For the jobless, Labor Day is hardly a holiday

In the September 6, 2009 article "For the jobless, Labor Day is hardly a holiday," Associated Press economics writer Jeannine Aversa discusses the psychological challenges of being unemployed. The article highlights that official labor market statistics only count people actively looking for a job as unemployed. When jobseekers become discouraged by the slim prospects of finding a job and stop looking for one, they are no longer considered unemployed and are not included in the unemployment rate. Labor market data may underestimate the true level of unemployment in the economy:

WASHINGTON – Every day it's a battle. The nearly 15 million unemployed Americans won't enjoy Labor Day as a relaxing respite from work. Instead, they'll once again need to prepare to get up, hit the pavement and keep hunting for a job.

As the jobless rate nears 10 percent, even those fortunate enough to be employed fret about keeping their jobs. But for those without them, it's a daily struggle with emotional and economic distress.

"It's hard to maintain your focus that you're a valuable member of society when you go three months and nobody really wants to employ you," says David O'Bryan, 59, of Barre, Vt.

To cope with the stress, O'Bryan jots down his thoughts in a journal he carries around. He's seeking a new career in the education field. In one recent entry, he wrote:

"I'm finding the process of trying to get into schools both tedious and frustrating. I wish I could have some concrete feedback on why I'm not being hired. Overweight? No para-educator certificate in effect? No confidence in my ability to perform the job?"

The economy is showing signs of being on the mend. Yet that's hardly reassuring to the unemployed this Labor Day weekend. The job market is in lousy shape and will stay that way for a while.

The nation's jobless rate jumped to a 26-year high of 9.7 percent in August from 9.4 percent in July. It's expected to top 10 percent this year and keep climbing into part of next year before falling back. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.

And it could take four years or more for the unemployment rate to fall back down to a normal level of about 5 percent.

Gregory Przybylski, 46, of suburban Milwaukee has grown increasingly anxious since losing his job as a machine operator in March 2008.

"It's getting scary," said Przybylski, a bachelor who has spent the past several months studying for a high school equivalency degree. "I'm just hoping to be working by Christmas."

Przybylski said he's using his time to study and improve himself so he'll be ready once the economy turns around. But he fears being thrust into a new career after spending so many years as a machinist.

"I've been doing this since 1980 — that's what I know," he said, slowly shaking his head.

"It's stressful whether you have a job or not," says Patricia Drentea, associate professor of sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "If you are out of a job, it can be demoralizing to know that the tide has not yet turned. For those still in jobs, there is the constant worry that there is going to be more layoffs."

The worst recession since World War II has claimed a net total of 6.9 million jobs — and more losses are expected, casting a pall over this year's Labor Day.

The strains of rising unemployment are making people — those with jobs and those without — more frugal. And they're likely to remain cautious spenders in coming months, crimping the budding economic recovery.

Ethan Fierro of Chicago has managed to survive a round of layoffs at his accounting firm. But he's not taking his job for granted and is clamping down on the household budget, and cutting out the little extras.

"Now, movie nights have to be Netflix nights," says Fierro, 33, who has a wife and a 1-year-old son.

Chrysantheum Dickens, 43, of Tampa, a church pastor who also works in sales at an information technology company, shops at a Salvation Army store for school clothes for her sons.

"It's a different age now, and you never know what's going to happen," she says.

Jobseeker Ileen Goldberg of Tampa stopped scheduling doctor's appointments and sold her car to save money and help make ends meet.

"It's horrible out there," says Goldberg, 48, who lost her job as an administrative assistant in June. "I have no prospects, so every day it's a mental battle when you get up."

Laid off eight months ago from her secretarial job at a health clinic, Mary Pat Didier, 60, is preparing her five grandchildren for the possibility she might have to move away from her home in Rockford, Ill., in hopes of finding employment.

Didier has begun applying for jobs in Chicago and in Milwaukee. So far, no luck. Her unemployment benefits are set to expire in January, but she hopes to qualify for extended aid. She's burned through her retirement savings.

"There's no place to go from here," Didier said. "I'm too young for Medicare, but I ended up with no health (insurance). I get frustrated, but I can't give up, so I try to not to dwell in it," she adds. "I finally know what it's like to live in the moment."

An Associated Press-GfK poll last month found that 43 percent of Americans were worried "some" or "a lot" about losing their job, even though the pace of layoffs has slowed. And statistically, that wasn't much changed from the results in February, when job losses were much heavier.

A growing number of people have grown so frustrated that they've stopped looking for work. The number of such "discouraged workers" totaled 758,000 in August — nearly twice as many as a year ago. Because they've abandoned their job searches, they aren't included in the government's count of the 14.9 million people who are unemployed.

If discouraged workers and people who have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.8 percent in August, the highest on records dating to 1994.

"Right now, there are six people unemployed for each job opening," says economist Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute. "If you are not successful in finding work, you are in a cruel game of musical chairs with six people circling around one chair."

Earlier this week, Federal Reserve officials said they expected the pace of the recovery to pick up in 2010, but the likely strength of the upturn is uncertain because of concerns about how much consumers will borrow and spend.

A "poor" job market, evaporated wealth from home and stock values, hard-to-get credit and wages that aren't likely to rise much anytime soon mean Americans face "considerable headwinds," Fed officials said. How consumers behave is crucial to the recovery because their spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of economic activity.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis' advice to the unemployed: "I would tell those workers and families not to lose sight of hope." She urges them to seek the skills, education and training needed for new jobs. But she acknowledges these are tough times.

"Americans are facing monumental challenges," she says. "I know that every job lost, every hour cut from the workweek, means another family having to make difficult decisions."

The Ascent of Money

The Ascent of Money is a documentary film based on Neill Ferguson's bestselling book The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, "which predicted the current economic crisis and was released within weeks of the meltdown of sub-prime loans." It was first broadcast in the United States on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in July 2009. According to the description on the PBS website:

As the world continues to struggle to find its footing amid rising unemployment, constricted credit and crumbling banks and industries — raising questions about how the economic system collapsed — PBS presents Niall Ferguson’s ASCENT OF MONEY. Airing Wednesdays, July 8-29, 2009, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET on PBS and online, this groundbreaking four-part series examines the creation of the economic system by taking viewers on a global trek through the history of money. (An abbreviated version of the documentary, which focused on the current economic crisis at the advent of the Obama administration, aired in January; it can be streamed in full on the Website.) The four-hour version delves deeper into how the complex system of global finance evolved over the centuries, how money has shaped the course of human affairs and how the mechanics of this economic system work to create seemingly unlimited wealth — or catastrophic loss.

ASCENT OF MONEY is based on Ferguson’s best-selling book The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, which predicted the current economic crisis and was released within weeks of the meltdown of sub-prime loans.

Said Ferguson, “In the midst of a major economic depression, it is often hard to appreciate the historical precedents and truly understand that while a situation may look dire, our system of finance, banking and trade has allowed for unprecedented progress. I’m hopeful the film will allow viewers to better understand the on-going evolution of our financial system and how our economy remains extraordinarily viable even as we are grappling with a crisis of historic proportions.”

