The OECD has new estimates about America's GDP and unemployment rate over the next two years. Good news: Their GDP projections grew by 150%. Bad news: They still project growth will be 50% lower than during the 1984 recovery. Free Exchange pulls out the key stats. I have some thoughts toward 2010 and 2012.
In the two years after the end of the 1982 recession, the American economy expanded by 4.5% (1983) and 7.2% (1984), and at the end of that period the American unemployment rate was still above 7%. The OECD projects that the American economy will expand by 2.5% next year, and by perhaps around 3% in 2011. Accordingly, they estimate that at the end of 2011, the American unemployment rate will be just a bit below 9%.Last week I highlighted a post that argued (with statistics!) that the unemployment rate doesn't have much to do with mid-term elections. The problem with that argument is there has only been one midterm election in the last 50 years with unemployment over 8 percent. It was in 1982 and Reagan got creamed, losing 27 seats in the House. The OECD says unemployment will be in the 8 percent range through 2012. Forget the Mayans. For the Democratic Party, that number is apocalyptic enough.
Say the Democrats lost 27 seats in 2010 - wouldn't that still leave them with a majority in the House? I mean, obviously, they could lose more than that, and 27 is a pretty big number, but it doesn't seem all that apocalyptic to me.
BHO pushed his stimulus package by saying that without it unemployment would rise above 8%. I think we will here that quote time after time in the upcoming election site. Add to that the Administrations boosts about jobs through Recovery.gov and the fact that those number were always highly suspect and are now being proven to be so. The Democrats are going to have a lot of defending to do.
The statisticians seem to think there will be a 26 seat loss for democrats based on history. It's not apocalyptic- it's normal. If Congress people pull their collective heads out of their collective hinies and pass the legislation they were elected to pass, hopefully they'll beat the historic trends.
Rather than wait for a break in the recession, many people are getting second jobs to find debt relief. More households are resorting to moonlighting to ease the strain of unemployment, expenses, wage cuts and layoffs. The unemployment rate as 10.2% in October, and full time employees average 33 hours a week, a record low. It’s estimated that 7.5 million people hold more than one job.