Alex Henderson

The Political Zone

Happy Days Are Here Again? Not So Fast

By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, February 6, 2012

Many of the people who work on Wall Street in 2012 may not be familiar with the old Tin Pan Alley standard “Happy Days Are Here Again,” which ironically, was copyrighted in 1929 (the year that marked the beginning of the Great Depression) and became the theme for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign in 1932. But even if they are unfamiliar with Milton Ager’s melody or Jack Yellen’s lyrics, they are quite familiar with the sentiment. On Friday, February 5, 2012, Wall Street was full of people claiming that happy days are here again and the United States is returning to prosperity after a prolonged period of economic misery.

The basis for all that celebrating was a new report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which announced that the unemployment rate for the U.S. had fallen to 8.3% and that private sector employment had increased by 257,000 in January 2012. Not only has there been a celebratory mood on Wall Street—there has also been a mood of cautious optimism among Democratic Party strategists, who realize that the better the economic news between now and November, the more likely President Barack Obama is to be reelected.

Of course, one didn’t have to be a Democratic Party strategist or an employee of Wall Street to celebrate on Friday. When bad news on top of bad news on top of more bad news has been the norm for so long, Americans naturally look for signs of hope wherever they can find them. 35F/1C isn’t exactly balmy, but to someone who lives in, say, Duluth and has been coping with sub-zero temperatures, 35F/1C can seem like a sure sign that spring is right around the corner—and similarly, 8.3% unemployment and the creation of 257,000 new private sector jobs seems like good news (or at least relatively good news) in light of all the economic misery that millions of Americans have been experiencing in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. But are happy days really here again? Unfortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released on February 5 don’t begin to tell us the whole story. And the more one examines the big picture, the more obvious it becomes that the United States still has a very unhealthy economy.

The unemployment statistics of the Bureau of Labor Statistics only take into account Americans it considers to be part of the labor force, and the way it defines “labor force” is misleading. After a certain period of time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers unemployed Americans to be out of the labor force even if they are still aggressively job-hunting—and according to government figures, 1.2 million Americans “dropped out” of the labor force between December 2011 and January 2012. That’s 1.2 million people the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ new unemployment rate of 8.3% doesn’t take into consideration. That’s 1.2 million Americans who suddenly became invisible to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last month, Indiana University released the results of an in-depth study on unemployment in the U.S.; the study found that 46 million Americans were living below the poverty line (compared to 36.5 million in 2006) and that poverty in the U.S. had increased by 27% since 2006. Indiana University’s study found that “the Great Recession has left behind the largest number of long-term unemployed people since records were first kept in 1948” and that “more than 4 million Americans report that they have been unemployed for more than 12 months.”

Economist John Williams, publisher of Shadow Government Statistics, believes that in December 2011, the real unemployment rate in the U.S. was a whopping 22.4%. When Williams analyzes the employment/unemployment situation in the U.S., he isn’t ignoring Americans who would like to be working even though they have fallen off the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ radar—and there are millions of them out there.

Bureau of Labor Statistics figures don’t take into account underemployement—for example, the college graduate who is still waiting tables eight or nine months after obtaining a masters degree, or the former construction worker who has spent the last two or three years working part-time for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. The number of Americans receiving food stamps has increased by 3 million in the last 12 months and by 74% since 2007; food banks and food pantries all over the country are filled to capacity.

Republican presidential hopeful and former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich has been quick to point out how much food stamp use has increased in the U.S., but instead of having anything constructive to say on the subject, he would rather engage in not-so-thinly veiled race-baiting. When Gingrich described Obama as the “food stamp president,” it was a racial dog whistle implying that African-Americans have the market cornered on food stamp use and other forms of government assistance. But the majority of food stamp users are white, and race-baiting isn’t going to make the lives of poor whites, unemployed whites, or underemployed whites any better.

Bureau of Labor Statistics figures don’t take into account quality of life. At least 50 million Americans still lack health insurance, and many of them have jobs; however, the jobs are low-paying jobs that don’t offer benefits. And Aetna or Blue Cross premiums are difficult or impossible to pay if one is only making 9 dollars an hour.

The celebrating continues on Wall Street. But on Main Street, the theme song isn't "Happy Days Are Here Again."  It's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime."

   Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, The Pasadena Weekly and a long list of other well-known publications. 

Bread lines on The Bowery in New York City in 1910