Much Ado About America’s Jobless Recovery

With the DOW Industrial Average now hovering around the 11,000-point mark with the unemployment rate approaching 10%, is the American economy currently experiencing a jobless recovery?


By: Ringo Bones


The DOW Industrial Average is now “safely” entrenched in the 11,000-point mark and yet the current jobless rate in the U.S. has now crept closer to 10% - comparable to the record unemployment rate spikes of the past 30 years. And yet, there are obvious signs that America’s economic health had already recovered since the 2008 global credit crunch – like the slowly creeping price rise of crude oil and other indicators. Given the current economic data, is the U.S. now currently experiencing a jobless economic recovery?

In an October 22, 2010 interview on the Bloomberg channel, Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University says that basing on current economic data America won’t be experiencing a long-term jobless economic recovery because America’s current jobless rate is a cyclical jobless rate as opposed to a structural jobless rate. That is, America’s current jobless rate – being cyclical in nature – could easily go down once the economy improves, as opposed in a structural jobless rate where the unemployment rate stays at a fixed rate – and at a rather high percentage rate – even if the economy improves.

Most U.S. economists – including Professor Blinder – safely concludes that the current U.S. unemployment data is overwhelmingly cyclical, as opposed to structural, and could return to the previous natural unemployment rate of slightly below 5% once the U.S. economy further improves. Which could spells further good news for the U.S. economy since 70% of the U.S. GDP is due to retail purchases.

But what if the unemployment problem in the U.S. turns out to be a markedly structural jobless rate rather than a cyclical jobless rate? Well, given that the economic nerve centers in the U.S. are now computerized and largely robotic, America could well experience a true jobless recovery with a structural unemployment rate framing the backdrop of an economic prosperity with a 10% or more jobless rate.

Worse still, in an economic climate marked by structural jobless rates, the U.S. economy might become too dependent on the markedly dubious wealth manipulation industry in the murky world of investment banking. Like superfast high-frequency trading which – from time to time – is still prone to market meltdown and market crashes like the recent one that happened back in May 6, 2010.