Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Pound it Home:

The Great Recession began in December 2007, and ended officially in June 2009. As of October 2015, the unemployment rates in half the states in the country had fallen to or below their pre-recession levels. In the other half, unemployment rates were still higher than before the recession.

Conditions could be worse. They could also be so much better.

In general, joblessness is currently trending down and job growth is trending up, according to the latest government report on job conditions in the states. Obviously, those are positive indicators of continued healing in the labor market.

On the other hand, the time it has taken just to get to this point suggests that for many if not most people, the standard of living that can be achieved by working has been permanently reduced — by long bouts of unemployment and underemployment, by unstable and insecure employment, by long-term stagnation of wages and, perhaps most significantly, by the failure of Congress to use fiscal policy, consistently and aggressively, to counteract the devastation of the recession and its corrosive effects on the economy.

For some people in some places, steady work is simply no longer a way of life, if it ever was. In several states where jobless rates have fallen to pre-recession levels, including Illinois and Ohio, the drop is due mainly to shrinking labor forces, not increases in hiring. When unemployment rates go down because people have despaired of ever finding a job, the economy is not really improving. Rather, it is downshifting to a less prosperous level.

There are two related ways to counter that downshift. One is to make productivity-enhancing investments that create jobs today and lay the foundation for future growth. Such investments would include bolstered spending for education, transportation, environmental protection, basic science and other fields that are the purview of government. The other is to enact policies to ensure that pay and profits from enhanced productivity are broadly shared, rather than concentrated at the top of the income-and-wealth ladder. Such policies would include strict anti-trust enforcement, steeply progressive taxes, a higher minimum wage and support for labor unions.

If those public investments and public policies were broadly enacted, optimism would be warranted. The economy has recovered from the worst and proven resilient; concerted action by government at all levels, though overdue, could further the progress.

But for now, there is mostly talk – in Congress, in state houses and in the presidential campaign – about investments and policies, and much of the talk, especially from Republicans, is about how government should not step up to the nation’s economic challenges. The economy has recovered from the worst and proven resilient, but it is being held back by what government at all levels has failed to do.

I think Teresa Tritch simply captures the economic realities at the base of so much domestic social unrest.

People with the security of work routines have communities built-in, paychecks to budget and spend, and a sense of purpose and worth.

We need to ask ourselves how best to employ people meeting our country's unmet needs (and there are plenty! -- both physical, educational and social), while the private sector economizes and responds to the marketplace of "best management practices", even if it means coldly reducing the numbers in their permanent workforce.  That's just business, not responsible for social problems like we governments are.

And then vote for the government representatives on all levels who understand the wisdom of financial long-term strategies in employing people (note: I didn't say mailing them a limited monthly stipend...) who in turn will lift the economy and the country via healthy dollar circulation at all levels, in all neighborhoods, just not in equal proportions.*

Dare to Dream...
(or remember, depending on how far you can look back...)

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*   (some paychecks obviously will still be 10 times bigger, but having even smaller amounts of money -- able to be counted on regularly -- flowing into more pockets and circulating more freely than in the past decade will empower choice and spur responsibility.  Especially if the money is tied to working, contributing and committing to a steady routine where other humans are counting on your regular participation...)