The US unemployment crisis looks like it's impossible to solve, at least in the short term. The US has an official unemployment rate of 9.6%, but it's 16.1% among black workers, 12.4% among Hispanic workers and 7.9% among workers age 16-24. And as reported here, it goes up to 17.1% if you take into account discouraged and underemployed workers. That's the real rate.
According to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, the US economy is still 11.5 million jobs short.
Heidi Shierholz from the Institute writes that the US labor market remains an estimated 8.1 million payroll jobs below where it was at the start of the recession in December 2007. This number includes both the 7.8 million jobs that have vanished. She estimates that the US labor market is now roughly 11.5 million jobs below the level needed to restore the pre-recession unemployment rate of 5% in December 2007.
She writes: "To get down to the pre-recession unemployment rate within five years, the labor market would have to add around 300,000 jobs every month for that entire period."
no comment untill now