Friday, January 21, 2011

Economy is Headed Into Overdrive, But Where Are The Jobs?

During President Obama's visit to GE's New York plant, he proclaimed that the economy was ready to kick into overdrive.

"The next two years, our job now, is putting our economy into overdrive. Our job is to do everything we can to ensure that businesses can take root and folks can find good jobs and America is leading the global competition that will determine our success in the 21st Century."

The President also stated that last year U.S. businesses added over a million jobs. But strangely, we are still experiencing a phenomenon that while the economy is showing signs of recovery (still not sure we're ready for "Overdrive") job creation hasn't kept pace.

Jim Tankersley of The National Journal has written an interesting piece on all the jobs that were supposed to have been created in the last decade but weren't.

The Great Recession wiped out what amounts to every U.S. job created in the 21st century. But even if the recession had never happened, if the economy had simply treaded water, the United States would have entered 2010 with 15 million fewer jobs than economists say it should have.

We're facing the longest jobless recovery in our nation's history and we're kicking the economy into overdrive? Who are we kidding? And if the economy does see a significant recovery, who is really going to benefit?

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