Recession Job Loss Chart

Time blogger Justin Fox made a chart of recession job loss threads. Fox's chart shows recessions from 1974 to present. The brown line represents the job losses from the current recession. Notice the currrent recession job losses are below the green line (recession of 1981.)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports only 59.9 percent of the population is working. Retirees and children need to be taken into account. There is reason to expect the number to slip lower. Since November 2007, the BLS reports retail jobs have "declined by an average of 44,000 per month." 495,000 jobs have disappeared from the financial industry. 351,000 leisure and hospitality are gone. New jobs are not being created. The BLS numbers are the best argument for President Barack Obama's stimulus program. Trickle down tax cuts are not going to magically make jobs appear. Infrastructure project will.