Personnel Cuts

Posted by lex, on November 30th, 2011

It cannot have escaped the attention of the casual observer that the US economy is in something of a shambles. Although the recession officially ended in June 2009, persistent jobless rates hovering around a historically high level of 9% have caught the attention of the workforce, economists and politicians. Each of whom, it must be said, has  differing take on the matter. Those still employed look around the room at the empty seats and combine survivor’s guilt with personal anxiety, hoarding cash and perhaps even foregoing a request for a wage increase. Economists see the fiscal outflows of sustained unemployment compensation and bewail the dual loss of tax dollars, since the unemployed are a dual burden on the fisc; each dollar that goes out represents an opportunity cost in income taxes the unemployed might have paid if they were instead in the work force. Politicians, on the other hand, publicly grapple with one another to provide solutions – the unemployed still vote – but largely without having the necessary humility of looking in the mirror and wondering if they aren’t part of the problem.