For millions of people, the recession has generated a thirst for knowledge about how our global economic system really works, especially when so many financial experts seem to be equally baffled. In ASCENT OF MONEY, economist, author and historian Ferguson offers insight into these questions by taking viewers step-by-step through the milestones of the financial history that created this system, visiting the locations where key events took place and poring over actual ledgers and documents — such as the first publicly traded share of a company — that would change human history. Ferguson maintains that the history of money is indeed at the core of our human history, with economic strength determining political dominance, wars fought to create wealth and individual financial barons determining the fates of millions.

Among the places Ferguson visits are Bolivia, where Spain established vast gold and silver mines — still in operation — and enslaved the indigenous people to create so much currency for the Spanish crown that it eventually became worthless; Italy, where the Medici family transformed the sinful practice of usury into the banking system we know today and in the process became as powerful as monarchs; Paris, where Scotsman John Law created a Ponzi scheme tied to the Louisiana territory that brought France to its knees; London, where bonds trader Nathan Rothschild and his family nearly went bankrupt by helping to finance the British army’s war against Napoleon, then achieved enormous wealth through the buying and selling of war bonds; Scotland, where two ministers established the first life insurance fund, and New Orleans, where the shortcomings of their calculations would be demonstrated to tragic effect in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; and New York, where Ferguson interviews financial wizard George Soros about the concept he introduced of short selling derivatives based on a prediction that they will lose value.

Through this history, viewers learn economic fundamentals that inform the meanings of sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps and an understanding how the Chinese economy has risen to dominate the world.

The Sad Story Behind Labor Day

Claudine Zap's September 4, 2009 article "The Sad Story Behind Labor Day" about the origin of Labor Day is a good reminder that unregulated markets cause some socially undesirable outcomes:

For most of us, Labor Day means backyard barbecues, weekend sales, and a last carefree day before school starts. But the laid-back holiday has some seriously sad history, including chaos, riots, and even death. Let us explain.

A tragic tale
Back in the days of the Industrial Revolution, workers were expected to put in 12-hour days, seven days a week (yes, including kids). Already sounds awful, right? It gets worse. In Pullman, Illinois, a company town that employed and housed workers to build posh railway cars, times had gotten tough. In response, George Pullman cut jobs and wages. It was 1893. Thousands of workers walked off their jobs in protest, demanding higher salaries and lower rents. Other unions joined, refusing to work the Pullman cars, turning the small-town fracas into a national fury.

With mail cars backing up, and riots worrying train execs, President Grover Cleveland stepped in. He declared the strike illegal and sent 12,000 troops to break the strike. Cue brutal protests and bloodshed. The strike was broken, but so was the spirit of the workers. To reach out to the labor movement, Congress rushed the national holiday into law. The bad will resulted in Cleveland losing re-election. But the day off for hot dogs endures.

When is it?
Labor Day falls on the first Monday of September. This year, that would be Monday, September 7. According to the Department of Labor, Congress passed an act in 1894 making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.

So, working stiffs everywhere, say it now, with feeling: Happy Labor Day.

Turning Point for the Global Recession?

In the September 3, 2009 TIME article "Turning Point for the Global Recession?," Michael Schuman explains that the world may be on its way to economic recovery, but it will never be the same:

Economic crises never happen overnight. They are the result of years, even decades, of global economic change, policy errors and investor misjudgment. But there always seems to be that one moment — the Wall Street crash of 1929, the fall of the Thai baht in 1997 — when long-simmering trends coalesce to cause a dramatic loss of confidence. For what has turned out to be the worst recession in 70 years, that moment came on Sept. 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and bankers around the world asked that most lethal of questions for world financial stability: If a bank as well known as Lehman can fail, who is safe? And off we went, spiraling with head-swimming speed into recession.

As terrified bankers refused to lend, global economic activity hit a wall. Ships lay idle as trade fell to a trickle. Protests erupted in Reykjavík as Iceland tumbled into bankruptcy. Even mighty China shuddered with fears of mass unrest as millions of workers were tossed from jobs at shuttered export factories. And as policy became alphabetized, with predictions that the recession would resemble a U, V or W, some worried the global economy would mimic the letter L — an interminably protracted period of meager or no growth much like the one that has plagued Japan for nearly 20 years. (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

That hasn't happened, and one year after the Lehman bankruptcy, as policymakers and pundits gather to take stock — the summer meeting of the World Economic Forum opens in Dalian, China, on Sept. 10 — it appears less and less likely that it will. Yes, economic conditions remain miserable. The International Monetary Fund predicts the world economy will contract 1.4% this year, the worst performance since the end of World War II. But everywhere economists can point to what they call "green shoots" sprouting in the gloom. Japan, Germany and France emerged from recession in the past quarter, and economists are busily upping forecasts for U.S. growth. After a brief pause, China has returned to its caffeinated growth path, lifting much of Asia with it. "The worst-case scenario of a complete economic and financial meltdown has clearly been avoided," says Julian Jessop, chief international economist at consulting firm Capital Economics in London. Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, proclaims: "We're out of recession globally."

Yet even if a recovery is on track, this recession will not be like most others, when what went down simply came back up. The downturn is having a fundamental impact on the globe's economic future. The world after the Great Recession won't be the world that existed before.

Perhaps most importantly, the recession has altered the role of the U.S. in the world economy. For decades, the U.S. consumer has been the primary driver of global growth. The inherent dangers of such dependence on one source had long been obvious, and now that the financial crisis has finally reined in debt-gorged Americans, the world has launched a quest to find replacements. To turn its citizens from savers to spenders, China doled out subsidies to buy cars and appliances and revved up efforts to construct a stronger social safety net. In Taiwan, where the export-oriented economy was among the worst hit, the government is promoting new domestically focused industries like tourism. "We were hard-hit by the shrinkage of the export market in the U.S.," Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou told TIME. "So one lesson we learned is we should diversify our export markets."

The effort is showing signs of success. Asia is leading the way out of recession, with the help of the pocketbooks of its own consumers. The region's three largest countries — China, India and Indonesia — have remained buoyant through the downturn due in great part to domestic demand. The spending power of Asia's newly rich has stimulated the beginnings of a recovery throughout the continent. Continuing that trend has become a matter of official policy; India, for example, inked free-trade agreements with South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in August. It is not fanciful to think that Asia is on its way to becoming a self-propelling trade bloc, decoupled from the U.S.

Yet questions remain about whether there has been enough change to set the recovery on a truly sustainable course. Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, worries the giant imbalances that contributed to the crisis — excessive debt and deficits in the U.S. matched by excessive savings elsewhere — are still a danger to the world economy. Policies aimed at supporting growth, such as Washington's Cash for Clunkers initiative, says Roach, may only perpetuate those imbalances by reinforcing America's unhealthy consumerism and the world's reliance on it. "We've stopped the bleeding, but it is not clear to me that we're moving back to significant improvement in the underlying health of the global economy," he says. "Unless the world comes up with more than one consumer, the recovery is going to be anemic."

