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Although the unemployment rate has dropped from 7.2% to 5.8% in the past year, there are still issues with employment. Most of the people who have been employed have gotten part-time jobs, which sounds good but instead it is actually hurting them. To start, people on part-time jobs do not receive benefits: no paid sick leave, vacation days or even job training that would help them excel in their careers. They also do not have any medical or dental coverage of any sort, for that they have to pay out of pocket.
Furthermore, they tend to be overworked and underpaid, and they work for less hours than they are willing, so the time they are not working they spend unemployed. Part-time workers get paid different than full-time workers for doing the same job.
Although I understand the difference between part-time workers and full-time workers, I think they should maybe give some sort of coverage for medical services, and have a quota for paid sick days, at least give them something back for their work.
This is a good example of why we shouldn't take statistics as the ultimate truth. Like you said, the unemployment rate is lower, which is great. But this falling rate doesn't tell the whole story. There are many people who have taken themselves out of the labor force because they are discouraged, as well as issues of underemployment and part time employment. It seems as though this over broad statistic isn't in depth enough to tell the whole story which makes it misleading for the average citizen.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the unemployment rate has continued to decrease, there have been multiple arguments made as to why the lower rates might be misleading. This is another example of why the decreasing unemployment rate might not represent the whole truth. While it's better to be employed part-time rather than unemployed, the people who can only find part-time jobs are lowering the unemployment rate even though they would prefer to work full-time, making the number less accurate.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the information in this article is usually overlooked and it is nice to see it is being discussed. Most college students look at stock indices and say "oh the DOW went up 20 points today, that's great" but don't really look farther into it. Most people do the same thing with the unemployment rate; they see it drop but they don't look at any of the underlying factors. Having people employed is great, but part-time employment isn't that great at all. It's great that the rate is going down, but if people aren't happy with their economic standing and aren't able to have more disposable cash because of a lack of benefits then the economy isn't really going to improve that much.
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