On the job front, this is no Great Depression. Not even close

Armed with these charts, you should be due for another appearance on Bloomberg or CNN or even, FOX and MSNBC news. This is valuable information. While times aren't the greatest, we could be doing much, much worse.

@bryan: Agreed!

I think an article like this, using graphs to back it up, while the author may believe he's calming the general population who may be panicking about the economy, it sounds to me as tone deaf as McCain saying during the election campaign that the fundamentals of the economy are strong in practically the same news cycle as he said he didn't know how many homes he owns. So what if the current official numbers don't match 1930's figures. If the point is that "things are not so bad" then the author is clueless at best. As he himself pointed out, the times are vastly different. There aren't many people left on the farms, so a high non-farm unemployment rate definitely matters more now than then. I know a magazine writer is not exactly in a Marie Antoinette tax bracket but it sounds like "let them eat cake" to me. If you're out of work, if you used to be middle class and played by the rules and now find yourself on food stamps does it matter that the official numbers are not the worst they've ever been? And let me just say one quick thing about the official 8.1% number. It's not accurate? Does anyone truly believe that it is? There are thousands of people who are barely employed, former executives washing cars to feed their families are one example. How about the self-employed whose clients have vanished? How about those who've given up looking or are otherwise ineligible for collecting unemployment insurance? How about people who go back to school or extend their schooling far beyond what they would've if there were jobs, are they counted? How about the fact that people don't apply for jobs anywhere in the country but where they live, and the local official rate of unemployment may be 50% higher or more than the national rate? Seriously, an article like this is not just giving out some helpful information for people who are scared out of proportion to reality, as the author may think. An article like this may as well be read out loud at the next RNC meeting to pump up the crowd. Maybe projected on a screen in a powerpoint presentation. Did anyone see John Stewart of the Daily Show stand up to Jim Cramer as no real journalist has done? And Cramer's excuse for hyping up stocks while the market was crashing? There is a market for it. Stewart pointed out that there is also a market for cocaine and hookers. Playing the fiddle while Rome burns, telling people what they want to hear is irresponsible journalism. By modern standards, things are very bad. It was only 7 or 8 years previous that the economy shut down in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Compared to the relatively steady sustained growth and job security of the post war years, these are tumultuous times. Maybe it doesn't really hit home until one's publication folds are institutes mass layoffs. The underlying message to an article like this is that we are a bunch of whiners who don't know really tough times. Bull. If you are out of work involuntarily for months at a time or you lose your home due to what a relative few freewheeling, bonus-getting bankers and brokers have done, then it sounds like the 1930's to me.

It's all local. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.
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@elcaliban: It was hardly stable after WWII. In the late 50s and early 60s, my father was laid off from the steel mill several times. Granted, those were times when sooner or later, you were called back, but by the 70s, even that ended. Is this really any less stable?

@elicaliban: The intent of the article is not to comfort someone that has lost a job or to "calm the general population". Do not attempt to describe the article in emotional terms. It's an analysis -- and a very interesting one. It gives us some useful perspective on the current events.

your charts hide the human factor

1929 - what maybe 14 million workforce? @ 30% unemployment = 4.2 million
2008 - 54 million workforce? @ 8.1% unemployment = 4.3 million

Maybe you picked the wrong charts to display?

Good information, particularly because it avoided the normal partisan nonsense. A fact frequently left out of similar discussions is the overall length of the recessions. If you talk with anyone who was actually around during the 30's, this data would not surprise them, and they can add some "human factor" to it. I don't think the article was meant to "comfort". It's raw data, take it for what it is.

On the other hand: "By modern standards, things are very bad." Now that's hard to put on a graph.

Charts and numbers present facts and data. If we want a human side, we would go to Life magazine or something. And I'm not being insensitive, but it is important for us to be objective even in the midst of a storm. By looking at objective criterion and pitting it against our subjective observations, we can make informed decisions and take calculated risks that will advance our future goals and objectives. Do not be dismayed, I am not saying that some people are "Losers" like Gramm or Santelli, but I am saying that useful information is more valuable than even the best connection story. If I sound hardened, I apologize. But I was a military officer before I was a lawyer, and my job has always been to keep my head when everybody around me was losing theirs. This is, once again, no time to lose one's head.

@bryan: Interesting. I was a military officier before I was, well, whatever I am now. It can't be defined in a word.