Such uncertainty about the true nature of the recovery underlines the next big challenge: How can policymakers nurture the nascent revival while mitigating the dangers of doing so? The only way the world avoided a more severe recession, even a depression, was the unprecedented intervention of governments and central banks — the near-zero interest rates, bank rescues, fiscal-stimulus programs and, in some cases, industrial bailouts. But such government action, if maintained for too long, can lead to asset-price bubbles and other destabilizing evils. Close the spigot too quickly, though, and the recession — think the letter W — could return. (See pictures of the Top 10 scared traders.)

That possibility makes unwinding state stimulus measures a tricky game. The conundrum is most advanced in China. As growth returns, the easy money that has lifted the economy might encourage a dangerous escalation in property prices while undercutting banks' balance sheets. But any rumor of tightening sends Shanghai stocks into a tailspin.

Even when the era of big stimulus comes to a close, the reign of big government is unlikely to end with it. The world economy hasn't experienced such a heavy government hand since the 1970s; the recession has reopened the debate over the appropriate roles for the state and market in a modern economy. In Dalian, and again at the next G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa., there will be much talk of overhauling the world financial system to prevent a meltdown from happening again.

Yet before we worry about the next downturn, we still have to get through this one. The world economy may be over the worst, but we're still far from where we were before the crisis. The U.S. has lost 6.7 million payroll jobs since December 2007. "It'll take a long, long time to make up all the economic activity that was lost during the recession," says Jessop of Capital Economics. One year after the fall of Lehman, the best the world can collectively do is keep all fingers tightly crossed.

G-20 to maintain economic stimulus measures

In the September 5, 2009 article "G-20 to maintain economic stimulus measures," Associated Press business writers Jane Wardell and Aoife White report:

LONDON – Top finance officials from rich and developing countries agreed Saturday to curb hefty bankers' bonuses, but the proposed crackdown on excessive payouts so far falls short of European demands after the U.S. and Britain shied away from imposing a cap.

The Group of 20 finance ministers also pledged to maintain stimulus measures such as extra government spending and low interest rates to boost the global economy, warning that the fledgling recovery that provided the backdrop to their meeting here is by no means assured.

"The financial system is showing signs of repair," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. "Growth is now under way. However, we still face significant challenges ahead."

The G-20 joint statement issued at the end of their London meeting said that fiscal and monetary policy will stay "expansionary" for as long as needed to reduce the chances of a double-dip recession.

The International Monetary Fund has said that the global economy is beginning a sluggish recovery from its worst recession since World War II, raising its estimate for global economic growth in 2010 to 2.5 percent, from an April projection of 1.9 percent.

But the IMF also downgraded its forecast for this year, saying it would shrink by 1.4 percent, instead of 1.3 percent.

The group also pushed ahead with plans to reform the financial system, including tougher action against tax havens and giving developing countries a greater say in global governance.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said this ensured that "things will not go back to business as usual ... that there are no dark areas anymore to hide."

But while the gathering — a preparatory session for the G-20 leaders' summit in Pittsburgh later this month — reached agreement on the need for ongoing growth-boosting measures and some regulatory reform, it compromised on the hot topic of bankers' bonuses.

Curtailing bankers' pay and bonuses has been seen as key by some countries after the risk-promoting payment culture was blamed for fueling the current financial crisis.

British Treasury chief and meeting host Alistair Darling said that there must be no more cases in which "people are being rewarded for reckless behavior."

Heading into the talks in the British capital, European countries had pushed for the G-20, which represents 80 percent of the world's economic output, to enforce an official cap on both individual payouts and collective bonus pots at financial institutions.

Britain supported the general effort to reign in bonuses, but not the cap, while the United States was more intent on pushing its proposal for a global accord to force banks to hold more capital reserves.

In the event, the G-20 agreed to give the Financial Stability Board, an international body established at the London Summit of G-20 leaders in April, the task of drawing up practical proposals that the Sept. 24-25 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh could agree on.

Suggested measures that countries could take included proposed clawback mechanisms to ensure that bonuses are linked to the long-term success of deals and could be forfeited if they fail to deliver over a period of years.

Lagarde insisted that this would mean real change by limiting bonuses, playing down differences, while Darling again stressed that a straight cap was impractical.

"If you try to cap individual bonuses it would be easy for people to invent exotic products — which we've seen — to get their way around a rather crude mechanism like that," he said.

The G-20 communique failed to directly address a proposal from Geithner for a new international accord to increase bank's capital reserves, but he said he was encouraged by "support around the room."

"Capital is critical" as a shock absorber to cover potential loan losses, Geithner said.

Going into the meeting, Geithner wanted to reach agreement on an accord by the end of 2010, with implementation by the end of 2012.

The communique did not directly address that plan, but called for rapid progress in developing stronger regulation, including a requirement that banks hold more and better capital once recovery is assured.

Geithner also stressed the need for discussions on a so-called exit strategy to withdraw government support for the economy and pay off trillions of dollars in debt, saying a recovery strategy would not be effective "unless we can make fully credible our commitment to reverse those actions as soon as conditions permit."

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, who has been openly critical of the government debt being loaded up by big spending policies, went further, saying that it was essential to start drawing up exit plans now.

"It makes sense to think ... how can we avoid the next crisis which might be caused by a policy of very cheap money, a huge amount of liquidity and an overstretching of our state aid budgets," he said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown won support for his push to take tougher action against tax havens, with the G-20 agreeing to a March 2010 deadline to start sanctions against tax havens which refuse to comply with new transparency rules agreed at the April G-20 leaders' summit in London.

The G-20 also reaffirmed its commitment to changes at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give developing countries a greater say on those bodies.

Brazil, Russia, India and China — the so-called BRIC countries — proposed a quota shift of 7 percent in the IMF and 6 percent in the World Bank Group to reach what they view as a more equitable distribution of voting power between advanced and developing countries.

The G-20 stopped short of that, but said it will complete World Bank reforms by spring 2010 and the next IMF quota review by January 2011.

The G-20 includes 19 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Britain and the United States. The European Union, represented by its rotating presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member.

Why the Stimulus Is Helping the Economy, But Not Obama

In the September 4, 2009 TIME magazine article "Why the Stimulus Is Helping the Economy, But Not Obama," Massimo Calabresi reports:

Proving a negative is always a challenge, but there's mounting evidence that the controversial $787 billion stimulus bill is achieving one of its major goals: shortening the recession. Economists at Goldman Sachs say that the bill, officially called the American Recovery and Reconstruction Act, has resulted in a 2%-3% boost to annual GDP in the second and third quarters of this year, turning what could have been a worsening recession into potential growth. For President Barack Obama, whose poll numbers have dropped precipitously from around 65% to around 50% as Americans have become worried about government spending and health-care reform, that should be good news: he fought hard against Republican opposition to push the bill through Congress as one of his first legislative acts, and the fact that it's working should be a vindication.

