Unless you occupy such a privileged perch that you only rub elbows with hoi oligoi, you probably didn't need the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends Project to tell you that since the recession began in December 2007, more than half of Americans have become unemployed, taken a pay cut, suffered a reduction in hours or had to take a temporary job because they couldn't find a full-time post.
The survey also finds that the recession has led to a new frugality in Americans' spending and borrowing habits; a diminished set of expectations about their retirements and their children's future; and a concern that it will take several years, at a minimum, for their family finances and house values to recover.
Not all survey findings are bleak. More than six-in-ten (62%) Americans believe that their personal finances will improve in the coming year, and a small but growing minority (15%) now says the national economy is in good shape.
That glimmer of optimism doesn't quite mesh with the plunge in across-the-board consumer confidence released by the Conference Board Tuesday. But never mind. On most other matters, the Pew results were bleak.
For instance, while economists' measurements say the recession is over, Pew found that most Americans don't think it is.
In a partisan switch, Democrats are "much more upbeat than Republicans," even though they have lower incomes, less wealth and have been more likely to be in that 55 percent of Americans who have suffered some kind of job hit in the recession. That, Pew says, is because Republicans "are more likely than Democrats to say their house has lost value, and because they are more likely than Democrats to have investments in the stock market, they've been more exposed to its volatile swings up and down."
Ironically, the most optimistic groups are African Americans, at 15.5 percent unemployment, and Latinos, at 12.4 percent. Even though they were hit harder with job losses and housing foreclosures, they believe the economic situation for the nation and for them personally will improve faster than do other demographic groups.
In addition to the consumer confidence report, the comparative optimism in the Pew study took some other hits this week when the second revision of first-quarter gross domestic product came in Tuesday at an annualized 2.7 percent, below projections and well below the initial report of 3.2 percent. Component elements of GDP painted an even worse picture.
And today, the ADP National Employment Report, which covers private non-farm employment, was well below expectations, with only 13,000 newly created jobs from May to June. Expert consensus said the number would be 60,000. ADP said recent "data suggest that, following steady improvement through April, private employment may have decelerated heading into the summer."
ADP's numbers, which do not count government hiring, have a very mixed record as a predictor of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports each month. That report will be released Friday morning. Consensus is that the BLS will show that some 150,000 private-sector jobs were added in June, with a loss of 200,000-250,000 temporary Census jobs. But consensus on the BLS numbers has been far off the mark in recent months. I wouldn't bet next month's rent or mortgage payment on those numbers if I were you.
Whatever the latest jobless figures turn out to be, we may well see anomalies in the unemployment rate thanks to obstructionists in the Congress. The failure to pass an extension of unemployment benefits may cause more people to stop looking for work, taking them off the jobless roster and thus eliminating them from calculations of the percentage of Americans who are out of work. That's one of a number of problems with how such calculations are made in the first place.
While most eyes have been focused on the acute crisis - the one that's been dogging the economy for the past 30 months - less attention has been given to the chronic, structural crisis created by off-shored jobs and their effect on wages, the lack of a U.S. industrial policy like the ones every developed country and many developing countries such as India, China and Brazil have, and the failure to repair old infrastructure and innovate a new one.
While we're treated to a deficit commission whose chief task seems to be focused on how to eviscerate Social Security, there are no signs of a commission being created to deal with those chronic problems because, no doubt, such a move would smack of planning, and that, of course, would be socialistic.
