Numbers of Jobless Increase

According to the AFP, "US jobless lines lengthened by more than expected last week, as the number of unemployed people filing jobless claims rose unexpectedly by 9,000 to 312,000.

The rise in new jobless claims was significantly higher than Wall Street had expected, as analysts had called for claims to rise to just 306,000.

The spike in claims for the week ended February 19 reversed three straight weekly declines.

A Labor Department official said there were no particular special factors, such as weather or holidays, which affected the latest week's jobless claims snapshot."

But the AP reports the broader picture may be more bleak: "The share of the working-age population working or actively seeking a job — known as the participation rate — fell to 65.8 percent in January, the lowest reading in 17 years, according to numbers collected by the Labor Department."

The jobless recovery of the economy is continuing: "These days the economic expansion is firmly rooted, but job growth, while improving, is still somewhat sluggish. Companies keeping a close eye on profit margins are still showing caution in hiring as they cope with high energy bills and soaring health care costs for workers, economists say."

We are moving into an economic period where a large contigent of the working-age population is either unemployed or underemployed. When factoring in the latter, the jobless rate climbs to nearly 10%.

But I don't really have to throw numbers around, because our family has seen this up close. Currently, both our parents are unemployed and have been unable to find a job or at least, find one that is worth having.

President Bush and the Republicans in Congress have failed to address this trend of recent years. In large part this is because job outsourcing is the golden calf of the free-market idolators. What little economic iniative that has been taken has come in the form of tax cuts for the highest-income earners, again because a bizarre devotion to failed economic theories (we're still waiting from the "trickle-down" of the Reagan years).

To be fair, I don't believe many Democrats have gone far enough in addressing this as well. But at least John Kerry and other Democrats running last year did have proposals. At least they treated this as an issue, which is more than you can about our government right now.