But it's not that easy. Recent polls show widespread disapproval of the stimulus bill: 51% of Americans polled last month by USA Today and Gallup said they thought the government should be spending less under the plan, while 44% said they thought the government was spending the right amount, or should be spending more. If anything, it seems, the stimulus plan is hurting the President even as it helps the country.

The most obvious reason for that disconnect is jobs: despite the signs of a turnaround, unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.7%, with employers cutting 216,000 jobs in August. While jobs always trail economic rebounds, the unemployment number is higher than economists thought it would be, even in the worst case scenario forecast by the Treasury department's "stress tests" last spring. The point is not lost on Republicans, some of whom have argued lately that no more of the stimulus money should even be spent. "The metric of this bill was job creation," says Don Stewart, spokesman for the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, "and it hasn't done that."

Still, one would think that the mere infusion in six months of $88 billion into the economy — that's how much the government has spent so far — would buy Obama some good will; certainly many local and state politicians, including some who originally opposed the stimulus, have been quick to claim credit for stabilizing their economies with the federal largesse. Except, as it turns out, the very thing that makes the stimulus help the economy in the short term is a political loser: the program is giving most of its money to the poor. Of that $88 billion, the majority has gone to low-income recipients. Nearly $28 billion has flowed to Medicaid; $19 billion to unemployment payments; $10 billion to states to bolster educational programs that primarily target the poor; $4 billion to student financial assistance; and $1 billion to rental assistance, among the biggest ticket items alone. And that doesn't even include the share of the $62.5 billion in tax breaks available to the poor through the cut in withholding taxes; the Making Work Pay program, which gives tax breaks to wage earners; and the extension of COBRA Health insurance benefits.

All of that money works well to stimulate the economy because the poor don't save — they spend, and fast. "Recovery money aimed at low and moderate income households has a dual benefit," says Chad Stone, chief economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Besides relieving hardship, it gets spent quickly, stimulating economic activity that would not otherwise take place."

But giving money to the poor never won anyone many crucial swing votes. The poor are already disproportionately likely to vote for the Democrats and Obama, if they vote at all. And at a time when the President is under attack from the right wing for being a free spending leftist, shoveling tens of billions into redistributive programs doesn't help his image with wavering independents who are nervous about the growth of government deficits.

The Administration is doing its best to push back. Joe Biden, Obama's point person on the stimulus bill, delivered a lengthy defense of it Thursday at the Brookings Institution. Thanks to the recovery act, he said, "Instead of talking about the beginning of a depression, we're talking about the end of a recession, eight months after taking office." Unfortunately for him and Obama, the money that is boosting the economy isn't boosting their poll numbers.

Bengals Backup Quarterback Will Help You Pee

Entrepreneurs can become fabulously wealthy if they create or improve a product or service that consumers willingly buy to satisfy a need or want. An aspiring professional football player has developed a unique service that he hopes will make him rich, just in case he cannot succeed in the NFL. According to the September 3, 2009 article "Bengals Backup Quarterback Will Help You Pee," Kurt Helin reports:

Cincinnati Bengals backup quarterback Jordan Palmer is not his brother Carson — he doesn’t have the golden arm or the Heisman Trophy or the weight of a struggling football franchise on his shoulders.

But if you have to go to the bathroom during a movie, he’s your man.

During this week’s episode of HBO’s entertaining series “Hard Knocks” (which follows the Bengals through training camp), the younger Palmer talks about his other business — RunPee.

The iPhone application does just what it sounds like it does. Say your girlfriend is forcing you to sit through “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (she loved the book) and that 32-ounce Big Gulp you downed on the way to the theater has caught up to you. Just launch Run Pee, call up the movie and it will tell you the best times in the film to make a bathroom run and give you a synopsis of what you missed while you were gone. As this is the Time Traveler’s Wife, you might need to go a few times. Just because.

All that for just $1.99, what a deal.

Palmer was pimping the product on Hard Knocks, wearing a Run Pee shirt, showing it off on his iPhone. Carson has worn a Run Pee shirt as well during some of the tapings. Jordan is part of the RockSoftware team that develops and markets mobile applications.

The fact Palmer the Younger was hyping his other business on national television may tell you all you need to know about his NFL career. He’s battling to make the Bengals roster as a backup quarterback along with the inimitable J.T. O’Sullivan. Of course, backing up his made-of-glass older brother (standing behind a patchwork offensive line), Jordan could get a shot this season, who knows.

Now, if he and his buddies could develop an app to tell us when to go to the bathroom during a Bengals game so we don’t miss a big play, that is something we could all really use. Wait, this is the Bengals we are talking about, we can just go whenever.

Test your understanding of economics in the news: Is this a change in supply or a change in demand?

In the September 5, 2009 article "Demand for electricity sputters and bills may fall," Associated Press energy writer Mark Williams reports that reduced demand for electricity may cause prices to fall.

Read the article below and then illustrate this market change with a graph that shows the initial positions of the supply and demand for electricity and the new positions of the supply and demand curves. (Hint: Only one of the curves shifts.) There is a link at the bottom that provides the answer.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Consumers and businesses may finally be seeing some relief from rising utility bills, thanks to the biggest decline in U.S. electricity demand in decades.

Prices on wholesale markets are expected to decline for the rest of 2009, according to the Energy Information Agency. While rates will probably begin edging up again in 2010, it will likely be less than half the 6.2 percent jump recorded last year.
For decades as Americans bought more electronics, more appliances, air conditioners and other gizmos, energy demand has only moved in one direction and prices have followed suit.

The decline in power usage over the past year is a rarity and also an indication of how badly the recession has jolted the economy and changed the way Americans spend.

The shift began last year, when power consumption fell 1.6 percent. Government forecasters see consumption falling another 2.7 percent this year. That would mark the first time since 1949 that the nation has seen energy demand fall in consecutive years.

Given the broad apprehension over the economy, any money consumers can keep in their pockets may help.
"You might see a decrease in your bill or, at the very least, less of an increase. And these days that's not bad," said Charlie Acquard, executive director of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates.

You can trace the shift from major industrial power users all the way back to individual consumers to see what has happened.
The number of unemployed Americans is nearing 15 million and prospects for the job market remain gloomy. Retailers just reported their 12th straight month of declining sales and many people are buying only what they must.

Power consumption by the industrial and manufacturing companies that make everything from cars to cotton swabs has fallen faster than anywhere else — 10 percent this year by government estimates. Industrial consumption fell about 20 percent in parts of the Midwest, Carolinas and the South during the second quarter, utilities say.

This pullback by some of the biggest energy users in the U.S. may provide a silver lining for millions of people and businesses in the form of declining or flattening utility bills.

The recession has suppressed demand for coal, natural gas and oil. This has sent a ripple through wholesale electric markets, where fossil fuels are turned into energy.

In the PJM wholesale market that coordinates prices in all or parts of 13 states in the eastern half of the country, prices are down about 40 percent from a year ago.

The weather is helping as well. After a very mild summer in which it made more sense to open the windows of your home rather than crank up the air conditioning, most meteorologists see a relatively warm winter on the way.

