Today we hear that the recession ended back in June 2009. Of course this is a technical call based on whether we had growth in a quarter or not. Now, if you lost 20% of the economy in the recession and have anemic growth, you may be technically out of recession but you are certainly not back to where you were. It will take years to recover from the losses. For some individuals, and the NY Times had an article today about over 50 workers who may never get jobs at the same level they had, the recession is permanent.
Many of the jobs we lost will never return. I've discussed this previously and the main hope is that we create jobs in new industries, such as environmental related jobs. I expect that jobs will be created in unanticipated areas. However, it is also likely that the skills for these new jobs will require training that many of our unemployed don't have and they are now competing with new entrants who may very well have these new skills.
At any given time the economy has winners and losers. The winners are not always deserving and the losers aren't either. If you followed the rules, worked hard, contributed to a company's success for many years but that company simple goes away or sends your job overseas leaving you in the loser group did you deserve that?
If you believed that the American dream required you to buy a house in the suburbs and an SUV when you were working and you did those things, only to find the house worth less than your mortgage, did you deserve that?
Suppose you became unable to work due to illness or disability and lost your employer provided health insurance, did you deserve that?
People talk about economic recovery as if the economy is going to be just as healthy as it was right before it. This is going to require a lot of rehab before we are normal again.
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