Facts About The U.S. Economy - December '08

If you still don't believe that the U.S. is in a recession, you must not know that the unemployment rate is at the highest it's been at in over 14 years. U.S. companies are still letting workers go by the thousands. Just in the last three months a total of 1.2 million jobs have been lost. Job losses in September and October actually totaled out to more than originally reported, and it didn't slow down in November. Washington reported that job losses in November increased at the fastest rate it has in over 30 years.

Economists are saying that the unemployment rate will continue to rise into the near future and think that the unemployment rate will reach 8% or possibly even higher in these next few up and coming months. The current unemployment rate is at about 6.8% or so, which is the highest it has been since October of '93. In other words, it's not looking good for U.S. citizens right now as far as jobs are concerned.

Even though employment is getting worse, the average hourly earnings among workers actually increased about 0.04%. That means that the overall average hourly pay among citizens is at about $18.30 an hour. Still, the overall economic downturn is making wage increases harder to grant though, and is further restraining overall household spending for citizens. This is good for some families in a sense. Those who are used to unnecessary splurging can learn how to buckle down and budget their spending, which is always good to know how to do, regardless of what the economy looks like. There have been talks about effectively monetizing of a portion of the countries debt, by possible direct purchases by the Fed, of longer agency and Treasury securities. We should learn more about this once some more light is shed on the current employment data.

The numbers are suggesting that we are facing a much more severe recession than the previous two that our county experienced. This recession is more similar to the one that occurred in the early 1980's. Retailers as well as automakers efforts to bring in more consumer business with the use of discounts haven't been as effective lately, and suggest that citizens just aren't spending as much.

The reason we have been budgeting and trying to save our money is obvious. Whenever we pick up a newspaper or turn on the news all we see are negative reports concerning our economy. All areas of employment seem to be suffering severely besides health care and education, which usually do cushion employment downturns whenever we are experiencing them.