Economists may not call it recession, but job statistics says otherwise

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Neither the economists nor the Bush administration are calling it as recession, even though business executives like Warren Buffet have called it.

Every time payrolls have declined this consistently since 1948, economists have officially called it as recession. With eight straight months of job losses and 84,000 in August, it is a recession according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based liberal think tank.

Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, a pro-labor advocacy group in New York told McClatchy Newspaper:

"We view this as a crisis economy for American workers...It really adds up to a lot of hardship and a lot of uncertainty for people looking for jobs and a lot of insecurity for everyone who's already working."

The number of people out of work for six months or more jumped by 160,000 from July to August. And the number of workers who can’t find full-time employment is 10.7 percent, which they call a recessionary level according to the economists Jared Bernstein and Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.

The college graduates are also finding it very difficult to get full-time jobs. Nearly 2.7 percent of them are unemployed, highest since 2004. While there is 9.6 percent unemployment rate for workers without a high school diploma, highest since 1996.

Among the 84,000 job losses in August, most of them were in the manufacturing sector, which shed 61,000 jobs, the highest in five years. Under Bush administration, 20 percent of manufacturing jobs have disappeared despite higher exports.

Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing told McClatchy:

"For those naive forecasters and pundits who believe that higher international shipping costs, more exports and a weaker dollar will inevitably lead to an American manufacturing renaissance, this is surely disappointing news,"

The government increased the minimum wage this year. The hourly wages overall has grown 3.6 percent compared with last year, but when compared with inflation growth 5.6 percent, it is just not enough for the workers.

Food and beverage costs are up 5.8 percent from July 2007 to July 2008 and have jumped 8 percent over the past three months. The gasoline prices have fallen recently but still may not be sufficient when dealing with rising inflation and health-care costs according to Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board in New York City.

Most of the businesses have cut employee health coverage because of the high costs and have shifted their costs to policies with higher deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket spending. Kaiser Family Foundation reported that average annual worker contributions for single coverage were $694 and for family coverage it was $3,281. And the companies plan to cut even more next year, which will make the families and individuals to buy the insurance directly but will be a costly affair.

Neither Bush nor Congress seem to be doing anything to stem the economy problems, it seems they are living in a different world than the majority of Americans.