The following is a chart of the employment to population ratio in the United States over the past 10 years….

The gray shaded bar in the chart represents the last recession as defined by the Federal Reserve.  As you can see, the percentage of working age Americans with a job dropped sharply from nearly 63 percent at the start of 2008 to a little above 59 percent when the recession ended.

But the “employment rate” kept on dropping even further.

It finally bottomed out at 58.2 percent in December of 2009.

Since that time, it has stayed very steady.  It has not fallen below 58 percent and it has not risen back above 59 percent.

This is very odd, because after ever other recession since World War II this number has always bounced back strongly.

But this has not happened this time.

In essence, it is starting to look like 4 percent of the working age population of the United States has been removed from the workforce permanently.

The good news in all of this is that things have at least not been getting any worse over the last couple of years.  Even though things have been bad, at least we have had a period of relative stability.

The bad news is that the employment rate has not rebounded despite unprecedented borrowing and spending by the federal government and despite reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve.

Considering how desperately the federal government and the Federal Reserve have been trying to stimulate the economy, I truly did expect to see the employment rate bounce back at least a little bit by now.

Unfortunately it has not and now the U.S. economy is rapidly heading for another recession.

But Barack Obama is going to prance around over the next few days and talk about how wonderful it is that the economy created “163,000 new jobs” in July.

What he isn’t going to talk about are the millions of Americans that have been unemployed for so long that they don’t even “count” in the official unemployment numbers anymore.

But those people actually exist and they are really hurting.  Many of them are starting to lose their unemployment benefits and they really do not know what they are going to do.  The following is from a recent USA Today article….

Since abruptly losing her $312 weekly unemployment check in June, Laurie Cullinan has depleted her savings, sought food from the Salvation Army and lit candles to save electricity.

If she can’t find a job this month, the Royal Oak, Mich., resident worries she’ll be evicted from her apartment, an unthinkable prospect for the 52-year-old, who enjoyed a solidly middle-class lifestyle until she lost her office-manager job two years ago.

“What am I going to do if I’m homeless?” says Cullinan, who collected unemployment for 1½ years. “My mind won’t let me comprehend that.”

Could you imagine having to face that?

What would you do if you were about to be tossed out on to the street?

When you add up all of the working age Americans without a job in the United States today, it comes to more than 100 million.

Some people have accused me of lying about that figure, but it is actually true.

There are more than 100 million working age Americans that are not employed right now.

And even if you do have a job that does not mean that you are doing well.  As I wrote about yesterday, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States today are good jobs.

The cost of living continues to rise much faster than wages are.  Many families are having a really hard time just paying for the basics.  The inflated standard of living that we have all enjoyed for so long is starting to disappear.

An increasing number of young people are living with their parents well past the age of 18 because there are not enough good jobs and it is just so hard to make it in this economy.  If you can believe it, 24 percent of all Americans in the 20 to 34 year old age bracket are living at home with their parents at this point.

But we will be seeing a lot more of this as the economy gets even worse.  “Multi-generational households” will become very common, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.  Perhaps this will give some families a chance to do some bonding.

Meanwhile, many of our once great cities continue to rot and decay at a staggering pace.  Today, I saw one report that discussed how the city of Detroit has become a dumping ground for dead bodies.

How sad is that?

Detroit was once the envy of the world and now it is a place where murder victims are dumped.

These are all indications of just how far we have fallen.

But things are going to get a lot worse, so we should actually be thankful for the period of relative stability that we are enjoying right now.

The long-term economic collapse that we are experiencing right now will soon accelerate.  Eventually even the highly manipulated official “unemployment rate” will soar well up into the double digits.

When it does, the anger and frustration that is boiling under the surface in this country is going to explode.

Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst.

The post The Employment Rate In The United States Is Lower Than It Was During The Last Recession appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The headline to this article states that there will never be enough jobs in America again.

How could that possibly be true?

Well, the sad truth is that it is very hard to make a profit on an employee in the United States today.

Every year, the control freaks that run things just keep dumping more taxes, more laws, more regulations and more demands on employers.  Hiring even a low level employee today is very complicated and very expensive.

These days a lot of small business owners have decided that it is simply not worth the hassle to hire more employees.  If you can’t make a profit on them, what is the point?

If there was going to be a major rebound in hiring, we would have seen it by now.  Corporate profits are at an all-time high as I mentioned earlier.  How much more money do they need to make before they start hiring?

But I don’t blame them.  Our politicians have loaded the system with plenty of incentives NOT to hire workers.

Yesterday, I wrote about how Barack Obama has been a one man wrecking crew when it comes to killing jobs.  But he is not the only one to blame.  The truth is that politicians from both political parties have been making things more difficult for employers for decades.

