dipped from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent, the lowest level since July 2009. But it declined because 652,000 people gave up job searches and left the labor force. People no longer looking for work aren't counted as unemployed.

The report suggests businesses are still slow to hire amid a weak economic recovery. Many economists hoped for more job growth, which would fuel the economy by boosting consumers' ability to spend (without a job, or one that pays decent wages, who has money to spend?).

"It could have been worse, but it wasn't good," Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight, an economic forecasting firm, told AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber. "It's adding to the evidence that growth has slowed.’’ People left the work force "because they think there's nothing out there," Gault added.

It’s more than thinking on the part of job hunters.

Check out the online boards or newspaper classifieds, and the jobs range from high-paying, high-skilled technical work (multiple college degrees) to low-paying, low-skilled physical work (high school education).

But there is very little in the middle of the extremes and what’s there tends to be part-time or temporary work, with no benefits. It’s not surprising many have given up looking for work in such a climate.

As the AP notes, the nation still has 7.9 million fewer private payroll jobs than it did when the recession began in December 2007. It takes about 100,000 new jobs a month to keep up with population growth. The economy needs to create jobs at least twice that pace to quickly bring down the jobless rate.

All told, 14.6 million people looked for work in June. Counting those who gave up job searches and those working part time but would prefer full-time work, the underemployment rate dipped to 16.5 percent from 16.6 percent in May.

Progress? Not by any reasonable assessment. Yet most of our leaders seem totally clueless about what we – the middle class of America – need to survive.

Consider President Obama at the recent G-20 summit of world leaders in Toronto. He urged continued spending as a stimulus while just about every other head of state advocated cutting deficits to address problems affecting the global economy. What does Obama know that the rest of the leaders don’t?

And Congress just adjourned for the long holiday weekend without extending unemployment benefits. Excuse us, but there was plenty of money to bail out Wall Street, automakers and others with their hands wide open – but none remains for out-of-work folks?

Our elected leaders, Democrats and Republicans, have their priorities screwed up. It’s not about perpetuating their politics, paychecks, benefits and perks as career public officials; it’s about serving the public interest, the mainstream folks who put them into office in the first place.

America was and is a great place, but we’re showing our age because of our leaders’ inability to look beyond gimmicks (cash for clunkers?) and quick fixes (just go shop?) and develop sustainable plans that transcend partisan politics and individual agendas.

So far, few elected leaders have shown courage to distance themselves from the herd and risk their political careers
by making tough and unpopular decisions. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (budget) and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (immigration) appear to be rare exceptions by going where others fear to tread.

November is not that far off. Perhaps it’s time for Americans to stop complaining that nothing ever changes, especially since many don’t vote. We should clean house by using term limits via the ballot box. It’s our best chance at ending the gridlock that rots thinking in D.C.

Public service is a privilege, not a right of the wealthy, powerful and connected (although that’s what our bloated system now embraces). Nobody should expect re-election; individuals should go in with the idea of one term and done.

Our Founding Fathers did not install a king or dictator to lead us, but instead had delegates representing the voters of each state elect a president (George Washington) in 1789. It's likely they shared a belief that the emerging nation, which declared independence from Great Britain in 1776, was bigger than one person or a single group of people.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union ... the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution (1787) and the Bill of Rights (1791 amendments) laid the foundation for our country.

Sure, our Founding Fathers weren't perfect (slavery), but the structure and rights expressed in the Constitution are not just a collection of words unless "We the People" allow that to happen through indecision, indifference and division.

America always should be a work in progress, with fresh faces and ideas moving us forward.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.

Playing The Blame Game

The U.S. government’s lawsuit against Wall Street investment giant Goldman Sachs for alleged fraud raises serious questions about financial ethics in this country but also about the role of regulators in our lives.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged Goldman Sachs with "defrauding investors" over subprime mortgage securities, which were largely blamed for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The government agency responsible for regulating the U.S. financial market alleged that Goldman Sachs failed to disclose crucial information to investors who ultimately suffered a loss of some $1 billion.

Some media reports say the SEC, blamed previously for not discovering the $50 billion Ponzi scheme of former stock broker and investment adviser Bernard Madoff in a timely fashion, was determined to crack down on Goldman Sachs in a bid to bolster its reputation and restore public confidence in the agency.

Goldman Sachs, in denying the SEC allegations, vowed to fight for its reputation. "The SEC's charges are completely unfounded in law and fact, and we will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation," the investment bank said in a statement.

GS Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein is required to attend an April 27 inquiry of the U.S. Senate's standing investigation committee, which also is launching an investigation into the role of American banks in the subprime mortgage crisis, according to reports.

So what’s wrong with the U.S. government doing some much-needed policing of Wall Street, especially since taxpayers bailed out the so-called “too big to fail” investment banks?

In theory, there isn’t anything wrong with a thorough review, but it’s just not that simple. The financial crisis that led to the Great Recession’s start in December 2007 is not a black-and-white issue. It’s fine shades of gray, with shared responsibility (blame) at all levels of society.

A review of recent headline stories from the Associated Press expands the blame game:

•Report: Health overhaul will increase nation's tab

•SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed

•Democrats set showdown vote on Wall Street bill

While it’s reassuring to know politicians want to clamp down on Wall Street’s excesses – long after the damage has been done but continues to haunt us – it’s still disturbing to read about the SEC staffers (maybe the unemployed would like those jobs?) and health care reform (does anybody understand what this overhaul really will do for us?).

Why should we trust the U.S. government to get it right this time when it didn’t get a handle on things before and after the recession began? Aren’t Obama and his predecessor,
George W. Bush, opposite sides of the same coin – each spending money we don’t have and leaving the tab for generations not yet born?

Forget the party labels because these days they are almost meaningless. Most folks, especially those who built businesses from dust, just want results. Neither Bush nor Obama, at least so far, showed anything in the way of fiscal restraint.

As for Goldman Sachs, (some of my retirement funds are with GS), if the firm did what it’s accused of, then it should be penalized. But we also should have reservations if the government’s main purpose is making an example out of the investment bank in targeting financial abuse and excess.

Bottom line: There’s plenty of blame to be shared all around – from Wall Street to Main Street, and all points in between.

Many of us overused plastic, knowing full well we couldn’t pay the credit debt, never mind the interest. We also took out home equity loans, treating our price-inflated houses like cash cows, which allowed us to live well beyond our means. We partied, along with the pols and Wall Street, until the bubble burst in a sea of job losses, home foreclosures and crushed retirement plans.

Mark Britton, founder of lawyer ratings Web site avvo.com, said that if the Goldman Sachs fraud case went to a jury, the investment giant would try to persuade the panel that the firm was a political victim. Hate to admit it, but it sure looks that way.

If U.S. authorities want to speed up financial supervision reforms, do so across the board, skip the political posturing, and get back to fixing our ailing economy, so people can find decent-paying jobs again.

But let’s not use Goldman Sachs as the lightning rod for all that went wrong in the financial markets. Fairness would dictate an even-handed approach – new safeguards aimed at protecting American consumers regardless of who they do business with should be the ultimate goal, not another taxpayer-funded witch hunt.

The problem is some business and government leaders continue to do things the way they’ve always been done and, somehow, they expect different results. Anyone can tax and spend, and then find scapegoats when things turn sour.

We need creative solutions to critical problems, not more lip service, and definitely not more media talking heads slanting stories to suit their personal agendas. We need real leadership -- at all levels -- to restore trust in our institutions, the country and in ourselves.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.