American unemployment and how it effects the economy Essay

American unemployment and how it effects the economy - Essay Example t 2010) article discussing the same report indicated similar positive indicators and speculated on the nature of the connection between the economy and the unemployment figures. It attributed the lowered rates to both the general flux of the economy, and the most recent stimulus package. It states that, â€Å"All the well-known private economic research firms estimate that it’s had a huge impact. IHS Global Insight, for instance, says the economy has about 1.7 million more jobs today than it would have had without the stimulus.† While one would conceivably believe this to be indicative of a recovering economy a number of researchers argue that the percentage change is not as beneficial as observers might believe. Cook (2010) discusses that overall the unemployment rate remains awful, â€Å"men (10 percent), teenagers (26.4 percent), African-Americans (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.6 percent).† Other negative indicators are that the number of people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more has actually increased with this report, and that the amount of people who have stopped looking for work has increased to over 1 million, from the 500,000 figure of last year. It is also estimated that for the economy to keep pace with population growth, and the unemployment numbers to at least remain stable, the country would have to produce more than 140,000 new jobs per month (Leonhardt 2010). Other researchers state that the findings also indicate that the recession is worse than was originally assumed. The New York Times (Leonhardt 2010) stated that the reports indicate the economy had 1.4 million fewer jobs last year than was originally reported. An Economist (2010) article points out that even when the economy begins to recover certain job sectors may never see pre-recession employment figures. It argues that, â€Å"The past decade’s jobs in retail and in entertainment were largely supported by household borrowing. Not only is a new wave of borrowing unlikely to