How's the economy where you are?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s doing well around here in NYC. I don’t know anyone who is out of work, except, of course, the actors and novelists and artists, but even they aren’t unemployed. They all have their temp jobs and are doing fine. The expensive restaurants are all full on weekends. Real estate prices aren’t as high as they were last year but that benefits as many as it hurts. And you can’t even give used things away. Two different families have told me they couldn’t get Salvation Army to acept really good used stuff.

How is it where you are?

2

Terrible. But I’m in Appalachia. It’s pretty much always terrible.

3

Lots of empty buildings in nearby downtown areas. Small businesses start up and go bust in a year or so.

The majority of jobs in the paper are for truck drivers, fast food, convenience stores, and nurses (CNAs mostly).

Real estate prices are low but they’ve been like that since I moved back here.

We’re losing good manufacturing jobs to Mexico.

Everyone I know who wants to work is working, but not always at a decent wage or at what they were trained/educated to do.

Prices are high. People who thought they’d be able to retire and manage on their pension and SSA are working part-time jobs to help pay for food and medications.

Construction of the ethanol plants and wind farms gave us a temporary boost, but they don’t employ very many people permanently.

4

Bad.

I live near Detroit. The Auto companies are struggling lately, especially Ford.

5

Things are very good here in Arizona. Our real estate market has cooled a bit, too, since last year, but if that drives these insane prices down a bit, that might be good for first-time buyers and for those who provide support services to that industry. I live in a high-tourism area and the hotels, restaurants and golf courses are all packed on weekends. A little slow during the week, but that may just be the in-between season thing. Employment around here is off the charts. I don’t know anyone who can’t work if they want to. Even the illegal aliens have quit loitering around Home Depot. And wages are what wages always are… too low if you’re earning them, too high if you’re paying them. I doubt that the economy is going to play any part in the midterm election.

6

I’m in Michigan–which is among the slowest states to realize any kind of economic “recovery.” Like Mahaloth, we’re feeling the decline of the Big Three. However, given the rest of SE Michigan, our particular burg is pretty well off. The U is the county’s biggest employer. Although declining state support hurts the U, higher ed in general tends to do okay when the economy tanks (school looks like a pretty good option when you can’t get work, or when you can no longer count on earning $80K plus in a union autoworker job). Another big boost is that Google is about to open an office here. Real Estate isn’t moving, but employment and the like is generally okay where I am.

7

Suprisingly good.

Lower unemployment than the average.

New, major employers entering the area.

Middle Tennessee/Nashville area.

8

DC area. Very good job market. Previously insane real estate market is cooling off, leaving carpetbagging house flippers or saps with ARMs hurting, but the rest of us laughing. Problem with a good job market is that the service industries are now populated entirely by people who couldn’t speak English if they had a gun pointed at their head. I guess that’s better that seeing McDonald’s staffed entirely with middle-aged white dudes who are clearly disappointed with their career circumstances.

9

Similar to Dishfunctional and An Arky. A temporary setback on the housing market due to a temporary glut. But with more folks moving to SW Florida every day, things are heating up. Good news is that a large number of those moving down here are young professionals. That really helps diversify the local econmy and make it more robust. It is also affecting local politics as the “Old Guard” are becoming replaced by the younger crowd.

10

Western Colorado is booming right now. There’s a gas well drilling frenzy, with new companies coming into town daily. Housing prices are way up. People are buying cars (my hubby sells cars). Good times!

11

Not so well. Maybe things will perk up after January. And after all my students learn fabulous English and get great jobs. In fifteen years.

We got problems.

12

I should add, in case you’re not breathlessly following My Thrilling Life, I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer, so…of course the economy is lousy. If the economy is great, I wouldn’t be here, I expect.

13

Out. of. control.

Housing prices are through the roof, buildings are going up any place they can go on the outskirts of the city, and you can’t even get a price quote for someone to build you a house anymore.

It’s mostly due to the booming oilfield economy, with everyone moving here to get a job. There’s no such thing as a minimum wage job here anymore - restaurants and grocery stores are offering signing bonuses of $600 to $1000 and more. Lots of restaurants are having to close early or not open on certain days of the week because they just don’t have the staff to stay open full time; last week I waited 15 minutes to talk to someone about insulation in a home reno store that 3 years ago you couldn’t walk down an aisle in without having someone ask if you needed anything.