How much of a break you get in your bill, if any, and for how long comes down to where you live.

If you reside in the Northeast, West or in a central state like Texas where rates are based on spot prices, you stand a good chance of getting some relief.

Customers in more regulated markets or in spots where utilities calculate bills based on long-term contracts will not benefit so much. In those markets, rates tend to be more stable.

In Texas, about 250,000 of the 2.2 million customers of TXU Energy saw monthly rates fall 15 percent in August. In the Washington, D.C. area, prices for Pepco's 750,000 customers are up this summer.

The difference is that TXU buys power based off spot natural gas prices, down about 80 percent in the past year; Pepco buys power on wholesale markets with a three-year time horizon that is designed to eliminate roller-coaster like swings in prices.
"Nobody wants that when you're budgeting energy for home or business," Pepco spokesman Clay Anderson said.

He expects prices to begin dropping gradually.

If you are getting a break from your power provider already, enjoy it while you can. There are many factors that affect your bill and most of them tend to drive it higher.

A rebounding economy will certainly give energy prices a boost.

What's more, the U.S. power infrastructure is aging and new plants and transmission lines must be built or replaced. That is going to cost businesses and consumers in the years ahead.

The big wild card is the legislation pending in Congress that may require utilities to cut emissions of carbon dioxide to address global warming. Utilities, especially those that rely on coal, will spend tens of billions of dollars to come up with ways to remove carbon dioxide from emissions.

They are going to want to recoup some of those costs. Customers will feel it in their wallets when they do.

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Florida Exodus: Rising Taxes Drive Out Residents

In the September 3, 2009 article "Florida Exodus: Rising Taxes Drive Out Residents," Tim Padgett infers that rising taxes are the source of residents leaving the state of Florida. A better explanation is that the wealthy and powerful have succeeded in SHIFTING the tax burden toward the middle-class and the poor. Recent increases in property tax rates are necessitated by the 2008 passage of Amendment One to the Florida constitution. Proponents convinced voters the amendment would decrease almost everyone's property taxes by allowing all homeowners to exclude additional parts of their property value from taxation. Wealthy homeowners reaped the greatest benefits. Yet, without drastic reductions in the government services citizens expect, the shortfalls in revenues caused by Amendment One have necessitated increases in property tax RATES and the adoption or increase in other fees that disproportionately affect the middle class and the poor. It is not the rich that are leaving Florida, is it?

There are many things public officials probably shouldn't do during a severe recession, but no one seems to have told the leaders in Florida about them. One thing, for instance, would be giving a dozen top aides hefty raises while urging a rise in property taxes, as the mayor of Miami-Dade County recently did. Or jacking up already exorbitant hurricane-insurance premiums, as Florida's government-run property insurer just did. Or sending an army of highly paid lobbyists to push for a steep hike in electricity rates, as South Florida's public utility is doing.

And you wonder why the Sunshine State is experiencing its first net emigration of people since World War II.

A few years ago, journalists - citing the chasm between Miami's high cost of living and its low level of income - began predicting that South Florida and its perpetual population-growth machine would soon face the unthinkable: a falling head count. Now it's official. The region - Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties - lost 27,400 residents between 2008 and 2009, while Florida as a whole lost 58,000. That's not exactly a mass exodus for a state of 18 million; but it's the first net outflow in 63 years for a state that considers itself the new California. "It's difficult for the working middle class to justify living here," Mike Jones, president of the Palm Beach County Economic Council, conceded to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "As much as they may love the sunshine, as you squeeze them out, they may find it in their best interests to move."

Jones gets it, but residents are starting to question whether the rest of their leaders do. Homeowners, especially in Broward and Miami-Dade, have been falling out of their flip-flops in recent days as they open their preliminary property-tax notices to find increases of 15% or more. That's sizable in a low-income region where the median property-tax bill is already some $3,000, and it's doubly frustrating given that property values have slid by some 25% during Florida's housing bust. Residents have barely digested the recent news that their hurricane-insurance premiums, which can top $5,000 a year for most South Florida homes, will rise 10% a year for the next three years (vital, officials claim, for handling claims from the next big storm). And their public utility, Florida Power & Light (FPL), is lobbying the state for a 30% rate hike (vital, FPL execs insist, for upgrading infrastructure). "It all seems out of control to people here at the time when they can least absorb it," says Dr. Jose Valladares, president of the conservative Fair Property Tax for All in Miami-Dade.

Granted, most local governments often have to raise taxes when they're staring at fiscal craters like the $427 million shortfall in Miami-Dade's proposed $7.83 billion budget. But the less than sunny mood in Miami-Dade is made darker by the feeling among most residents that their fiscal jam is not just a result of falling revenue, but also years of profligate mismanagement. The final determination on their property taxes will be made soon by the Miami-Dade County Commission - a feckless, corruption-tainted body, many of whose members ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in police overtime costs recently by using cops as their personal chauffeurs. (None of the commissioners face any sanctions for it.)

Residents were further outraged last week when the Miami Herald reported that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, one of the few Miami politicians with a reputation for probity, had raised the salaries of his chief of staff and other top lieutenants this year as high as 15% while calling for a 5% pay cut for county workers. Alvarez spokesperson Victoria Mallette says the raises resulted from a 2007 referendum that gave Miami-Dade's mayor, until then a relatively weak post, broad new powers that in turn thrust heavier duties on his staff. She also notes that Alvarez actually cut his office's budget last year by almost 15% and that he helped build an $80 million reserve fund. Still, a Herald editorial called Alvarez's raises "irresponsible." Watchdogs like Valladares complain that Miami-Dade's bureaucracy, like so many local governments in this decade, got too bloated during the economic boom. The County Commission, for example, has a staff of more than 200 serving only 13 commissioners - and yet it still managed to screw up tasks like its oversight of Miami-Dade's scandal-plagued housing agency.

Many Americans find it hard to feel sorry for Valladares and all the other Floridians who pay no state income tax. Floridians are indeed guilty of an arrogant belief that living in "paradise" should be a birthright as cheap as gassing up an SUV. It was, until Florida's relentless and miserably planned growth spawned problems that the peninsula is struggling to handle, including skyrocketing property taxes and hurricane-insurance premiums. Governor Charlie Crist has tried in recent years to rein in those twin vampires, but together they can still exceed what folks in many other states pay for state income tax, local property tax and homeowner's insurance combined. And whereas high-cost states like New York, California and Illinois also have some of the country's highest median incomes, Florida's is in the bottom half.

In a state that worshipped condo-flippers as great entrepreneurs, it was all a house of cards waiting to be blown down when the housing bubble burst. Now that it has happened, those Floridians who haven't left the state had hoped their officials might change the way they do things - or at least not attend a Kentucky Derby party hosted by the same FPL honchos lobbying them for a rate hike, as a Florida Public Service Commission director has admitted to doing a few months ago. But if Miami and Florida officials can't get their acts together, they can probably expect even lower head counts in the years to come.

