Economic Stress hits new record
There may be lots of talk about recovery out there, but the AP Economic Stress Index just surpassed the March 2009 peak.
The AP's Economic Stress Index found that the average county's score in December was 10.8. That's a sharp jump from the 10.2 reading in November. The previous worst reading since the recession began in December 2007 was 10.3 in March 2009.
The index calculates a score from 1 to 100 based on a county's unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. A higher score indicates more economic stress. Under a rough rule of thumb, a county is considered stressed when its score exceeds 11.
Nearly 45 percent of the nation's 3,141 counties were deemed stressed in December. That compares with less than 39 percent in the previous month.
Nevada was again the most economically distressed state in December, with a Stress score of 21.08. It had the nation's worst foreclosure and bankruptcy rates and second-worst unemployment rate.
It was followed by Michigan (17.43), California (16.25), Florida (15.78) and Illinois (14.12). All except California saw their Stress score rise from November to December.
North Dakota (4.99) was again the least-stressed state in December. Next were South Dakota (5.47), Nebraska (5.63), Vermont (7.14) and Montana (7.71). Still, each saw its Stress score worsen from November to December.
More proof that the only recovery has been on Wall Street.
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there goes what's left of savings and retirement funds
I was expecting this to happen frankly. Initially people use credit cards, their savings and when really up against the wall, take the penalty and empty out their IRAs and 401ks.
If you notice our government's great "jobs program" consists of extending unemployment benefits, which only covers about 48% of the real work force in the first place.
This has gone on 25 months. If it hits 36 months, and frankly I think GDP of a couple of percentage and no jobs...
I don't see how they can technically call that a recession for it's not even keeping up with current population growth....
Well, a recession lasting 3 years or longer is actually defined as a depression. I think technically, because we've had and probably will have positive GDP growth, they will still have the recession ending..
but I think we need a new definition ...for jobless recovery. A jobless recovery is no recovery at all.
I also need to do a big overview point on the last decade. Lots of intel on how the S&P is flat for a decade....but very little on the U.S. job market and U.S. labor force for a decade....it basically is less jobs, repressed wages, more age discrimination yet....the population has dramatically increased.
I think few track on the fact the unemployment rate is a ratio of a subset of the U.S. population to W2 jobs.
And they still, still will not look at offshore outsourcing at all on this. Not breath the word, all the while India's BPO industry is like the New Orleans Saints in terms of their joy at hitting pay dirt on capturing even more U.S. jobs.
I think we also need to look at the underclass, the homeless, the poverty stricken and frankly even the death rate. I think that is where one will find the "dropped of the rolls" statistics of the U.S. middle class.
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