Which shall it be first? Oh, heck let’s go with the bad news, because that will make the good news all the more impressive:
WASHINGTON — Unemployment rose in 30 states in January, the Labor Department said Wednesday, evidence that jobs remain scarce in most regions of the country.
The data is somewhat better than December, when 43 states reported higher unemployment rates, but worse than November, when rates fell in most states.
Still, five states reported record-high joblessness in January: California, at 12.5 percent; South Carolina, 12.6 percent; Florida, 11.9 percent; North Carolina, 11.1 percent; and Georgia, 10.4 percent.
Bummer. Record unemployment in an “economic recovery” is not exactly what most of us want to hear. But don’t worry, there’s still the good news to be shared (figuratively speaking) with you poor unemployed people:
It was a good year to be rich. Or ultra-rich, for that matter.
The number of U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million or more — excluding wealth derived from a primary residence — grew 16 percent last year, according to a new report by the Spectrem Group, a Chicago-based consulting firm. After a 27 percent decline in the number of millionaire households in 2008, the ranks of U.S. millionaires swelled to 7.8 million last year.
And it was an even better year to be an “Ultra High Net Worth Individual,” defined as someone with a net worth of $5 million or more. That population grew 17 percent in 2009 to 980,000.
“The nation’s millionaires — together with its Ultra High Net Worth households — are bouncing back from the recession. Following a sharp decline in 2008, both groups saw their numbers advance nicely in 2009, with the U.S. millionaire population rising to 7.8 million. While still well short of its all-time high of 9.2 million in 2007, this year’s growth in the millionaire population is nevertheless welcome news for an economy still working to recover,” said George H. Walper, Jr., president of Spectrem Group in a statement.
Welcome news, indeed. Rich people are on the road to more wealth, even if a lot of middle class folks are on their way to the poorhouse. Well there’s always winners and losers in any game, right?
So you see, we aren’t experiencing a “jobless recovery” so much as we are in the middle of a rich person’s recovery. And isn’t that more important in the long run? One more chance for St. Ronald of Reagan’s “trickle down” economics to show its stuff! So Hip-Hip-Hurray!!! for the Millionaires Club. Life is good!
As for the rest of you losers, better luck at the casino we call the United States of America next year. Just remember when you place your bets (assuming you have any money to bet, that is) that the house always wins, and in America that means especially those houses which already have pocketed millions of dollars.
this is excellent news for the yacht industry.
One thing I’d like to see is an analysis of the real marginal tax rate in the 1950’s and now. Here’s the absolute number, but prior to 1986, there were so many permissible loopholes that the rich never had to pay those top rates (or not on much income, anyway).
So, you can’t just say that under Eisenhower people making over $400,000 paid 91 or 92% on that income. It isn’t comparable to the 35% people pay now on income over $300,000. First of all, you have to adjust for inflation.
I’d like to see how much income a person making a the equivalent of a million dollars actually paid in 1955 versus what they pay now.
Doesn’t this exploding wealth mean that there is a greater possibility that the rich will need more people to clean their bigger homes, shine their growing fleets of luxury automobiles, cut the grass in their expanding mansions, drive them to and from the airports when they board their private jets, serve the canapes at their ever-larger social soirees, press and clean their expanding wardrobes, not to mention the obvious need they will have for increased security to protect their monstrously growing stash of other miscellaneous goodies.
Boy Steven, aren’t you the proverbial glass-half-empty guy? Just can’t look on the bright side of that trickle-down thing, can you??? Look at all those golden opportunities looming for these lower class individuals who are just laying at home sucking up those extended unemployment benefits and sauntering into the emergency room at every opportunity to get that free “best in the world” American health care. Hey, opportunities like this don’t come along every day!
Be happy man! We’re finally realizing the GOP’s dream.
Speaking as a rich, but not ultra-rich person, I’m mildly satisfied by the improvement, which is real if like me, you are retired. What is especially galling is that most commentators in the press think that most people are millionaires. I never made that mistake. It’s nice to be one, and I like it alot, but I never thought I was anything but rich compared to most people, and I don’t consider myself rich by any means. You don’t go far on a million these days. It will buy you a pension of $60,000 a year before tax.
Basically this is he usual case that the country is still facing right now. It turns out that Seasonally Acute Depression might do more than just put a few people down in the dumps. Unemployment rates increased with the arrival of winter storms, as the Labor Department reported 10,000 more people went unemployed in February than in January – and that many more people can’t get payday loans if they tried. Underemployment spiked as well. It seems that there’s no end to the real depth of the recession, though winter storms don’t have a causal relationship to unemployment. Correlation does not imply causality.