To Justin Fox: Perhaps I wasn't clear with my comment saying this article might've been written to pump up an RNC crowd. What I meant to get across is that the Republican party, which I alluded to with the other comment about McCain, is the party that would be most buoyed by an article which downplays the seriousness of the current economic crisis because they are the party that presided over a period of lax regulation, and possibly profited the most from "irrational exuberance" and stock market hype that helped contribute to this collapse. The reason they'd be pumped up by saying, in essence, it's not so bad is because: IT LETS THEM OFF THE HOOK. When Cheney says something like, Don't Blame Us, this is a Global Problem (as he did in a speech recently), it's part of the Republican party's attempts to avoid responsibility. It's like articles like this, and comments like Cheney's add up to: It's not so bad, and even if it is, it's not the Republican's faults. And when journalists like yourself, attempt to downplay the seriousness of the economic situation, of unemployment, it's like you're letting them off the hook. It seems as if your couple articles on this, explaining that things are not as bad in percentage points as The Great Depression are an arch, finger wagging at readers who might be truly suffering. And Please, please don't respond with: Hey Folks, I just present the numbers. Numbers are facts. I have no agenda but simply relaying numbers, don't kill the messenger. The numbers, first of all, do not tell the whole story, as the other commenter, timpb09, pointed out, in fact by ignoring some other statistics, like the greater percentage of the population in the workforce now versus the 1930's (Women, for example), it really misstates the severity of the job losses. Just because you can put some information in graph form doesn't mean that it's the whole story. As I said, the official unemployment percentage does not count all the unemployed or underemployed, so they do not tell the whole story (of how bad things are). And even if you do rely on the official numbers, you don't take into full account the difference in population, how things have changed (less people on the farms, less people in manufacturing), to acknowledge the real impact of such a high percentage in modern times. It doesn't matter if you're not actually trying to help the cause of out-of-touch, responsibility-denying Republicans, the end result is that that's what you're doing.

WHY DO THE COMPARISONS ALMOST ALWAYS NEGLECT THE FACT THAT MEASURES OF UNEMPLOYMENT ARE MUCH DIFFERENT NOW? Look up u5 and u6 unemployment, and look up what the numbers look then. The American unemployment rate would be more like ~14-16% now using the measures that were used earlier last century; i.e., just shy of what unemployment was during the first Great Depression if you compare apples to apples. To call this stuff rosier than it is is a complete disservice to ourselves - we need to DO SOMETHING, NOT pretend there's no real problem.

Do not say it too soon. The current recession is far from over. At this juncture, no body can be absolutely sure if the December 2007 curve will not dip further down to meet up with the September 1929 curve some time in the not too distant future.

In this time of economic mayhem and confusion, who can be trusted? Not the financial advisors, not the stock analysts, not the economists, not even the powerful Fed Chairman or Treasury Secretary.

All of us have been cheated, one way or another. There is no necessity to put our life-saving near any furnace, lest it catches fire any moment.

Trust our own judgment. If we cannot make it, just stay idle. Doing nothing is better than doing something stupid that will make us regret our whole life.
(Tan Boon Tee)

This recession is not yet over, and therefore cannot be accurately compared to recessions that are over.

@Justin Fox: Justin - I can see what the charts are "about". And they are about unemployment (or negative changes in employment). I.e., as nonfarm employment changes are negative while the population is not decreasing and farm payrolls are not increasing, more people are becoming unemployed, e.g.. That is clear. However, when nonfarm payrolls percent changes include the discouraged and the grossly underemployed (people not asking for unemployment benefits while working "marginally" and well below their qualifications and barely if truly making ends meet, e.g.) in one era, and they don't in another era, the comparison is not a fair one. I suspect that your 1930s numbers include what is called u5 and u6 unemployed (or employed, however you want to look at it), and your more recent numbers do not. Is this true?

Thank you...way to go...

http://www.positiveeconomicnews.com

@tanboontee: I like your "doing nothing" thought; seems like reasonable advice in general in what can otherwise be a "'Results' at all costs" world (while "results" are really subjective).
@tzugidan: I like the post. It is good to see positive news, even if it is a collection of very minority reports. At some point, the minority will become the majority again (much like the Peter Schiffs of the world that were predicting something dire a couple years ago and getting laughed at wound up being the correct ones).

Did America have shortage of labor during its past recessions? Today, American labor is in fact filled in by foreign labor exports. Meaning, strictly speaking America is not really in trouble as far as labor is concerned. It is labor exporting neighbors that could be in trouble if US stops importing to address its unemployment. America must only be in a enconomic slowdown, retrenchment, or retreat in reality but far from real trouble. They're bad enough sure.

