FICRY

The Grapes of Wrath, The Heritage Press, 1939, (Collection of the Pace University Library). Edition of the Grapes of Wrath contains lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton.

While some on Capitol Hill will use this month’s slight drop in unemployment rate as evidence of the stimulus’ slow but steady success, their excitement may be overlooking a couple of key statistical details. First of all, while the rate of job loss has decreased from 9.5 to 9.4%, the number of unemployed Americans is still on the rise. The number of adult Americans with jobs actually decreased from 59.5 to 59.4 percent in the last month.

Now, to those few remaining optimists out there, I can imagine what you are thinking. The rate of job loss slowed slightly. Given that there’s not much financial news worth celebrating these days, don’t we at least deserve to give ourselves a gentle pat on the back?

If only it were that easy. Not only is unemployment still on the rise, this statistic reflects an even more disturbing trend. In recent months, there has been a huge surge in the number of people ineligible for unemployment benefits, and thus ineligible to officially register as unemployed. Unfortunately, they aren’t ineligible because they’ve found work. Instead, they have given up hope of finding a job entirely. These still very much job-less individuals make up the .1% decrease in the unemployment rate.

In order to qualify for unemployment, you must produce some evidence that you are seeking work and do not intend to live off unemployment benefits forever. Conveniently, our system has no real way of counting those out of work Americans who do not qualify for unemployment benefits. A growing class of hopeless, unemployed individuals disenfranchised and unaided by the government? This is certainly not news we can celebrate.