Foreclosures and Unemployment

I saw this article yesterday, talking about last year’s record rate of foreclosures.

“The number of foreclosures soared in 2007, with 405,000 households losing their home, according to a report released Tuesday. That’s up 51 percent from the 268,532 homes that were repossessed in 2006.”

So much for the conservatives’ “ownership society”.  670,000 foreclosures in two years is ridiculous.  Of course, according to the “personal responsibility” crowd, it’s the mortgage signers fault for not understanding what they were signing up for.  Such compassion!  Foreclosed families have an effect on the rest of us and the economy.  Where are they staying?  How are they paying their bills?  If they run into trouble, they can’t declare bankruptcy as easily as they could have prior to Bush, either.  The next president is inheriting a ton of trouble.

Another article caught my eye: one dealing with long-term unemployment.  I hate how unemployment is calculated and reported.  It doesn’t reflect the realities of who does and does not have a job, for one.  Second, 5% is being discussed as being ‘moderate’.  Funny, I remember reading 4.6% unemployment was nearly ‘full employment’.  Either way, this quote captures the second problem:

“”You have to understand that 5% unemployment today is worse than 5% unemployment 10-15 years ago,” said Jason Furman, senior fellow, Brookings Institution.”

It’s why the 5% number is bantied around so much.  If they reported actual numbers, people would freak out.  Let’s take a look at some of those numbers, shall we?  The following are from a table of some measures of America when Bush took office and the state of the same now:

1.76 Million jobs per year for 8 years under Clinton     versus      369,000 jobs per year for 7 years under Bush.

Population growth hasn’t slowed down since the 1990’s.  But 1.3 Million fewer jobs per year have been created under Bush.  So how is the unemployment number a ‘modest 5%’?  The math simply doesn’t work out.