Sure, an increase in GDP of 5.7% is a good thing, certainly better than a decrease in GDP. That being said, it’s an increase from what? This is what we get for a trillion dollars in stimulus? There were increases in GDP during the depression, too. Wall Street investors apparently weren’t too thrilled, either, or the Dow wouldn’t have dropped another 50 points.
Until companies have confidence to start hiring don’t expect the overall economy to improve any time soon. Don’t hold your breath.
The number of long term unemployed has shot up relative to the people who find jobs relatively quickly. To some extent, this is normal for a recession; employment tends to be a lagging indicator, as cautious employers use existing workers to fill rising production orders, rather than taking on more employees that they might have to later fire.
But the last two recessions were characterized by lingering unemployment–the infamous “jobless recovery” under Clinton and Bush. One theory for why this is true comes from a paper by Erica Groshen and Simon Potter, which suggests that increasingly, America’s unemployment tends to be structural rather than cyclical. In the old economy, aggregate demand collapsed for some reason, and workers got laid off, then called back to work when orders recovered. These days, it is more likely that your job and industry has gone away entirely.
That has particular implications for a skilled economy. In 1930s, when FDR was trying to combat mass long-term unemployment, all he needed to do was create a construction project; most of the men in the country did some sort of hard physical labor. It was relatively easy to create jobs that they could fill.
But what kind of public works projects would absorb mortgage brokers or mid-level managers? As jobs have gotten more skilled, more human capital is specific to firms, industry, and job classifications.
Maybe all of those brokers and managers can go to work on Obama’s high speed rail. But that rail will have to employ a heck of a lot of workers to make any kind of dent in unemployment.
From the report, there are 5,350,477 workers on emergency benefits, and another 4,669,250 workers on regular benefits. Thus 10 million people are out of a job who want to work, and that does not count the number of people who have exhausted regular and emergency benefits.
Recovery? Where?
More here.
5.7%? Really?
PROVE IT!
My $$ says they have either cooked the books or juggled a few numbers to look like something has happened they could take credit for.
They are a pack of liers and have lost all credibility with me.
If the GDP did actually increase, it happened in spite of their policies NOT because of it.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
PLEASE NOTE:
Any job the gov’t “creates” DO NOT COUNT.
These wages come from the taxpayer and not a productive company/corporation.
I essence these jobs are simply welfare and remain so until they are sustained by work separate from the government.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0