For tens of millions of Americans, one fact tells them all they need to know about the economic crisis: They either cannot find a job, or they can get only a part-time job when they really need full-time work.
Their pain is immediate and intense: They wonder how they will provide food and shelter for their families — let alone how they will begin to set aside something for retirement. Whether they call the current conditions a “recession” or “economic weakness,” they know things are bad.
We have the utmost concern for the unemployed and the “underemployed.”
But those of us who do have full-time jobs also can see the signs of economic distress, even if it has not come down on us quite so hard individually.
With consumer confidence at its lowest level since the final months of the Carter administration, there is growing anxiety that the United States is rapidly heading for a new recession — or may already have hit one.