San José, CA – For the second month in a row, the Department of Labor employment report was weak, with only 113,000 new jobs created in January. Combined with the revised 75,000 jobs created in December, the two month average was only 94,000 new jobs each month, less than half the average increase in 2013 of more than 190,000. While the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, there are still 850,000 fewer jobs than when the recession began in December of 2007.

Despite the weak jobs numbers, the official unemployment rate continued to fall to 6.6% in January as compared to 6.7% in December. The largest fall in the numbers of unemployed came among the long-term unemployed, those out of work for six months or more. In January, there were 230,000 fewer long-term unemployed, more than the total drop in the unemployed of 125,000. Much of this drop was probably due to the end of the federal extended unemployment insurance benefits at the end of December. As many of the long-term unemployed gave up their job search, they are no longer counted as officially unemployed, bringing down the official unemployment rate.

However there are still more than 3.5 million long-term unemployed, who make up more than 35% of the total officially unemployed. In addition there are more than an million people who are out of work and have been looking for work, but didn’t look in January either because they were discouraged or other personal reasons and another 2 million who said that they wanted to work but were not looking.

Although millions of people are struggling to survive without a job, the federal government has eliminated Federal Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) and Extended Benefits (EB), two programs that used to help out the long-term unemployed. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) benefits were cut last year when the 2009 boost which was part of the government stimulus (ARRA or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) expired. On top of that, President Obama just signed into law a new farm bill that cuts food stamps by almost a billion dollars a year for the next ten years.

While the overall official unemployment rate fell slightly, the unemployment rates for African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans all rose in January, making the unemployment gap between oppressed nationalities and whites even larger. The official unemployment rate was 12.1% for African Americans, more than twice as high as for whites, who had an official unemployment rate of 5.7% in January.

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San José, CA – On Sept. 6, the Labor Department announced that the official unemployment rate dropped to 7.3% in August, down from 7.4% in July. But even though 110,000 fewer people were working in August than July, 310,000 people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed. The Labor Force Participation Rate, or the fraction of the adult population who are either working or looking for work, fell to 63.2%, the lowest since August 1978.

Hardest hit were African Americans. Not only was their official unemployment more than twice that of whites (13.0% vs. 6.4%), but the drop in their Labor Force Participation Rate of 0.6% to only 60.8% was twice that of whites, whose Labor Force Participation Rate fell 0.3% to 63.4%.

Overall, there are still over 2 million fewer people with jobs than when the recession began in December of 2007. Even though the economy has been growing for more than four years since the recession officially ended in June of 2009, it has not been fast enough to bring back all of the lost jobs. In addition, almost half of the new jobs being created are in low-paying industries such as retail and hotel and restaurants.

In 2012 the share of national income going to wages, salaries and benefits was only 50.3%, the lowest since 1950. At the same time the share of income going to profits, interest and rent rose in 2012 to 40.4%, the highest since 1948. Corporate profits are at all time highs, as businesses reap the benefits of fewer workers producing more goods and services, while wages and benefits have not gone up.

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The official unemployment rate understates the amount of pain workers are feeling. Over a half million people gave up looking for work in September. If they were counted as unemployed, the unemployment rate would have topped 10%. A broader measure of unemployment, including part-time workers who can’t find full time work and unemployed workers who have stopped looking for work rose to 17% in September. Employers cut workers' hours more in September through furloughs and hour cuts; the average workweek fell to only 33 hours.

Figures from the Census Bureau released in late September showed that working class and poor families have been hit the hardest by the recession, resulting in a record gap between high and low-income Americans. The median, or typical household income, is now back to 1997 levels. Private sector employment is also fallen back to 1999 levels and only government jobs have grown over the last 10 years. But now local governments and public schools and colleges have shed more than 50,000 jobs in September, more than double the rate of August, as budget cuts lead to more public-sector layoffs.

There are now six unemployed workers looking for a job for every job opening, another record high. It is no wonder that 5.5 million people had been out of work for six months or longer in September, a half million more than in August. 100,000 jobless workers were dropped from unemployment insurance benefits in September, and another million could lose their benefits by the end of the year. Further, the federal extended unemployment benefits program is set to expire Dec. 31, so that workers laid off next year would only be eligible for the six months of unemployment benefits that states provide.

After the last recession in 2001, a so-called 'jobless recovery' followed, as employers cut hours and outsourced work to lower-wage countries. Employers added only 100,000 jobs per month on average, and the unemployment rate fell by only six-tenths of one percent from the beginning to the end of the expansion (2001-2007). If the coming recovery has the same pattern of slow job growth, it would take 42 years to get back to the 5% unemployment at the beginning of the recession (and that assumes no recession during the entire time)! Even if the economy were to follow the more robust recovery of the 1990s, which added jobs at twice the pace and cut three percentage points off the unemployment rate over nine years, it would take fourteen years to get the unemployment rate down 5% (again without a recession along the way). But both the 1990s and 2000s economic expansion were pumped up by big increases in consumer, business and financial sector debt, and this source of stimulus is not going to be available going forward.

The rising unemployment rate, growing number of long-term unemployed and dismal prospects for the future mean more suffering. There will be more families losing their homes, more people losing their health insurance, less taxes paid and even more budget cuts of social programs and schools that serve working people. Unemployment benefits need to be extended and the extended benefits program renewed for another year at least.

But unemployment benefits don't make up lost income from not working. Even with federal aid, health insurance is unaffordable for many jobless workers. Long-term unemployment means lost job skills and growing demoralization. During the Great Depression of the 1930s the Works Progress Administration (WPA) created 8 million jobs and was the country’s largest employer until World War II. Highways, roads, public buildings and public utility infrastructure were built by the WPA (including a large part of my high school). What is really needed today is another massive federal jobs program that targets the unemployed and youth coming out of school.

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