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(Note that all numbers are current as of March 5, 2010. States numbers are current as of January 22, 2009.)
The jobs crisis
- Number unemployed: 14.9 million (up from 7.5 million in December 2007)
- Total jobs lost during the recession: 8.4 million
- Jobs lost in February, 2010: 36,000
- Jobs needed to return to pre-recession unemployment rate: 11.1 million
- Number of jobseekers per job opening: 6.1
- Unemployment rate: 9.7%
- States with double-digit unemployment in December, 2009: 17
- White unemployment: 8.8%; black unemployment: 15.8%; Hispanic unemployment: 12.4%
- Manufacturing jobs lost since the start of the recession: 2.2 million (15.8% of sector’s jobs)*
- Construction jobs lost in the recession: 1.9 million (25.8%, about one in four construction jobs)*
- Mass layoffs (50 or more people by a single employer) in January, 2010: 1,761; jobs lost: 182,261
- Underemployment rate: 16.8%; Share of workers un- or underemployed: more than 1 in 6
- Under- and unemployed, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 26.2 million
Hardships and the safety net
- Americans with no health insurance in 2008: 46.3 million
- Drop in children covered through parents’ employers, 2000 to 2007: 3.4 million
- Annual Social Security benefit for average retiree: $13,922; Share of older Americans receiving all their income from Social Security: more than 1 out of 4
- Number of children in poverty in 2008: 14.1 million (over one-third)
- Drop in real median income from 2007 to 2008: 3.6% (largest one-year drop since 1967)
- Annualized growth rate of nominal, hourly wages of production workers over the last three months: 1.3%
- Additional people covered by Medicaid/SCHIP in 2008: 3 million
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
- Average weekly unemployment benefit in January (including additional $25 per week from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act): $335
- Number of additional people each week receiving unemployment compensation because of ARRA in January: 4.6 million
- Average monthly cost of COBRA with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsidy: $370; Without American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsidy: $1,057
*EPI analysis of BLS data.
