In December, the unemployment rate dropped to a mere 9.4%--the largest one month drop since 1998. Hailing this as a "clear trend of job growth," Obama is saying that now is the time for businesses to invest and create new jobs in order to help the people and aid the economy. Although this may not seem significant, 103,000 jobs were created to help the unemployed. But some economists like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke beg to differ as the economy will continue to remain depressed. Furthermore, this statistic may not be so accurate as 260,000 unemployed people have given up looking for jobs, which ironically enough, does not count them as jobless anymore.
Ben Bernanke continues to argue that although consumer spending and business investment has helped the economy recover a bit, with low incomes and people unwilling to give out higher paychecks, the economy may still continue to plunge instead of recover.
Overall, the recovery is not adequate enough to change the unemployment figure drastically, but at least our economy shows promise in getting out of the recession. And hopefully, after we get out of this recession, those that got out of the job market, will slowly get back into it as the economy becomes better and better.
So do you guys think Obama was justified in calling this a decrease in job trends? Is the recovery simply a mirage, or does it show promise? What is in store for the future of the American economy?
1 comment:
Eeeh.... I'm not sure calling this a "decrease in job trends" is exactly accurate. There's always the possibly of a "double-dip" and it's not like the percent unemployment (whatever that means now) has even decreased by a significant margin.
However, I think Obama's right in encouraging companies to start hiring. I've read more than one article detailing the fields that are hiring (business, medicine, nursing) in bigger numbers, but I think it's weird how people assume that this is a linear thing. It's definitely a circular path, and whether it's the consumers stimulating the economy or the companies hiring more people or paying bigger paychecks, it has to start somewhere if we want our economy to improve. Here's to 2011!
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