As I was was preparing to write this column about the March unemployment results, a seemingly stray e-mail popped up among the usual ads from JCrew and Zappos.
This e-mail came from something called the Assistance.Network — a sort of JDate interface for people looking to put themselves on the government dole, due to unemployment or disability.
The fact that I hit the screen for this enterprise, despite an online profile that typically skews toward sample sales and Open Table, is testament to just how lucrative and tempting it has become to exit the labor force in America in 2013.
People who have come on hard times deserve help from their neighbors and fellow citizens; that has always been the American way and should continue to be so. But a country in which a record 90 million people are no longer even looking for work is the mark of a decaying society that serves no one, at the top or bottom rung of the ladder.
Friday’s employment report for March underscores that the “green shoots” of economic recovery heralded in the first quarter have proved elusive for the fifth straight year.
Here are the facts, courtesy of the US Department of Labor: US payrolls grew by just 88,000, the smallest increase in almost a year and not enough to keep up with population growth, while the percentage of people in the work force dropped to just 63.3 percent, the lowest since 1979. That was the year when President Jimmy Carter delivered his infamous “malaise” speech, in which he outlined a crisis of confidence among the American people.
“Hiring in the US Tapers Off” is how it was depicted on Friday. A more accurate and complete description of the situation would trumpet headlines like “25- to 54-Year-Olds Have Lost 2.2 Million Jobs in the Past Four Years.” Or “Unemployment Rate for Black Teens Now Tops 42 Percent.”
But no, in the silver-linings playbook that circulates between Washington and Wall Street, everything is hunky-dory. If only that really were the case.