Michigan jobless rate reaches 12%

www.freep.com...

Michigan’s labor markets continued to bleed jobs in early 2009, pushing the state’s unemployment rate in February up to 12%. Advertisement Michigan hasn’t seen a jobless rate that high since January 1984, when Ronald Reagan was president and the state was still emerging from the dire recession of the early 1980s.

Michigan continues to lead the United States in joblessness. The nation’s rate during the month of February was 8.1%.

It just keeps getting worse. I know at least 10 people that have lost their jobs. I'm very lucky that my husband still has his job, but I'm really starting to get scared that he will get laid off soon. His hours are already cut in half, and for the first time, we've had to dip into our savings to make our mortgage payment this month.

Michigan has been an awful economic mess since the 1970's. I live in Kentucky and have talked to many people lately who have moved here from Michigan just so they can work. A friend of my daughter was moving back to Michigan because she said her family missed her and she wanted to find a better job. I was astounded that she thought Michigan would be a better place to get a job. I used to live in Ohio, we would go to Michigan for long weekends. It was party cental then. Lots of money, cheap prices, cheap drugs and good music.

reply to post by kyred


Isn't that ironic? Back in the 30's tons of folks from Kentucky moved up to Michigan for jobs, including my grandparents. Now, seems like they are all heading back 'home'.

The people in my neighborhood have almost entirely stopped smoking. You know people are poor when they actually give up cigarettes.



[edit on 25-3-2009 by theWCH]

Isn't that the "magic number" considering unemployment? I think that's the percentage that the people who lived through the Great Depression had to deal with.

Is this a recession?

reply to post by cryingindian


Actually the magic number was 25% during the Great Depression.

Originally posted by virraszto


It just keeps getting worse. I know at least 10 people that have lost their jobs. I'm very lucky that my husband still has his job, but I'm really starting to get scared that he will get laid off soon.
His hours are already cut in half, and for the first time, we've had to dip into our savings to make our mortgage payment this month.

wow, at least youse have a 'savings' to fall back on... many others just relied on credit cards.

i'd keep a keen eye on not only your neighborhood but your general area for home/housing distress... if out-of-work homeowners walk-away from their homes and your area looks as it it too will become full of abandoned houses
Then no ammount of Savings to pay your mortgage will help as a
'dead zone' develops and the area decays, theres nothing but trouble...

see:www.globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com...


it seems like Michigan residents will have to find another consumer need to fill, vehicles should only need 20% of the older labor force to meet the needs of the nation,
good luck

Originally posted by eldard
reply to post by cryingindian

 

Actually the magic number was 25% during the Great Depression.

True, but the numbers that the media talks about now are the U-3 numbers, which systematically remove all "marginally attached workers." The broad estimate of unemployment, the U-6, is generally twice as high as the U-3, and is a much better reflection of the true unemployment level. It's also a lot closer to the way that unemployment was measured in the 1930s. U-6 numbers aren't available by state, by month; but the using the national data, we can try to tease out the figure.

Michigan: 12%
Nation: 8.1%

8.1/14.8=.54 (National U-3/U-6 data for Feb 2009)
8.3/15.1 = .55 (annualized U-3 vs U-6 data for 2008 Michigan)

12/x = .55 ==> 12=.55x ==> 12/.55=x ==> x=21.8

So, we can estimate that Michigan's U-6 unemployment rate is 22%. This clearly puts us in line with the Great Depression figures. If anything, this would be a low-end estimate, as the annualized data from 2008 includes the first 8 months of the year, before the unemployment really accelerated.



[edit on 26-3-2009 by theWCH]

Well heck it's a good thing we got that trillion dollar stimulus bill passed! That ought to help out the unemployment in Michigan right? Right??

Most of my relatives live in Grand Rapids, MI. (I'm in Indiana). I guess they're all lucky so far - no job losses.

That equation made me laugh man, thanks for that. Do they list unemployment numbers for cities like Detroit? There is a city near here that had 12% unemployment in 2000 and now has half the stores boarded up (bascally everything but the pawn shops, title pawns, gas stations, and franchise fast food joints). Because of that I imagine that some isolated cities are much worse than the numbers we're hearing. Either way I'd like to say I'd hate to be in Michigan right now.