I’d ask for a raise, but they might make me stop surfing the 'dope. :wink:

14

Absolutely gangbusters here in Wyoming. There are areas here with less than 2% unemployment, and the oil fields will pay 25-30 bucks an hour to anyone who can “fog a mirror”. On the downside, there are 50 person waiting lists for some apartment complexes, and police men, nurses, and attorneys are leaving their jobs to work in the fields.

15

I am going to stick my neck out here and say that those who say the economy is good in their area are wrong. The situation may be better than a year or two or three ago, but a better measure would be how the situation compares what it *should * be.

What does “should” mean?

At a minimum, it means the gains that people were making in their lives up until 1973 extrapolated to the present. That is not unreasonable. Our infrastructure was not destroyed by war nor was the country destroyed by natural disaster or the population decimated by plague.

The point is that in 1973, many of the indicators which define the quality of our economic life headed south.

In 1973, a high proportion of people worked in union shops where they had completely paid medical care (no copays), protection from petty harrassment and job insecurity, a *real * eight hour day, and defined benefit pension. None of this 401(k) crap. They owned a three bedroom home with low payments and only one parent had to go to work.

Even those who didn’t work in unions shops had it good because the unions put a floor under wages and conditions generally.

Now, here we are three decades later and we have gone backwards. If we had progressed at the expected rate in these three decades, we should have seen something like the following.

A twenty hour week and 50% higher real wages. Only one parent working.

Retirement no later than 50 at no less than 80% of wages.

Completely free medical and dental.

Completely free colleges and universities.

Housing so cheap that it is basically not an issue. Same with food.

Etc.

I understand that many of you, especially younger people, will think this is crazy, but I am 58 and have been closly watching for a long time. Unlike many on these boards, I was actually employed in 1973.

To understand this you need to know that the fifties and sixties were *anomalies * and that by 1973 corporate america felt it was strong enough to break the unwritten social contract. So they did.

Everything else flowed from that.

Now most of this is buried deep and you have to dig to find it, but it is there. When you understand it, you should be outraged at the greatest robbery in US history.

16

Another way of looking at that, Galen, is that the 50s and 60s were artificial and unsustainable anomalies, and we’re still paying for them.

17

I don’t know about you, Galen, but every person in my family is demonstrably better off than they were in 1973.

I also can easily pinpoint 1973 as the potentially last year of the American Hegemony, where the rest of the world worked for brutally low wages to provide Americans with a subsidized standard of living. Oil was $2/barrel when its actual value was probably closer to $10, the concept of American corporations honestly competing with international concerns on the basis of quality and price was derided, etc.

The fifties and the sixties were anomalies in that the rest of the developed world had to devote their energies to rebuilding their WW2 damaged economies and infrastructures and not to competing on a global scale. Once that process was finished, it was time to tackle American economic domination… a process that really started in 1973.

Therefore, if things have “declined”, it’s simply because we’re having to earn our way again, that we can’t bully the entire globe into giving us favorable trade status or literally plunder their raw materials for a pittance while they are powerless to stop us (again, I’m thinking the pre-1973 market for oil, especially middle east oil).

The free ride enjoyed by America in the 50s and 60s is over… and a good thing too.

18

To answer the question, the economy is fine where I am. The economy has always been fine where I am… in my forty years on this planet, I never lived in a locale with greater than 7% unemployment. (Atlanta GA/Knoxville TN)

19

The economy around here (mountains of western North Carolina) seems to be in flux. Lots of manufacturing plants have closed down in the past few years. Tourism is booming, though. Unemployment in my county is low–around 3%–but good jobs with benefits are hard to come by. Lots of folks cobble together 2 or 3 part-time jobs to make ends meet. The average household income is $42,000 a year.

Real estate prices are through the roof, since have so many people coming in to buy second homes or retire here. Affordable housing is a big local political issue. It’s moving towards a situation in which the people who work here can’t afford to live here.

20

Pretty bad - we are in West Michigan but feeling the effects of the auto companies hurting. Delphi and other big companies aren’t doing too well. No one in my immediate family works for the auto makers themselves, but many companies are hurting from losing their business. My husband works as a diemaker and the tool and die industry is really slow - he has been laid off since July. Construction companies are hurting too, as people don’t want new houses anymore. The housing market is really slowing down.

My dad has been looking for a job for about a year and a half, he apparently works in one of the few healthcare niches (occupational therapy) that isn’t hiring anymore. Everyone is going with hiring consultants for a few hours a week instead of hiring full time staff. He can pick up a few hours doing consult and freelance work but it’s really not enough.

I know a lot of people that are leaving Michigan entirely.