FACT CHECK: Biden ignores problems with stimulus

In the September 3, 2009 article "FACT CHECK: Biden ignores problems with stimulus," Associated Press writer Brett J. Blackledge reports:

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed success beyond expectations Thursday for the $787 billion economic stimulus, but his glowing assessment overlooks many of the program's problems, including delays in releasing money, questionable spending priorities and project picks that are under investigation.

In a speech aimed squarely at Republican criticism and public skepticism over the costly program's effectiveness, Biden said accomplishments over the past 100 days provide proof of promises kept when he and President Barack Obama began rolling out the plan earlier this year.

"The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected," he said.
The stimulus program includes tax cuts, billions for Medicaid and unemployment benefits, and a massive federal investment in education, environmental projects, technology and traditional infrastructure work. The administration has struggled to make the case that the huge spending program has delivered real economic recovery at a time when the nation's unemployment rate threatens to top 10 percent.

Biden, Obama's chief stimulus cheerleader, proudly pointed to more than 2,200 highway projects Thursday funded by the program, but didn't mention the growing frustration among contractors that infrastructure money is only trickling out and thus far hasn't delivered the needed boost in jobs.

"It is difficult to understand why more communities aren't moving to put their stimulus funds to work while they are experiencing these kinds of job losses," Stephen E. Sandherr, head of the Associated General Contractors of America, said in a statement this week. "Coping with the red tape required by the stimulus ought to be worth it to help put neighbors and friends back to work."

The problem is with money for building projects, not roads and highways, Sandherr said.

Biden noted 192 airports targeted for improvements with stimulus money, but made no reference to the investigation launched after a federal watchdog raised concerns about how the projects were selected.

Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said last month he will examine the Federal Aviation Administration's process for selecting programs for the $1.1 billion in grant money. His announcement came after his office discovered that the Obama administration used stimulus money to pay for 50 airport projects that didn't meet the grant criteria and approved projects at four airports with a history of mismanaging federal grants.

And Biden praised the more than 2,400 military construction projects paid for with stimulus money, but ignored the millions of dollars in savings the Defense Department lost because it hasn't competitively bid many of the jobs.

The Defense Department frequently awards no-bid work to small contractors for repairs at military bases under the stimulus, costing taxpayers millions of dollars more than when businesses compete for the work, an Associated Press analysis of 570 such contracts found.

Biden exercised some restraint in his praise for the stimulus' impact. He took a more cautious approach, for example, when asked if his declaration of stimulus success means Americans can now rethink the common view that government is wasteful and inefficient.

"I think it's too early to make that decision, to be very blunt about it," he said.

And Biden didn't attempt to credit the stimulus alone for signs of broad economic recovery, saying it was one of several government actions that are helping.

"Had we done just this and not done the incredibly unpopular thing of bailing out the banks, had we had done this and tried to deal with stabilizing the housing market, had we done only this we would not be where we are," he said.

But most of Biden's remarks focused on what he argued is evidence of success with the stimulus, even if his examples were questionable.

In making the case that the recovery program was not just economically sound but also good policy, Biden noted that transportation money was replacing unsafe bridges.

"It is worthwhile to take some of those 5,000 bridges out there that are ready to collapse, follow what happened in the upper Midwest, and fix them," he said.

But most states are spending stimulus money on bridges that are already in good shape, another AP analysis found. Of the 2,476 bridges scheduled to receive stimulus money so far, nearly half have passed inspections with high marks, according to federal data. Those 1,123 sound bridges received such high inspection ratings that they normally would not qualify for federal bridge money, yet they will share in more than $1.2 billion in stimulus money, the AP analysis published in July found.

The vice president's speech is part of a concerted White House push in advance of the 200th day of the stimulus act on Saturday. Five top administration officials also were speaking about the law's benefits on Thursday in appearances in Arkansas, Virginia, Illinois, California and Minnesota.

1.3 million to lose jobless benefits by year's end

In the September 3, 2009 article "1.3 million to lose jobless benefits by year's end," Associated Press writer Tamara Lush reports:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer.

This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money's unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose unemployment insurance benefits will run out by the end of the year, placing extra strain on an economy that is just starting to recover from the worst downturn in a generation.

These are the most unfortunate of America's 14.5 million jobless: the ones whose benefits are drying up — in some cases after a record 18 months of government support.

With savings depleted and job opportunities scarce, people who've run out of benefits are living with relatives and borrowing cash from friends. They are even skipping meals. Through it all, they are trying to stay positive through exercise and prayer.

The government said Thursday that 570,000 laid-off workers filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, while the number of people receiving benefits has risen to 6.23 million.

The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that the August unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, up from 9.4 percent in July.

Many are scrambling to find work before they have to reach for the next layer of government aid — food stamps or even welfare.

On a recent day in Jacksonville, Money attended a church-run job fair in a half-vacant shopping mall. Most of the vendors were vocational schools trolling for students, or recruiters for the military and fast food joints.

Money, who was laid off from a printing business, said he'll do anything for a paycheck.

"I'm tired of not working," he sighed. "I just can't sit at home anymore."

People who lost white-collar jobs seem most surprised by the dire circumstances they are finding themselves in as unemployment benefits dry up. Before the recession and financial crisis, it had always been easy for them to find work.

Clifford Sheffield, 43, of Fernandina Beach, Fla., used to earn $2,000 a week as an analyst for Merrill Lynch's Jacksonville office.

Today, Sheffield lives off of a $1,300 monthly check from the government — and is burning through his savings to keep up with rent. The unemployment benefits run out later this month.

At a recent job fair, he perused applications for Valu Pawn and Taco Bell, but did not fill them out.

"I have family I could fall back on, but it's not very appealing," Sheffield said.

"People are just barely getting by," said Sue Berkowitz, the director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, an advocacy group that helps the poor with legal issues surrounding rent and mortgage contracts. "When I go down to our food bank, I see a lot of people who never, ever thought that's where they would be."

In the past year, nearly 5.5 million people exhausted their 26 weeks of standard benefits without finding work. The government says the "exhaustion rate" is the highest on records dating from 1972.

Some 3.4 million people now depend upon extended benefits approved by Congress lasting anywhere from 20 weeks to a year — the longest period of extensions ever added.

The length of these extensions vary by state, depending on the unemployment rate. More than half of all states have unemployment rates that triggered 53 weeks of extended benefits.

The government does not track how many jobless Americans have exhausted both their standard and extended benefits, but experts estimate the figure to be nearly 100,000 — and rising.

According to the National Employment Law Project, more than 402,000 Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits by the end of September. That figure will more than triple by the end of December unless Congress — or individual states — authorizes another extension.

Legislation has been introduced to provide an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits in states with high jobless rates; the bill, introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has 23 co-sponsors, including two Republicans.

Unemployment benefits play an important part in stabilizing the economy because recipients tend to spend their weekly checks, rather than saving the money or paying down debt.

"It's definitely a valuable component of economic stimulus," said Alan Auerbach, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Rudolf Augustine, a 39-year-old former construction worker from Miami, is one of about 16,000 Floridians who have exhausted all their benefits. Out of work for the past two years, Augustine's last unemployment check came in August.

