Economists Disagree With Bush

Employers Show Lack Of Confidence, Only 121,000 New Jobs In June; Unemployment Rate Steady At 4.6% - CBS News:

'This is a very sub par economic recovery and it looks like the labor market is actually decelerating,' Ron Blackwell, chief economist of the AFL-CIO, told CBS Radio News. 'The only bright spot in this report was an eight-cent increase in the average wage, which, if it were to persist, and again, it's against the trend, would represent a real increase in income.'

Workers' average hourly earnings jumped to $16.70 in June, a sharp 0.5 percent increase from May. Economists were expecting a more modest rise of 0.3 percent. For the last 12 months, wages have gone up by 3.9 percent, the largest annual increase since June 2001.

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'In terms of growth and in terms of profits, it's a very strong recovery. But in terms of jobs and in terms of wages, it's the weakest labor market recovery of any since the end of World War II,' said Blackwell.

Having been one of the millions affected by the "tech bubble bust" of '01, I can speak from experience that finding a good (i.e., non-retail, higher than minimum wage, stable, etc.) job these days is nowhere near as easy as it once was, if not impossible in some parts of the country. If you're not willing to move to high-cost-of-living areas to ply your trade, you're in deep doo-doo. And even then you have to compete with thousands of other professionals in the same situation for each and every job you try for. It's nuts, and people ought to realize by now that this is what happens when the governments are doing everything for the corporations and less and less for the people who have to make a living somewhere/anywhere.