Unemployment: Get Ready To Get Fired!
"The unemployment rate is projected to continue rising for another year before topping out in double digits… Analysts say the high levels of joblessness would be accompanied by increases in child poverty, strained government budgets, and black and Latino unemployment rates approaching 20 percent." (The African-American unemployment rate is already 15% nation-wide, by the way.)
FUN FACT: Did you know that 2/3rds of New York City's unemployed do not receive unemployment insurance, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute?
FUN FACT: Did you know that we should be taking managers hostage when they try to lay us off, just as they do in France?
IT IS TRUE. Now more than ever is the time for nonviolent yet stern insurrection. Consider it! American corporations are throwing America to the wayside to survive. Who'll be laughing when there's no one to buy their cruddy products, however? Also it is time to start growing things and milking cows, so go barter your Vespa for a cow immediately, young playboy.
It will a revolution of strongly-worded letters.
There will be no revolution until we run out of corn syrup.
Looks like they're hiring up in New Hampshire.
Maybe it's time to pile all of our possessions onto the back of a truck and head on up there.
I was up there last weekend; the roadside ice cream industry was woefully understaffed.
Just get me up to New Hampshire, where I can pick me an orange when I want it. Or grapes. There's a thing I ain't never had enough of. Gonna get me a whole big bunch of grapes off a bush, or whatever, and I'm gonna squash 'em on my face and let 'em run offen my chin. Maybe I'll get me a whole washtub full of grapes and just sit in 'em and scrounge around in 'em until they're all gone.
I sure would like that. Yes, sir, I sure would like that.
ayuh.
It occurred to me, as I read an article in the 'New Yorker' today, on preachy books written about artisanal and craft movements, while enroute to Brownsville to depose the production manager of a frozen shrimp plant (they say we thawed their crummy frozen shrimp), that the future of our economy hinges on the purchase of preachy books written about fulfilling occupations no one has the skills to fill, the magazine articles written about those preachy books, and the run-on gratis blog posts of individuals generally sore about an unfulfilling occupation one has the skill and infinite good fortune to fill.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to buy the new 'Maxim' and read about boobs.
The dirty secret is that there are no boobs in Maxim. There are many boobs of the other sort in the New Yorker.
Everyone needs to Twitter their layoffs. ALLAH AKBAR!
Yeah! Maybe we should all color-code our avatars or something! Too bad green is taken I guess.
What is the color of broke? Is it Ecru? Or more of a salmon?
I've worked in small business for five years.
I only go to the family-owned pharmacy in my neighborhood when I need aspirin, prescriptions, Band-Aids, etc.
I avoid chain restaurants and go to small, local businesses.
I tend to buy better clothing at sample sales directly from small designers or from Gilt Group. (And yes that is an invite link that would benefit me if you purchased and joined, which I do shamelessly.)
I try to buy my meat at the butcher and my vegetables/fruits at the green grocer.
It's both a revolution and a lifestyle.
Re: the NYC unemployment rate. Things are actually much worse than they seem here, because a large portion of the adult population isn't in the labor force (either employed or actively looking for work), probably because they've given up the search as hopeless. The participation rate – the share of the adult pop in the labor force – is 10-15 percentage points lower than it is nationally. The real unemployment rate in the city is probably 20%.
Isn't that number also swayed by the all the young'ins that got laid off and moved back home with Mom and Dad in NJ/CT? I've wondered about that, because I've heard a lot of those stories, and I'm not sure how that rate is calculated.
I'll be worried when the Bronx starts burning. NYC will get it's "character" back. Have fun.
See? Move to Pittsburgh!
The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of about 60,000 households nationally every month. People are asked if they were working, looking for work, or just picking their nose during the previous month. If you're working or looking for work you've counted as part of the labor force. If you're doing neither you're counted as not in the labor force. Unemployment rate = those not working but looking for work/total labor force. Those picking their noses are asked if they'd like a job or not. The ones who say yes are counted as "marginally attached" to the labor force.
What's very high in NYC is the share of the pop that's neither working nor looking for work – I haven't checked the numbers recently, but last time I did it was about 10-15 percentage points higher than the national average.
If you've moved back the suburban lair with the parents then you don't register as relevant to NYC at all.
I'm sure it's a tiny percentage of that 10-15 percent, but I've got more than a few acquaintances who've been laid off from the banks, got a nice package and have decided not to work for the next year.
Just a nit picky point here for the WaPo, but if we're already pretty much at 10%, telling us it will "top out in the double digits" is kind of meaningless, no? I don't think anyone expects it to go above 99%. Right? RIGHT?
And crime, don't forget more crime, too!