He's doing handyman-type jobs, living with his brother to save money, and had to borrow just to visit his oldest daughter in New York to see her graduate from high school.

Augustine's self-esteem is bruised from the lack of cash.

"I used to drive a Saab turbo," he said. "Now I drive a clunker a friend gave me for free."

Still, he says he has something to look forward to: a business degree, which he should receive in about a year. He spends time with his youngest child in the park for fun and occasionally visits Burger King for a treat.

Trying to maintain a good attitude is key, said Mike Allen of Riverside County, Calif., who received about 13 weeks of unemployment benefits earlier in the year. He wasn't eligible for more because he owned his own business and didn't pay enough into the state's unemployment fund to qualify him for more assistance.

Allen, who is 41, moved his wife and 15-year-old daughter into his parents' home in early August.

"They've got a small house," Allen said. "But it's a roof. We'll help out with food."

After their mortgage company refused to work with them on a loan refinancing, the family walked away from their home, which is several hundred thousand dollars underwater. Allen, formerly the owner of a trucking company, owes about $500,000 in business loans. He's traded in his newer cars for a used Jeep that needs $2,400 of repairs. The family sold most of their furniture.

His one bright spot: Allen has launched two employment-related Web sites in hopes of generating money through online advertising.

"We don't dwell on the past," said Allen, who added that his Christian faith is seeing them through. "We can't change it. We can only change our future."

Sheffield, the former Merrill Lynch analyst, said he has some job leads and is beginning a retraining program to become a radiographer. He's done some odd jobs around his neighborhood for cash, and has cut back on most of his expenses — even his $25 a week comic book hobby.

"I don't drink or smoke, and I can't go to lunch or anything like I used to with my friends," said Sheffield, who runs on the beach to relieve stress. "I eat less. I've lost 20 pounds."

How workers get stiffed out of pay

In the September 3, 2009 U.S. News & World Report article
"How the Lowest-Paid Workers Get Ripped Off," Liz Wolgemuth reports that employers are cheating some workers out of wages they legally earned. Regulation is sometimes needed to improve market outcomes when the marketplace fails to provide socially desirable ones.

In large cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, there's a good chance that the employee mopping up drips at the car wash, the delivery driver at the nearby gourmet grocery store, and the temp worker hired to do janitorial work are not being paid much. It turns out, there's also a good chance they are not even being paid what they've earned.

According to a new study, the average low-wage urban worker earning $339 a week is cheated out of $51 of that amount by an employer committing one or more workplace violations--such as paying less than minimum wage, refusing overtime pay, requiring off-the-clock work, or preventing workers compensation claims. Whether damning proof of the government's inability to adequately enforce labor laws or evidence of a need for stronger standards, the report offers insight into the working lives of an often under-the-radar demographic.

The study, funded by the Joyce, Haynes, Ford, and Russell Sage foundations, is based on interviews with 4,387 low-income workers--39 percent unauthorized immigrants, 31 percent authorized immigrants, and 30 percent U.S.-born citizens--in the first half of 2008. The median hourly wage for workers surveyed was $8.02, and the workers were in a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, construction, food service, and child care. Employing a method that uses social networks to recruit participants, the study focused on workers who tend to be the most difficult to survey. The questions asked were aimed at gaining accurate information about employer policies from workers who might not understand the law, and surveys were translated into languages that included Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Polish, and Haitian Creole.

More than two thirds of the workers surveyed had experienced at least one pay-related violation within the previous workweek, according to the study. Nearly a quarter worked off the clock and were rarely paid for it. And 76 percent of workers who had worked overtime were not paid the overtime rate, as required by law. More than two thirds of workers entitled to lunch breaks had either not received them, had them shortened, had been interrupted, or continued to work through their break.

More violations were found in certain industries than in others. Minimum wage violations were most common in apparel and textile manufacturing, personal and repair services, and in private households. Violations were lower in residential construction, social assistance and education, and home healthcare. Employees of businesses with more than 100 employees experienced violations less often than those who worked at smaller businesses.

Study coauthor Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at University of California-Los Angeles, says the study results provide convincing evidence that the enforcement of labor laws has been very limited. "In that segment of the labor market, it also appears that employers have realized that enforcement is extremely unlikely and they can do this stuff without much fear of consequences," Milkman says.

It's not clear how violations affecting low-wage workers compare with those who are paid more. Milkman suspects that overtime violations extend to groups of higher-earning workers. The researchers found that women, immigrants, and people of color were disproportionately more likely to experience a violation. Three quarters of the workers surveyed had a high school degree or less. Foreign-born workers were nearly twice as likely to experience minimum wage violations, and foreign-born Latino workers had the highest minimum wage violation rates of any ethnic or racial groups.

The study's authors argue that "the best inoculation against workplace violations is ensuring that workers know their rights, have full status under the law to assert them, have access to sufficient legal resources, and do not fear retaliation." This is, they point out, a near impossibility for unauthorized immigrant workers. "Any policy initiative to reduce workplace violations must prioritize equal protection and equal status in national immigration reform, and ensure status-blind enforcement of employment and labor laws," they write.

In the existing labor market, employers who hire illegal immigrants benefit from an unnatural balance of power, since undocumented workers have little leverage with employers who violate the regulations of the formal labor market, says Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute. He believes there needs to be much greater integration in the labor market in North America and policies that give undocumented immigrants the status to live and work here.

According to the New York Times, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said her department was hiring 250 additional wage-and-hour inspectors. But greater enforcement of the existing workplace standards could complicate the route to employment for many illegal immigrants because they often rely on jobs that are below minimum wage as entry points in the U.S. job market and use those jobs to gain the skills to reach higher pay levels, Wilkinson says.

Milkman tells of interviewing a hotel worker whose supervisor would enter hotel rooms before her and take the tips that had been left for her. The worker also was required to work more hours than she was paid for. When she complained, she was essentially fired--told her services were no longer needed.

Work Force Radically Changed Since Last Year

In the September 3, 2009 article "Work Force Radically Changed Since Last Year," Associated Press business writer Christopher Leonard reports:

Labor Market Has Suffered Most Wrenching Changes In A Generation

When Labor Day arrives Monday, it will be celebrated by a work force that has changed radically since the same holiday in 2008.

Over the past year, the labor market has suffered its most wrenching changes in a generation, shedding millions of jobs and changing the profile of the more than 131 million people who head to work every day.

American workers are older than they used to be, working fewer hours at cash-strapped companies and less likely to be unionized. And far more are now out looking for a job, and spending longer periods of time on the job hunt.

The rapid change has come on top of longer-term transformations. In 1959, nearly 30 percent of all nonfarm workers had manufacturing jobs -- by last month, that had fallen to 9 percent. Eighty years ago, about 20 percent of Americans worked on farms. Now it's less than 2 percent.

As Americans left behind farms and factories, they donned the service-sector attire of aprons, neckties and telephone headsets, with about 36 percent of the work force now employed in the service sector.

