Unemployment in the United States Essay

The largest cause of unemployment can be attributed to recession. The term recession refers to the backward movement of the economy for a long period. People spend only when they have to. (Nagle 2009). With people spending less there would be less money in circulation therefore, enterprises would suffer financially and people would suffer too. This is so because recession reduces the fiscal bases of enterprises, forcing these enterprises to reduce their workforce through layoffs. These enterprises lay off their workers in order to cut the costs they incur in terms of wage and salary payments.

One of the scariest word for many individuals among the United States can be unemployment. Many families across America have had to deal with the hard blow that can come with losing a job, or not being able to find a job. Unemployment will always be around to snatch the job from any unwilling victim. While unemployment may seem like a broad term, there are actually four categories, or types, of unemployment. These four types are structural, cyclical, frictional, and seasonal.

Beginning with unemployment in the 2007-2009 recession, U.S. unemployment rates peaked at 10% as well as held 41 consecutive months at rates higher than eight percent (Lazear 1). The U.S. economy plummeted during this time; many attributed the shift to a large decrease in the number of employed workers. To be able to better understand the unemployment issue, we must first examine the form of unemployment faced by the U.S. economy. Many believe that the changes faced by the U.S. labor market

The Depression was a gruesome time where people had worked relentlessly to survive. Unemployment today is as severe as it was in the 1930s, the unemployment rate of today is nowhere near the unemployment of the Great Depression. A pair of economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas created report called “A Historical Look at the Labor Market During Recessions”. The report is a graph of the WWII Recession, showing that the unemployment rate of a few years ago has past the unemployment rate of the WWII Recession. In 2008 the authors wrote the Unemployment Rate, it’s a report that describes the recessions of the past to the years of 2006 to 2011. The most of the recessions are above or near the average, but the highest recession is the Great Depression.

There are three different kinds of unemployment that affect our economy: frictional, cyclical and structural. Frictional unemployment occurs when there is a time laps between being employed and looking for work. This term can also be referred to as search employment because it is the time spent searching for a place of employment. One example of this would be a student taking time off of work to finish college and get a 4 year degree. Usually, it takes a lot of time and dedication to finish the last years of school, so some students tend to go to school full time and work part time or not at all. This type of unemployment is also classified as voluntary unemployment because this period of unemployment is at the discretion of the person to some small degree. Secondly, there is cyclical unemployment which changes depending on the business need; for example, workers are laid off when business is bad - then

The unemployment rate averaged 8.5% in 1975, almost 10% in 1982, and has been above 8.8% for more than two years, with little evidence of any improvement ahead.”

The recent job growth is impressive with an increase in 3.4% though the unemployment rate is still at 10% (U.S. average is 5.2%). With this recent increase, there is

Currently the unemployment rate is twenty-three percent (Roberts). That is a very high rate compared to past when

While there are expectations of a yearly gain of nearly 2.3 million net new jobs, the unemployment rate is still very high i.e. around 6.5 percent. The lower-than-expected job growth is fueled by various factors including government hiring, weather, and Obamacare. Actually, similar to December, January had a lower-than expected increase in job opportunities since only 113,000 jobs were created. However, the rate of unemployment still reduced to 6.6 percent in this month despite of the growth in labor force. The current rate of unemployment is the lowest in U.S. since the 2008 recession because more people are leaving the labor force instead of finding jobs.

As of November 7th the U.S economy added 214,000 jobs, which makes the unemployment rate down to 5.8 percent, the lowest in six years. The unemployment rate fell from 5.9% to 5.8%, which is lowest since July 2008. Hourly earnings rose three cents to $24.57 and are up just 2% over the past year, in line with the unclear increases so far in the five year recovery. Economists have been looking for a pickup in wage gains to branch more consumer spending. This recent data implies that the slow progression out of the Great Recession is gaining control. However, Americans are seeing their purchasing power rise while jobs come back thanks to falling oil prices.

The anecdotal explanation for the American economy for years has been that the number of jobs have increased but wages have not grown as rapidly. This held true again on Friday, April 1, 2016 as 215,000 jobs were added to the US economy. Because this amount exceeded the predicted 199,000 jobs, this gain was considered a healthy one.

Unemployment refers to the numbers of people not working and can be measured by the claimant count and labour force survey. There are different types of unemployment and each of them requires different policies to overcome them.

The United States is currently experiencing a slow recovery from the recession of 2008-09. The current unemployment rate is 7.7%, which is the lowest level since December of 2008 (BLS, 2012). However, this rate is believed to higher than the rate that would occur if the economy was operating at peak efficiency, and it is also believed that there are structural issues still underpinning this performance. For example, the number of Americans who have exited the work force as the result of prolonged unemployment is believed to be higher than usual. In addition, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, 2012) notes that long-term unemployment of greater than 26 weeks is at a much higher rate than normal, which will have adverse long-run effects on the economy, since workers with long-term unemployment often find their career paths derailed.

Unemployment claims remain greater than 450,000 (350,000 is considered healthy) (GDP, 2013). One thing causing a lot of concern right now is the uncertainty about President Obama’s health care and tax plans.

The system was originally set up to help people who suddenly lose their job, but there is now wide misuse of the system which is only encouraged when the time period someone is allowed to collect benefits is extended time and again.