How can they call this a recovery?

Jan 5, 2004

For two years, the economy has been “improving” – according to government figures anyway. And for two years, the media have been telling us that the job market will also “soon” get better.

But up until now, the job situation has only gotten worse. The official unemployment rate stands at 5.9%. And there are millions more unemployed or underemployed – according to the government’s own figures. There are those unemployed unable to find work and who didn’t look for a month. There are those whose full time jobs have been reduced to part time and who are taking home half a pay check – pretty much what they’d get in unemployment benefits in most states.

When all these people are added in, the unemployment rate jumps to 9.7%.

In other words, almost one out of ten workers is unemployed. And it’s getting worse. The average number of weeks the unemployed are out of work is the highest that it’s been in 20 years. And the unemployment rate doesn’t count the hundreds of thousands of young people who go into the Army because they can’t find a job or wind up in prison for the same reason.

For the working class, this is not a recovery. It’s a never-ending disaster.