The recession might be over, but political impact still felt
The Great Recession officially ended in the middle of last year, but its political impact may be felt by President Obama long after the November midterm elections.
Two recent reports highlight the long-term consequences of the recession for Obama and congressional Democrats worried about being blown out of the water in November.
The first, from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), concludes that higher-paying jobs in construction and financial services lost during the longest recession in the post-World War II era are being replaced by lower-paying jobs in bars, restaurants and department stores.
Not only is job growth too anemic to make up for the millions of jobs lost, the NELP report shows it has been particularly weak in creating high-paying jobs.
Net job growth in 2010 has been driven disproportionately by industries with median wages below $15 an hour. More than 50 percent of the growth in employment through July 2010 came from jobs paying a median wage of between $10.83 and $15 per hour, the second-lowest quintile of wages considered in the report. Another 25 percent of the employment growth has been in the lowest wage quintile of $8.92 per hour to $10.82 per hour.
Jobs paying between $22.13 per hour and $31.02 per hour, in contrast, made up 0.2 percent of employment growth in that period.
The study also highlights the number of high-paying jobs lost in the recession. Using statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it found that 1.2 million jobs paying between $22.13 per hour and $31.02 per hour were lost in the recession. Only about 1,000 of those jobs were added back to the economy in the first seven months of the year.
Six industries actually lost jobs even as the rest of the economy took small steps toward a recovery in 2010. Those industries were construction, finance and insurance, information, real estate and rental and leasing, professional and technical services and utilities.
Construction, which has been hammered by the housing crisis, offered the most dramatic change. That sector lost nearly 1.8 million jobs between December 2007 and December 2009. It lost another 123,000 jobs in the first seven months of 2010. Construction did add 19,000 jobs in August, after NELP concluded its report.
“More so than in past recessions, there’s a sense that more of those jobs are permanently lost, or lost for a long time,” said Chris Owens, NELP’s executive director.
It’s not unusual for lower-paying jobs to come back first in a recovery, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said in an e-mail. Still, he suggested there’s some reason for concern given the unusual number of highly educated and skilled workers who lost their jobs during the recession.
Zandi expects overall payroll employment to fall by 110,000 in September’s report, to be issued next Friday. That would include the loss of 185,000 temporary Census jobs. Next week’s report will be the final new unemployment report before Election Day.
The top three occupations that have seen job growth, NELP estimated, were retail salesmen, cashiers and food-preparation workers, “a sobering figure given their poverty-level wages.”
Owens said that if the pattern of weak job growth continues, there could be an increase in the number of “working poor.”
The second report, from the Census Bureau, notes that poverty is on the rise. The study found that the nation’s poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent from 13.2 percent in 2009. That’s an increase of nearly 4 million people.
Since the recession began in 2007, Census estimated, the number of people in poverty increased by 6.3 million. That was a larger rise than what followed the recession of 1973 to 1975, but lower than the recession of the early 1980s.
The Census calculates poverty using thresholds updated annually for inflation via the Consumer Price Index. A couple with two children were considered to be in poverty in 2009 if their annual total income was below $21,756, a lower threshold than the one used in 2008, before the recession peaked.
President Obama on Monday faced tough questions from voters at a town hall on the economy and jobs.
One audience member who said she had voted for the president in 2008 expressed her disillusion, adding that she had grown tired of defending him. Another questioner asked Obama whether the American Dream was dead.
Obama answered that the American Dream remains alive, but the disturbing data on the jobs front, which is the main reason Democrats may lose the House and Senate this fall, shows there is some reason to doubt where the president was right.
It will be difficult to keep poverty from increasing further without the creation of new jobs that pay higher wages, something both parties may need to worry about.
Swanson is the news editor at The Hill.
April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008