Courtesy of John Nyaradi
Labor Day Parade 1882: wikipedia.org
Little good news for Labor to celebrate this Labor Day
This Labor Day, workers in America find themselves with little reason for celebration as job creation has stalled, unemployment stands at 9.1% and 14 million Americans are out of work.
The first Labor Day in America was celebrated in 1882 and became a Federal Holiday in 1894 after the Pullman Strike that resuled in the deaths of U.S. workers after a confrontation with U.S. Marshals.
Today American labor finds 14 million Americans unemployed with the number of workers wanting but unable to find full employment much higher.
The employment report on Friday indicated a shocking zero jobs added in August, a number that will be revised up or down, but still likely will make August the worst month for hiring in nearly a year.
With numerous negative economic reports and the economy barely growing, it’s clear that the unemployment rate won’t be declining anytime soon. In fact, recent projections point to unemployment above 8% during the 2012 election year.
Markets are looking to the Federal Reserve for help and more and more analysts point to the likelihood of some sort of new quantitative easing coming from the Fed’s two day meeting in late September.
Still, most analysts say that the first two rounds of easing have done little to help the employment situation as consumer sentiment remains negative, businesses are reluctant to hire, and more than six million workers have been on the streets for six months or longer.
Rates have been ultra low for more than three years and yet have done little to stimulate demand, particularly in the all important and still beleaguered housing industry.
This week Congress and the White House return to work with vastly differing views of how to fix t his problem and the spectre of continued gridlock like that which nearly sunk the deficit ceiling debate is making markets increasingly nervous. Fiscal stimulus tends to be more powerful in reducing unemployment, however, with the Congressional “super committee” looking for ways to reduce government spending, it’s unlikely that any such programs will be forthcoming.
However, President Obama will address the nation on Thursday night with a new jobs plan to include infrastructure spending and extending unemployment benefits.
As America celebrates the traditional end of summer and kids return to school, one can only hope that soon America’s unemployed will be able to also celebrate a return to work.
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