Opinion
Work to do
Opinion of the, Daytona Beach News-Journal
Published: January 12, 2013
It's a good thing Congress and the White House decided it was time to make a deal on tax rates and avoid the fiscal cliff. Now that the nation has jumped that hurdle, we are reminded we are in the middle of either a pre-recession downturn or one of the weakest economic recoveries in history.Published: January 12, 2013
Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported December's unemployment rate was 7.8 percent. Technically, this was not a tick upward from November's 7.7 percent report since November's number was revised to 7.8 percent. Manufacturing and construction were up in December's numbers, but not by enough to show anything more than a short-term blip.
Just how bad is the overall economy? After the jobs report, Bill McBride of Calculated Risk, a business and economics blog that has documented the Great Recession, drew up one of his graphic representations showing that the number of jobs still has not returned to peak employment levels in 2007. McBride compared this recovery to all recoveries following every recession since World War II. What's unusual is how long this recovery is taking to return jobs to a normal, pre-recession level.
Most of the recoveries got America "back to normal" in 26 to 30 months, if not sooner. The 2001 recession took longer — almost four years, but fewer jobs were lost then. Deep recessions often saw quicker recoveries. The deep 1981-1982 recession — the Great Recession's only real competitor — saw America lose 3 percent of its jobs but return to normal in 24 months.
What this means is the Great Recession wasn't just terrible — it produced a terrible recovery, too. Lawmakers and policymakers, be advised. Your work is cut out for you in 2013.