Are You Better Off Now?

As we begin the run for the presidency, both President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney will be asking voters if they are better off now than they were four years ago. 

The president’s answer will be “Yes” and Mitt Romney’s answer will be “No”.  But, of course, each voter’s answer will be based on how they were personally affected by the worst recession in our history and what can only be described as an anemic recovery. Although the recession has officially been over for more than two years, it is still very much a reality if you are unemployed or underemployed.

The April 2012 unemployment rate was 8.1%, the lowest since January 2009. But if we look behind that overall figure, we see some very disturbing numbers. Here is the breakdown:

One in every four teens who wants a job can’t find one. And while both Blacks and Hispanics are still facing double-digit unemployment, Black and Hispanic teens are facing nearly 50% unemployment rates.  

Equally disturbing are the figures for the longer-term unemployed and underemployed.

While 115,000 jobs were created in April, over 350,000 people left the work force.

• 5.1 million workers have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer. That is 41.3% of all those currently unemployment. That means it is a very difficult path back to employment.
• 7.9 million workers are involuntary part-time workers which means they want and need full-time work and can’t find it.
• 968,000 discouraged workers have quit looking for work because they feel there are no jobs available to them. They are not counted as unemployed.
• 1.4 million workers had not looked for work in the past 4 weeks before the April survey was taken so they were not counted as unemployed.