If you tend to believe economist Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize-winning hysterics, we are on the verge of the Third Depression, an era marked by "tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years ... some of whom will never work again," and many of whom are going be very angry and possibly very drunk on a bar stool near you. So pay attention for flying shot glasses.
That's the depressing news. The equally depressing news is that local labor statistics support Krugman's fist-waving -- although not as much as the Business Journal is reporting.
The Business Journal reported yesterday morning that the metro area lost 11,600 jobs in May, which would be quite a feat, and probably would have involved blowing up a very large plant of some sort.
In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report the KCBJ cited, the metro area actually gained a handful of jobs from April to May, and the jobless rate stayed steadily craptastic at 8.3 percent.
But don't worry: The picture is still pretty bleak. The metro area has lost thousands of jobs since May 2009. And so has almost every other metro area in Kansas and Missouri, with the exceptions of St. Joseph, Missouri, and Manhattan, Kansas.
In related news, a little-known federal law requires employed residents of those cities to come buy the beers. So hop to it, folks.
Photo courtesy of kandyjaxx's Flickr.
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Actually, 8.2% is probably optimistic. Depending on who is analyzing the data, the actual national unemployment rate is between 17 and 22%. There are a variety of groups of people who are not counted by the Feds as unemployed, but who are indeed, truly jobless, so the official unemployment rate is actually a big lie, which for some odd reason, no one wishes to challenge.
Actually, 8.2% is probably optimistic. Depending on who is analyzing the data, the actual national unemployment rate is between 17 and 22%. There are a variety of groups of people who are not counted by the Feds as unemployed, but who are indeed, truly jobless, so the official unemployment rate is actually a big lie, which for some odd reason, no one wishes to challenge.
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