Ironic That Those Hardest Hit Have The Most Faith In This Great Land

Two things jump out at me after reading this report.  One,this study by the Pew Research Center tells me the stimulus is working.

Today, overall unemployment is around 10% compared to the 25% following two years of “deer in the headlights” Republican laissez-faire during the Great Depression.

But this study shows nearly 1/3 of workers have been out of work at some time during the last 30 months of great “Recession.”  That tells me the rapid action has prevented what could have been a much bigger problem.

The chart to the right (click to enlarge) also documents the various impacts felt by people who remain employed since 2007.

But the reality is it could have been much worse and rapid action similar but nowhere near as big as what FDR did after replacing the policies of the Hoover/Coolidge era.

It is also a good sign to me that the overhaul and reinstitution of regulations on the financial industry is now nearly in place to prevent this type of meltdown.  In hindsight the repeal of the regulations spawned by the Great Depression was stupid.

The second thing that strikes me from the report is that the people we often hear whining, like older, white Republicans and Independents like myself, are much less optimistic about America still being a land of prosperity than groups that have been much harder hit like Blacks and Hispanics (click to enlarge chart to the right.)

Instead of obsessive coverage of a small group of “angry” whiners, the news media needs to take a clue from this excellent report and dig into why the middle class overall and Blacks and Hispanics in particular along with Democrats overall and young people 18-29 (many of the hardest hit) are still so much more optimistic that American is still the land of prosperity.

Maybe there really is a silent majority!

Click here for the full report.  It is well worth a read and much more enlightening than the summary.

I’m not a Democrat or Republican but I’m very grateful to the Democrats for doing so much of the very difficult, heavy lifting and very disappointed that all but a handful of the Republicans have wasted so much time and energy on a stupid blockade.