While changes have been obvious, it's less clear what will be around the corner for U.S. workers. Analysts expect a long period of joblessness to continue, with the unemployment rate not returning to pre-recession levels until 2013 or later.

The big question is what kind of jobs will appear to replace those lost forever in the hard-hit financial services and construction sectors.

Here's a look at the changing U.S. labor force, by the numbers.
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A HORRIBLE YEAR
4 percent: The total decline over the last year in the U.S. nonfarm payroll, which stands at 131.5 million people.
9.4 percent: The current unemployment rate, up from 4.7 percent when the recession began.
33.1 hours: The length of the average workweek as employers cut hours, near a the lowest level in records dating to 1964.
6.7 million: The number of jobs lost since the recession started in December 2007.
___
A DAY IN THE LIFE
2.8 percent: The share of people who are at work by 5 a.m.
7.6 hours: The length of the average workday.
20 percent: Share of employees who do all or some of their work at home.
48.6 minutes: The average daily travel time for commuters and traveling workers.
76 percent: Percentage of workers who drive alone to work.
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CHANGING JOB MARKET
18 percent: The total decline over the last year in construction jobs, which fell to 6.1 million.
4.67 percent: Share of the U.S. labor market held by construction workers last year, down from 5.4 percent as the housing bust intensified last summer.
7.7 million: Number of workers with more than one job, about 5 percent of the work force.
6 percent: Decline in the number of workers in the financial sector over the last year, with 7.7 million remaining as of July.
587,000: Number of registered nursing positions expected to be created between 2006 and 2016.
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CHANGING WORK FORCE
40 percent: The share of workers over age 55 who have a job or are seeking a job, the highest level since it was 40.8 percent in 1961, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
57 percent: The share of workers between age 16 and 24 who are in the labor market, down from 66 percent in 2000. Many are waiting out the downturn by going to school.
16 million: The number of wage and salaried workers who are unionized, down from 16.3 million in 2000.
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PAY DAY
4.28 percent: Percentage of work force in management jobs.
0.19 percent: Percentage of workers who are chief executives.
$136,890: Mean annual wage of chief executives.
$52,290: Mean annual wage of elementary school teachers.
$72,870: Mean annual wage of industrial engineers.
$102,390: Mean annual wage of dentists.
$46,920: Mean annual wage of all occupations.
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Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau, unless otherwise noted.

Test your understanding of economics in the news: Is this a change in supply or a change in demand?

In the September 1, 2009 article "BP Makes `Giant´ Oil Find in Gulf of Mexico," Tom Bergin explains that the discovery of new oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico may affect the future price of oil. Using the ceteris paribus assumption that ignores other potential changes, what is the likely effect of this discovery on the market for oil?

Is this change in the oil market (a) an increase in the supply of oil, (b) a decrease in the supply of oil, (c) an increase in the demand for oil, or (d) a decrease in the demand for oil? Will the equilibrium price of oil increase or decrease as a result of these newly found oil reserves?

Read the article below and then illustrate this price change with a graph that shows the initial positions of the supply and demand for oil and the new positions of the supply and demand curves. (Hint: Only one of the curves shifts.) There is a link at the bottom that provides the answer.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil major BP Plc said it has made an oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, which analysts believe could contain over 1 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, reaffirming the Gulf's strategic importance to the industry.

BP said in a statement on Wednesday that it had made the "giant" find at its Tiber Prospect in the Keathley Canyon block 102, by drilling one of the deepest wells ever sunk by the industry.

Further appraisal will be required to ascertain the size of volumes of oil present, but a spokesman said the find should be bigger than its Kaskida discovery which has over 3 billion barrels of oil in place.

Estimates of recoverable reserves range from around 20 percent of oil in place.

"Assuming reserves in place of 4 billion barrels and a 35 percent recovery rate, BP's proven reserves .. would rise by 868 million barrels -- equivalent to 4.8 percent of the group's 18.14 billion barrels of proven reserves," Aymeric De-Villaret, oil analyst at Societe Generale said in a research note.

BP, the biggest oil producer in the U.S. and biggest leaseholder in the Gulf of Mexico, has a 62 percent working interest in the block, while Brazilian state-controlled Petrobras owns 20 percent and U.S. oil major ConocoPhillips owns 18 percent.

Iain Armstrong, analyst at Brewin Dolphin, said the discovery may have implications for long-term oil prices.

"It will ease concerns about peak oil because it shows there is life left in these mature areas," he said, adding that it could be the second half of the next decade before the find is producing.

The discovery also bodes well for other exploration in that part of the Gulf of Mexico, including at Royal Dutch Shell's nearby Great White field, Jason Kenny, oil analyst at ING in Edinburgh, said.

BP shares, which had been trading slightly down ahead of the statement, closed up 4.3 percent at 541 pence, outperforming a 1.75 percent rise in the DJ Stoxx European oil and gas sector index.

The Gulf of Mexico has become increasingly important to Western oil majors as oil rich-countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russia reserve their richest fields to be developed by their state-owned oil companies.

The Gulf is especially attractive because it offers high profit margins, due to relatively low taxation compared to countries such as Russia and Nigeria, and because of the low political risk.

As nearer-shore discoveries dry up, companies have pushed further out to sea, which has forced them to develop new technologies to detect and extract the oil.

The prospects for massive discoveries in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico is also good news for U.S. politicians' ambitions to reduce the country's reliance on imported oil, although oil executives doubt the U.S. is capable of becoming self sufficient in oil.

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How to Lose $3 Million in Six Years

Be careful what you wish for. Lottery winners often later regret their huge winnings. Did anyone ever say "money does not by happiness"?

According to the September 1, 2009 article "How to Lose $3 Million in Six Years" by Mike Krumboltz:

Stop us if this sounds familiar: A very lucky person wins the lottery and expects life to change for the better, but instead, things go horribly wrong. It's a story as old as the hills, but each time it happens, it causes a huge commotion in Search. The latest "victim" of sudden wealth is a young woman from the U.K. who won millions of bucks several years ago, only to lose the vast majority of it shortly thereafter.

Callie Rogers was just 16 when she won a whopping $3 million in the lottery. Six years later, she reports that she blew untold sums on drugs, partying, exotic cars, and breast implants. A staggering $730,000 went to designer clothes alone, Ms. Rogers explains in an article from AOL. Says Rogers: "I honestly wish I'd never won the lottery money — and knowing what I know now I should have just given it all back to them." She's currently left with around $32,000.

In these trying economic times, Ms. Rogers will likely find little sympathy. Still, it's worth noting that she's hardly the first big winner who wished she'd never bought a ticket. There is such a thing as the lottery curse: As mentioned in a previous Buzz Log, there are numerous cases of lotto winners getting divorced due to stress and losing everything from poor investments. A few have even died at the hands of greedy relatives. A 2007 article from ABC will fill you in on a few more examples.

Knowing she's not the first jackpot winner to suffer hardship won't make her life any easier. But perhaps Ms. Rogers can take some comfort from the fact that there are others out there with eerily similar stories: They won big then lost big, and often wish they'd never even played.