The Great Mancession of 2008-2009 Continues As A New Jobless Rate Gender Gap is Set in June
The BLS data released today show that the 2.4% difference between the adult male unemployment rate (10.0%) and adult female unemployment (7.6%) in June is the largest male-female jobless rate gap in the history of BLS data back to 1948 (see chart above of the monthly unemployment rates since 2006).
Further, the 2.4% adult male-female jobless rate gap sets a new record for the largest gap in either direction. There was a 2.3% female-male jobless rate gap in 1967 and again in 1978 when female unemployment rate was higher than the male rate, and a 2.3% male-female jobless rate gap in April and May of this year, but the male-female 2.4% gap in June is the highest on record (BLS data goes back to 1948).
In other words, the current jobless rate gap is historically unprecedented; there has never been a time since at least WWII when there was such an imbalance in unemployment rates by gender. Welcome to the Great Mancession of 2008-2009.
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A "man-cession." That's what some economists are starting to call it. Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men. Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, characterizes the recession as a "downturn" for women but a "catastrophe" for men.
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Women's groups were appalled. Grids? Dams? Opinion pieces immediately appeared in major newspapers with titles like "Where are the New Jobs for Women?" and "The Macho Stimulus Plan." A group of "notable feminist economists" circulated a petition that quickly garnered more than 600 signatures, calling on the president-elect to add projects in health, child care, education, and social services and to "institute apprenticeships" to train women for "at least one third" of the infrastructure jobs. At the same time, more than 1,000 feminist historians signed an open letter urging Obama not to favor a "heavily male-dominated field" like construction: "We need to rebuild not only concrete and steel bridges but also human bridges." As soon as these groups became aware of each other, they formed an anti-stimulus plan action group called WEAVE-- Women's Equality Adds Value to the Economy.
The National Organization for Women (NOW), the Feminist Majority, the Institute for Women's Policy Research, and the National Women's Law Center soon joined the battle against the supposedly sexist bailout of men's jobs. At the suggestion of a staffer to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, NOW president Kim Gandy canvassed for a female equivalent of the "testosterone-laden 'shovel-ready' " terminology. ("Apron-ready" was broached but rejected.) Christina Romer, the highly regarded economist President Obama chose to chair his Council of Economic Advisers, would later say of her entrance on the political stage, "The very first email I got . . . was from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.' "
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poor people who are jobless
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