Rosenberg interview
Here is one of Wall Street’s economists with a rather dire view of the risks to our recovery. David Rosenberg wonders if the Great Recession hasn’t actually ended — that we’re still in the recession with a near-zero growth rate ahead.
Two things to think about if Rosenberg’s look ahead is roughly right:
- The need to rapidly and substantially downsize state spending is more urgent than ever; and
- Job creation is especially important.
Rosenberg really hits hard on the role of employment-boosting as an economy-lifter. He thinks we’re nearing the end of the stimulus, government policy needs to focus on ways to foster job creation.
Long-term unemployment growing rapidly
About 330,000 Washingtonians are unemployed right now. For the first time since such data were collected after WWII, almost half have been without a job for more than six months. These folks are caught at the very bottom of this huge economic hole.
Here is a chart showing how rapidly the long-term unemployed have been increasing.
Why is this important? Because tens of thousands of Washington families are stuck. We’re not going to dig the whole state out of this hole until we find a way to get as many of these workers back into productive, meaningful work.
I think this is why we need to be thinking of a “Project 100,000″ to get 100,000 unemployed Washingtonians working somewhere somehow in a way that will help them move toward permanent employment again. One idea: a CCC. More to follow.
I’m back. After a couple of years happily blogging on the economy (the crash thereof) and our recovery I stopped in order to focus on making the serious budget cuts needed to help reposition Washington for recovery. Those couple hundred old ForehandedWA blog posts can be found here if you’d like to walk through some of the many signals of the crash and our struggle to recover.
I’m restarting here. Why? If ever there were a time for forehandedness in state government — in any government, for that matter — now is the time.
I’m hopeful this can be a forum — a multi-way conversation at place where we must navigate todays economic, budget and policy currents toward the future we want for our community, our state and our democracy.
Please join in.
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