Today, many employers are trying to replace as many employees as possible with computers, automation, robotics and other forms of technology.  Those are jobs that are not ever going to come back.

However, sometimes human labor is still actually needed.

But instead of hiring American workers, many big corporations are taking advantage of the emerging “one world economy” and are setting up shop in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.

So how are American workers supposed to compete with that?

The truth is that they can’t.

Today, you aren’t just competing for jobs with your neighbors.  Your competition also includes millions upon millions of hard working people on the other side of the globe that will gladly work 12 hour shifts in nightmarish conditions for a dollar an hour.

The United States has been losing millions of jobs to lower wage countries, and the fierce competition for the jobs that remain is driving down wages in this country.

As a result, many of our greatest cities that were once the envy of the entire world have become cesspools of filth, decay and wretchedness.

We are going to continue to bleed jobs because both major political parties are fully convinced that merging our labor pool with the labor pool of the rest of the world is a grand idea.

Republicans have been brainwashed into believing that a one world economic system is actually “conservative”.  They have been told that it is “conservative” to merge our economy with countries ruled by third world dictators and brutal communist regimes that have no respect for human rights at all.

Democrats have been brainwashed into believing that merging our economy into a one world economic system is “good for American workers” and will bring more prosperity to this country.

Barack Obama is even negotiating a treaty right now that would reportedly ban all “Buy American” laws.

How stupid can we be?

If we merge our labor pool with the labor pool of the rest of the world with no protection, guess where our wages and our standard of living is going to go?

The answer is obvious.

The “giant sucking sound” that Ross Perot warned us about so many years ago has become a reality.

It is just basic economics.

If I go to the store and I see two similar products and one is priced at $10 and the other is priced at $100 I am going to go for the one priced $10.

Well, it is the same thing with employees.

U.S. workers can’t compare with low wage workers on the other side of the world.  It is simply no contest.

Meanwhile, our control freak politicians continue to shove more jobs out the door by piling on even more taxes, rules and regulations.

Unfortunately, these trends are not going to change.  It doesn’t matter who gets elected.  The bleeding of jobs is going to continue.

In fact, we should probably be celebrating that things are still as good as they are.

In the future they will be a whole lot worse.

The period we are in right now was supposed to be the recovery.  During the last recession the percentage of working age Americans with jobs fell dramatically.  Since the end of the recession, that number has stayed remarkably flat….

Now the next major downturn is rapidly approaching.

When it hits, the unemployment rate is going to go well up into the double digits.

At the moment, our failing economy is being propped up by unprecedented amounts of debt.

When our debt-fueled false prosperity ends, the true horror of the decay of our economic system will be revealed.

If you think it is hard to find a job now, you just wait.  What is coming is going to be a total nightmare.  As I have written about before, many years of pain are ahead.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to lose hope.

On my website, people often share how their lives have been absolutely devastated by this economy.  Some of them are even so down that they are considering giving up completely.

But that is the exact wrong response to all of this!

The reason why I try so hard to explain what is coming is so that it will not be a surprise to people.  If you make plans and preparations now, the times that are coming will not overwhelm you.  I believe that there will be people that will be greatly blessed even in the midst of what is coming.

However, millions of Americans that are not listening to the warnings now will have their lives totally destroyed by what is coming.

The world is changing.  Nothing is going to stop that.  The unprecedented prosperity that we have been rolling in is going to shrivel up and go away.

But that does not mean that your life is over.

In fact, if you get yourself physically and mentally prepared for what is ahead the times that are coming can be the greatest times of your life.

One of my goals is to give people hope.  There is hope in understanding what is coming.  There is hope in being prepared.  There is hope in being a light in the middle of the darkness.  There is hope in being willing to love people in the midst of a world that is going crazy.  The following is from a comment that one reader left on a recent article….

I wanted to thank you, the author of this article, whoever you are. I haven’t completely ruled out killing myself but you’ve certainly given me something to think about. And thank you for trying to give people like me a little hope. A little kindness, even if only through words, is at a premium these days especially in my life. I will think carefully about what you’ve said. Best wishes to you and your efforts. God bless.

Everyone out there that is in a similar position – please do not ever, ever, ever give up.

No matter how bad things look right now, there are people out there that care.

One thing I have learned in life is this – there is always a way that things can be turned around.

Sadly, in the future a lot of Americans are going to give in to despair and will completely give up on life.  We saw it happen during the Great Depression of the 1930s and we are seeing this in Greece and other European countries right now.

But the truth is that your life is not over no matter how bad things get out there.

You can let the times that are coming destroy you, or you can make them the greatest adventure of your life.

The choice is up to you.

I urge you to get ready, to get more independent of the system and to start focusing on the things that really matter in life.

The post There Will Never Be Enough Jobs In America Again appeared first on The Economic Collapse.