So we haven't lost as many jobs (yet) as we did in the 1930's. That is in large part due to the governments bailout efforts. However, if the current credit crunch continues, we are going to see businesses closing, and unemployment will rise.
As for supporting the GOP's position, they have decided that the Great Depression would have been over in a year and that FDR's policies prolonged it until WWII pulled us out. Nice fantasy, but it amounts to nothing but political posturing.

Zomnidvo: Thanks for sharing my thought. By doing nothing (not doing the wrong thing), every thing gets done – that is the way of Tao.
The global rich must change their lifestyle to help alleviating the harsh impact of the current economic mayhem. Live simple, eat simple – that is the way of healthy life.
(Tan Boon Tee)

When the lights go out in the major cities across America I can guarantee you the American people will not care about “failed” Government bailouts, TARP Money, executive bonuses or compensation and least of all who is to blame. Most of us have gone through the four (4) stages of grief: Shock, Denial, Grief and Acceptance.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said yesterday on Fox News, that it is probable that the Government should have let AIG go bankrupt and maybe the Government should have. I don't pretend to know.

What I do know is the Government and the Media should stop their feeding frenzy which is devastating to the US travel Industry.
The Travel industry lost 200,000 job in 2008; 247,000 more jobs are estimated to be lost in 2009. Hotels, restaurants, taxis, airlines, cruise lines, buses, and limousine companies are being destroyed at an alarming rate because of the unending Media coverage of AIG.

As usual, no one in Government is responsible and the Government and Media are looking for someone to blame for the irresponsible handling of the TARP money……The people get it. The money is gone!

But what we don't get is why the Government and Media is “fiddling” while our cities are “teetering” on disaster. Can you please give us some information on that looming crisis?

Jonna Sabroff
Vice President & Executive Chairman
Greater California Livery Association (GCLA)
Representing 5,000 limousine companies in California

Jonna Sabroff
President
Integrated Transportation Services, Inc. (ITS)
Direct: 310-553-4355
Cell: 310-922-8113
Fax: 310-558-0748
Email: Jonna@itslimo.com
Website: http://www.itslimo.com

@tanboontee: I agree. And I think maybe a lot of us could find something in the Tao. Some of us might begin to find something simply through looking outside of our immediate selves. Maybe especially if we all do.

Does anyone know why the current recession's line is so smooth? If you add this month's uncooked three quarters of a million, it looks like a smooth exponential curve...

As an economics student, this is somewhat strange to read from another economist. There is a tremendous amount that hasn't happened yet. Never mind that the labor industry bears almost no resemblance to that of the 1920's or 1930's. Why did you start that graph in Dec. 2007??? Every time I think about this situation, which is a lot, I draw the black days as being September 15-18 of '08, which is coincidentally about the time that there was a noticeable drop on the graph, or maybe just after. We can expect market-by-market crises, next most likely in retail and commercial real estate, then opening up almost everything else that could bring things down, including tax revenues, which will put a kink in government employment without more printing of money. Travel and hospitality? Yea, there'll be problems, and the bailouts will have to continue as bonds for companies like Carnival or the hotel chains default. The banking system has been giving out loans like candy thanks to low prime rates and money printing on the assumption that things could only get better and not default. We have not seen the last of these problems. Say hello to inflation, people. I hate to advocate a gold standard (which makes investment unattractive and is friendly to money hoarding and class warfare) but we have no idea what our money will be worth in 12 months.

I find it interesting that Austrian school economics advocates washing our hands and letting the market kill the over-borrowers, resulting in huge job losses and corporate mortality in favor of letting the system reset itself with better companies in the name of defending currency values. Then interventionist/Keynesian economics says to pump huge amounts of liquidity into the system to preserve borrowing and let the companies restructure (layoffs) at the risk of basically irrelevant inflation. Neither works well, but both advocate preserving the economic order instead of the middle-class, which has been declining since Reagan and been propped up by cheap credit ever since. Why? Because middle class increases in real income are the problem, causing inflation and making labor uncompetitive with foreigners. Can someone just admit that the standard of living in America is unsustainable, is going to be axed, and a "strong middle class" is an economically self-destructive phenomena? Or is that always going to be politically unacceptable? No, and we can't admit that we don't know how to recognize sustainable growth as opposed to bubbles, either, so the fractional-reserve money supply will never result in an accurate reflection of wealth. I love Barack and I know he's trying, but the man is screwed in '12. Lets just hope the Republican who takes his place isn't a fundamentalist.