Comments on: Exhausted Claims part II

By: Chart Junkie: A Picture's Worth ... 6.26.09 | Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Chart Junkie: A Picture's Worth ... 6.26.09 | Wall St. Cheat Sheet — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:33:03 +0000

[...] then it was taking money from our imaginary Uncle Sam. Now we get money from … ? (Source: The Big Picture) Chinese Electricity Output and GDP [...]

By: 15 ms of (anonymous) fame in the blogosphere « Pick your poison

15 ms of (anonymous) fame in the blogosphere « Pick your poison — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:21:22 +0000

[...] http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/exhausted-claims-part-ii/ [...]

By: Frank FB

Frank FB — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:15:41 +0000

Since 1972 the labor force must have grown considerably. Would not the unemployment rate (and exhaustion rate) be better stated as percentages of the labor force, rather than raw figures as shown on the graph?

By: RangerTurtle

RangerTurtle — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:06:32 +0000

When all the burger-flipping jobs are gone, unemployment exhausted, states broke from welfare, stim-one exhausted, we can then compare Depression II to Depression I. Maybe then it would be good to march on Washington and demand help for PEOPLE instead of help for CORPORATIONS/BANKS. Maybe that time is getting closer!

By: mathman

mathman — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:38:17 +0000

For the most part, newly unemployed workers find that there are no jobs paying the same rate they’ve accumulated over their years of service and that starting over means, in reality, taking a huge pay cut.
Now that most of the jobs in our economy are service related, the starting pay rate is almost impossible to live on. We have a workforce being marginalized, underemployed, and replaced with machines to keep corporate profits up. This is what capitalism does – kills democracy (through influence) and makes life miserable for the citizenry (known as the workforce). When it comes to shoring up corporations on the backs of labor, then cutting labor to the bone, what result should any clear-thinking person expect?

By: constantnormal

constantnormal — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:42:09 +0000

@wunsacon 6:33 pm

— “Tech itself replaces workers, too.”

This is something that has been ongoing for as long as there has been “technology”. The Pollyannas will tell you that something new always comes along as the economy expands and creates an ever-expanding mandala of employment choices.

The Dismalists will point out that the rate of technological improvement is increasing, with the newly created jobs requiring ever-more-sophisticated skill sets, and that eventually robots will do everything.

The Dismalists have a point. I suppose we could create new simple-enough-that even-a-human-can-do-them “make work” jobs, but people are smart enough that I doubt these positions would be very fulfilling — much the same as most government jobs today.

But I wonder if anyone is looking at what kind of socioeconomic models would replace the pyramid of capitalism in such a system.

By: constantnormal

constantnormal — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:32:31 +0000

What we really need is exhausted claims data going back to the 1930’s, so we can make proper comparisons to the Great Depression (a little TBP humor).

Or at least appreciate the differences between then and now.

By: Transor Z

Transor Z — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:38:18 +0000

Here’s an April 2008 DoL summary of the findings of a pilot program to determine whether Exhaustion Rate really does correlate to reemployment rates.
http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/reemploypilot.asp

A couple of interesting take-aways:
(1) acknowledgement by DoL that the 26-week period is higher than the average benefit exhaustion period, which is only 22 weeks.
(2) acknowledgement that exhaustion rate does not correlate to reemployment in Q+1 but does roughly approximate reemployment in Q+2 (for current purposes you might wonder whether even that is true during a severe recession).

————————–
Some historic data is available for extended benefits paid during past recessions and for all years from 1940 to 1998.

Annual exhaustion data is also available:
http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/dmstree/handbooks/394/tables.htm#cy
————————–

By: Todd in SM

Todd in SM — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:22:14 +0000

Barry – these are absolute numbers, correct? Wouldn’t a more historically accurate picture be gleaned from a ratio of these numbers against the total available workforce?

Just wondering how much we are versus the 70s lull.

Thanks!

By: wunsacon

wunsacon — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:10:32 +0000

Let’s give more money to the banks. Didn’t that “work” before??

We won’t know we’re a “cargo cult” until we do it again and this time it *doesn’t* work.

I’ll take drums. Who can dance? MEH?? Franklin??