This is not good:
New claims for jobless benefits rose to a nine-month high last week, touching the half-million mark, in a worrying sign for the US labour market.
Initial jobless claims increased by 12,000 to 500,000, labour department figures showed on Thursday. Wall Street analysts were expecting claims to dip.
In the past month, claims for unemployment insurance have been creeping higher and the less volatile four-week average rose 8,000 to 482,500. That was the highest level since December 2009.
http://www.ft.com/...
Things do not look good for these laid off workers. For the first time since we began tracking it, the average duration of unemployment is now over six months -- 34 and a half weeks at last count. Yet another unfortunate new word entered our lexicon this year -- "99ers" -- referring to those who have been on unemployment for two full years, the absolute (up until now) outer limit of unemployment benefits.
But those on the unemployment rolls are actually the lucky ones. Even more have just dropped out of the labor force. In May of 2008, 66.2% of working age people were in the labor force -- that number is now down to 64.6%. A one and half of percent drop might not seem that significant, but that works out to about 5 million working age adults who have just dropped out of the labor force.
And the broader "U6" measure of unemployment that attempts to capture underemployed and discouraged workers who are "marginally attached" to the labor force has remained above 16% for over a year.
We can't go on like this. I feel extremely lucky that my wife and I both have jobs, so we're OK. But when I see people with decades of experience, skills development and education out there struggling to work for even $10 an hour, and then I talk to young black men who desperately need work, but can't pass a background check, I know that something has to give. People need work -- meaningful, productive work. It's almost as basic to our essence as human beings as air, water and other people.
I don't know the solutions. Some say put people to work by investing in public infrastructure to build the basis for our long-term prosperity. Sounds good to me. Others say that you have to cut taxes and regulation to unleash private sector growth. That doesn't sound too bad at this point in the game, either.
But whatever way we go, it's time to get serious. Washington: Figure it out! We can't have tens of millions of people whittling their lives away in idleness without long-term consequences that we can scarcely imagine. Let's get back to work!