By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com
April 3, 2009
If you lost your job in the first three months of this year, it may be
small consolation that you're in good company. More than two million
of your fellow Americans found themselves in the same predicament.
The U.S. Labor Department reports the economy shed another 663,000 jobs in March, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent. That's almost exactly where economists expected it to be, but Joel Naroff, chief economist for Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa., says that doesn't change the fact that it was an awful report.
"Confidence is still a critical component to any recovery and this report cannot help," Naroff said.
Another month of huge job reductions in March brought this year s total cuts to over two million lost jobs, the Labor Department said. Since the start of the recession, over five million positions have disappeared.
"We re talking fifteen months, which just shows how rapidly firms have be moving to get their costs in shape to withstand the recession," Naroff said,
He notes the declines were broad based as only the health care sector and general merchandise added workers. At 8.5 percent, the unemployment rate jumped to its highest level since November 2003. And Naroff predicts it is going higher.
"A ten percent rate is not out of the question, though I still don t think we will get there," he said. "With hours worked down, average weekly wages fell and that does not bode well for income."
Meanwhile, more Americans are resorting to government food stamps to make ends meet. The Agriculture Department reports enrollment in the food stamp program rose in 46 of the 50 states during January as the national total rose by 580,000 people, or 1.3 percent, from December's previous record number. That amounts to 32.2 million people - or one in ten Americans.
