As if we really needed a poll to tell us this --- but it's nice to be reassured, because misery loves company. Although the Great Recession has had little or no impact on half of America, the other half has continued to suffer the lingering consequences in one form or another.
Most households live in owner-occupied homes, and homeowners tend to have higher incomes. While although most Americans saw their home values diminish during the housing bust, most weren't forced into foreclosure either --- and they just continued going to work and paying their mortgages, as they always have. But even so, investments in the housing market by the banks, private equity firms and foreign investors (to rent and flip) have also been gradually increasing their home's value again. (34.9% of occupied homes were rented as of 2010).
And most of those who had union pension plans, 401ks or IRA accounts (and who weren't also laid off and forced into early retirement, or were forced into making early withdrawals) have also seen the value of their retirement plans return to near-normal --- because of the dramatic rise in the stock markets. But millions of others did not benefit at all from the stock market, nor did they have any pension plan either (with the exception of Social Security if the had a work history).
And despite approximately 8.7 million Americans losing their jobs from 2007 to 2009, more than 142 million people did not lose their jobs --- even though many did have their hours reduced, their benefits eliminated, or had their pay cut. But because most Americans did not lose their job, most were not affected as much by the Great Recession --- at least, not so much that they would realize it in any significant way while going about their daily lives (such as a drastic change in their standard-of-living).
And for those at the very top of the income ladder, the Great Recession was actually an economic boom. For several years the Wall Street Journal has been boasting of record profits and record CEO pay. (Some in the media have been more or less downplaying the horrific job numbers and emphasizing the more positive aspects of the "economic recovery".)
But of those who WERE laid off --- or were entering the work force for the very first time --- or had their hours, benefits and wages cut --- the Great Recession was devastating. And it appears to be getting worse, not better --- especially with all the proposed, current, and soon-to-be implemented sequester cuts in government spending.
The unemployment rate just recently rose from 7.5 percent to 7.6 percent. The reason given for this slight uptick was the same reason that is always given whenever the unemployment rate goes up. Pundits who sugar-coat the unemployment numbers (most likely for political reasons) are saying that "more people have entered the work force" --- indicating that Americans who previously couldn't find work (and were reported as having "dropped out of the work force"), suddenly had a change of heart, became enthusiastic again about finding a job, and just magically "re-entered" the work force --- as though they were just casually walking through a revolving door.
But the labor force participation rate is still at a 34-year low; and no matter how the pundits try to spin the numbers, they can't sugar-coat that particular fact.
Not to mention, overall, wages have continued to remain flat. The Huffington Post reported: "The U.S. economy continued to churn out low-paying jobs in June in the weakest labor-market recovery since World War II ." Even a Governor of the Federal Reserve said, that because of the quality of jobs being offered these days, "Being a lifeguard didn’t look so bad." (Of course, she was only being sarcastic; but it's nice to know that someone at the Fed is aware of the problem.)
Jobs in the United States aren't being created quickly enough to fill the backlog of nearly 25 million unemployed workers that were left stranded by the recession and its aftermath (about half who are still counted, and half who "left the labor force").
American employers added 175,000 jobs in May, almost exactly the average monthly job growth over the past year --- which would equate to 2.1 million jobs a year. That's not near enough to accommodate 3.4 million young people who just graduated from high school this year, let alone enough to re-hire those that have remained out of work for the past 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years.
Although, McDonald's might hire 62,000 people for summer jobs again (like they do most years), and Fox News might again tout this as being good news for the unemployed, but the fact remains --- there are only 3.8 million job openings for a minimum of 11.7 million people who are being reported in the U-3 unemployment rate.
The New York Times just reported that, "at the current pace of job and labor force growth, it would take nearly five years to get the economy back to the low unemployment rate it had when the recession officially began in December 2007." (But weren't they saying something similar to this almost 5 years ago? And 5 years from now they might be saying the same thing again.)
In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted from May 31 to June 4, about half of all Americans thought the condition of the economy these days was good or the same --- and the other half (maybe Mitt Romney's 47%) thought the economy was the same or getting worse. Maybe that's because 50% of the work forces nets $27,000 a year or less --- and because the GOP has been attacking unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicaid --- while also cutting government jobs on the State level.
On the poll, when asked, "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?", topping the list at #1 was the economy --- and #2 on the list was jobs --- and at a very far distant 3rd place on the list was the budget deficit.--- which is the Republican's #1 priority (as well as repealing both ObamaCare® and Roe v.Wade).
The poll indicated that about half of all Americans thought the economy was "fairly good" --- while the other half thought it was either "fairly bad" or "very bad". Most people thought the economy was either getting worse or the same. And most people thought the job market in their area was either "fairly bad" or "very bad". Two thirds of all Americans were either "very" or "somewhat" concerned that someone in their household (or themselves) might lose a job within the next 12 months.
A different New York Times/CBS News poll from last April showed that Americans are more pessimistic about the nation’s economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama’s first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the depths of Great Recession.
Many "rival" nations (because they don't offshore as many jobs as the US) have surged past the US in adding new jobs. Other countries have generated jobs on the basis of strong exports. Germany’s economy, for example, was powered by shipments of machinery, cars and other products of its high-end manufacturing industries.
Also --- the sluggish US recovery that began in 2009 is different from the trend that prevailed after the deep recession of the early 1980s. While economic growth (GDP) in the US has struggled to top 2 percent in recent years, annual gains in output topped 7 percent when the US was recovering from that recession 30 years ago (of course, that had been before the off-shoring of jobs had become a standard corporate practice).
The weak trajectory of the current labor market in the United States exactly mirrors the pattern for overall economic output (jobs to exports, the labor participation rate to GDP). When Canada had expanded by 6 percent, the American economy had grown by only 3 percent over that same period of time. While the United States population is nearly 10 times that of Canada, the Canadian economy added 95,000 jobs last month compared with 175,000 in the United States. The unemployment rate in the US just went up to 7.6%, while in Canada it just dropped to 7.1%.
The number of workers in the US who have been out of a job for less than five weeks is almost unchanged from 2007 levels --- and there are roughly 4.4 million Americans who have been unemployed for more than six months --- a 257 percent increase since 2007. The New York Times reports that "the job market has normalized for the short-term unemployed. But the longer you have been out of a job, the bleaker the picture gets." The Huffington Post reports that "the ranks of the long-term unemployed have dwindled by 1 million since last year, but economists are uncertain whether they're finding jobs or dropping out of the labor force."
(Are they dropping out or re-entering the labor force, you decide.)
The unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed (such as the "99ers"), are being swept under the rug and ignored. The band Evanescence could have been speaking about the unemployed in their song Where Will You Go, "I can hear you in a whisper, but you can't even hear me screaming." No one in Congress seems to be listening to the unemployed anymore because maybe, they and everyone else, are too busy working and living their own lives. Can you blame them? Life, for most, goes on.
It's no wonder that so many Americans think the economy sucks, because for at least HALF of them, it does --- no matter how high the stock prices are on the DOW JONES. And although millions of American lives were devastated in the aftermath of the Great Recession, for most, life does goes on as normal.
But we don't need a poll to tell us this, nor do we need political pundits or the corporate media to sugar-coat the numbers --- because the politicians are all probably going to ignore the results anyway, just like they do the unemployed --- otherwise, they would have done something about it by now --- instead of just yapping their pie holes.
FULL DISCLOSURE: "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of a third political party."