In case you’re wondering, state employment security records say 38 people lost their jobs when Ham’s Restaurant closed abruptly in June. The impact on the lives of these workers and others who have lost their jobs in this recession is not fleshed out in the latest reports on unemployment.
In the latest monthly report, Orange County saw a half percent jump in unemployment in June, rising from 6 percent to 6.5 percent. For the freshly unemployed, there is little comfort in knowing that we remain one of the counties with the lowest rates of unemployment in the state. Statewide, we jumped one-tenth of a percent to 10.1 percent.
Anyone looking for work in this climate knows finding any job is tough and finding one in a field you’re interested in or located nearby is even tougher.
So it’s infuriating on so many levels to hear the bash-the-unemployed rhetoric pouring out of the recent congressional debate over benefit extensions and jobs programs. The idea that there is a vast couch-potato conspiracy is totally divorced from reality. Perhaps some among that 10.1 percent here in the Old North State are satisfied being on the dole, but most would be happy to have their jobs back.
Then there is the equally phony outrage that consumers are not spending enough to gin up the economy. We learned in the droughts over the past decade that once people change habits and showerheads, they don’t suddenly become water wasters when it starts raining again.
So if you’re waiting on the great American consumer to come through, think again. Wages are stagnant, spending reflects that and, wisely, more and more people are coming to understand that the equity in their home is not a piggy bank.
In a recent New York Times op-ed, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner applauded the new frugality. But his essay on the so-called recovery offered little else to anyone outside of the boardrooms.
Yes, balance sheets and profits are up and it’s wonderful, we suppose, that very large investment banks are doing so well that they’re repaying their bailout faster than thought. But foreclosures and bankruptcies are also on the rise. And just how should the unemployed, underemployed and newly destitute decode the secretary’s history lesson about how recoveries take time?
As many have pointed out, massive unemployment is growing acceptable among the people calling the shots. Whether the result of being cowed by critics or not, the administration and Congress’ timidity in pursuing any new efforts to put people back to work prior to the fall election sends the message that 10 percent unemployment is somehow all right for now. It seems that rather than putting their energies into solutions, policymakers, pundits and politicians of all stripes are trying to convince themselves that widespread, chronic joblessness is part of some new reality.
They pursue that thinking at their own peril and, unfortunately, ours.
CLARIFICATION
Artist Ron Liberti reminded us that while he produced the silkscreen designs on a bench that was featured as part of the Painted Chair and More Auction held last Saturday, the finely handcrafted piece of furniture shown in last week’s Citizen was the work of Barton Moyer.