When these stories come out, I have to laugh. Because women on the working-class end of the economic spectrum have had to work for a very long time. Pay raises haven't get pace with the cost of living, to the point where paychecks aren't worth what they were in the 70s. Women stepped in to pick up the slack.

No, what the Wall St. Journal means is that the sort of women who are married to the men who read the Journal have to work now. (It's a class thing!) But some things remain the same: Women still get paid less.

The composition of the nation's work force is approaching an unprecedented benchmark. Due in part to deep layoffs of men, women are poised to become the majority of workers for the first time. As of September, women held 49.9% of the nation's jobs, excluding farm workers and the self-employed, a rise of 1.2 percentage points from their 48.7% share when the recession began in December 2007. In 1970, women held 35% of jobs.

Deep cuts in male-heavy sectors like construction and manufacturing have left unemployment for men age 16 and over at 11.4% as of October -- a quarter-century high. Joblessness among women is lower, at 8.8%, as employment in female-heavy sectors like education and health care has remained steadier.

There is evidence that women's growing representation in the labor force stems not only from men losing their jobs but from women who previously didn't work seeking employment. Since the recession began, the number of women age 16 and over in the labor force -- which includes both the employed and those who are looking for work -- has expanded by 300,000 to 71.7 million. Meanwhile, the number of men working or seeking work has dropped by 123,000 to 82.28 million, according to the Department of Labor.

"I think we are at a pivotal moment," said Arlie Hochschild, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has written several books on work-life balance. For many households, it used to be that "she worked because she wanted to," said Ms. Hochschild. "Now, she's working because she has to."

Despite households' increasing reliance on the female paycheck, women still earn markedly less than men.

Women are either the sole earner or make as much as or more than their male spouses in four out of 10 U.S. families with children under 18, said Heather Boushey, a senior economist with the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank. Yet the median earnings of full-time working women in 2008, the first year of the recession, fell by 1.9% to $35,745, while earnings for men declined 1% to $46,367, according to the Commerce Department.

BAGnewsNotes: Underneath the Hood

litbrit: The view (and racket) outside my window: St. Petersburg tea baggers attend party of NO class

Cogitamus: Dear Blue Dog Bartlebys: Do your 'effin jobs or quit

the peoplesvoice: The great foreclosure robbery of the 21st century

naked capitalism: Goldman, Fed, Citi getting preferencial allotments of H1N1 vaccine

Infrastructurist: The Daily Dig: Strangest Bridges Edition

Paul Krugman explains why we can't settle for stabilizing the economy, and says unless there's a bigger economic stimulus package, high unemployment is here to stay for a long, long time:

The effects of the stimulus will build over time — it’s still likely to create or save a total of around three million jobs — but its peak impact on the growth of G.D.P. (as opposed to its level) is already behind us. Solid growth will continue only if private spending takes up the baton as the effect of the stimulus fades. And so far there’s no sign that this is happening.

So the government needs to do much more. Unfortunately, the political prospects for further action aren’t good.

What I keep hearing from Washington is one of two arguments: either (1) the stimulus has failed, unemployment is still rising, so we shouldn’t do any more, or (2) the stimulus has succeeded, G.D.P. is growing, so we don’t need to do any more. The truth, which is that the stimulus was too little of a good thing — that it helped, but it wasn’t big enough — seems to be too complicated for an era of sound-bite politics.

But can we afford to do more? We can’t afford not to.

High unemployment doesn’t just punish the economy today; it punishes the future, too. In the face of a depressed economy, businesses have slashed investment spending — both spending on plant and equipment and “intangible” investments in such things as product development and worker training. This will hurt the economy’s potential for years to come.

Deficit hawks like to complain that today’s young people will end up having to pay higher taxes to service the debt we’re running up right now. But anyone who really cared about the prospects of young Americans would be pushing for much more job creation, since the burden of high unemployment falls disproportionately on young workers — and those who enter the work force in years of high unemployment suffer permanent career damage, never catching up with those who graduated in better times.

Even the claim that we’ll have to pay for stimulus spending now with higher taxes later is mostly wrong. Spending more on recovery will lead to a stronger economy, both now and in the future — and a stronger economy means more government revenue. Stimulus spending probably doesn’t pay for itself, but its true cost, even in a narrow fiscal sense, is only a fraction of the headline number.

O.K., I know I’m being impractical: major economic programs can’t pass Congress without the support of relatively conservative Democrats, and these Democrats have been telling reporters that they have lost their appetite for stimulus.

But I hope their stomachs start rumbling soon. We now know that stimulus works, but we aren’t doing nearly enough of it. For the sake of today’s unemployed, and for the sake of the nation’s future, we need to do much more.

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From Washington Journal Oct. 25, 2009. When asked what his assessment of President Obama's first ten months in office was, Rep. Dennis Kucinich stressed the need for job creation and said the "when the private sector doesn't provide the jobs; the government has a moral responsibility to provide jobs. FDR recognized that back in the 30's, and I hope the Obama administration will recognize that in the 21st century".

If you would like to watch the entire interview my cohort CSPANJunkie has it posted at You Tube.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

You may recall the above town hall video of Kansas Republican Lynn Jenkins laughing at a young, uninsured mother and telling her to grow up and get health insurance. Jenkins may be best known for her stunning gaffe in which she talked of the GOP searching for their "great white hope."

Seeing a major opportunity for victory in 2010, Democratic State Senator Laura Kelly has decided to throw her hat in the ring and has announced she will take on Lynn Jenkins:

Kansas State Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, said Friday she'll run to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins next year.

Democrats like their chances. It's a district that's gone both ways in the past few election cycles, and Jenkins, in her first-term, has had a gaffe or two. (Remember Jenkins' "great white hope" comment from two months ago?)

"Kansas families in the 2nd district deserve a representative who will energetically stand up for their most important concerns - their pocketbooks, their jobs, and their health care - not sit back and block progress in Washington," Kelly said in her campaign announcement.

"In the last few months people from all across the district have been urging me to run for Congress. They are tired of leaders tied to a do-or-die narrow partisan agenda that has failed our country for the last eight years. Saying NO is not enough in these challenging times. People deserve common sense answers and real solutions," she said. Read on...

Lynn Jenkins has been nothing short of an embarrassment to her state and our country and is extremely vulnerable. Click here to visit Laura Kelly's website, and if you like what you see and want to show her some love, donate if you can. Jenkins ranks near the top of the right wing nutjob heap -- let's send her packing.

DownWithTyranny!: The international community expects real change and more than hope from Obama

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Amygdala: Gary reports on the Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies

Advice Unasked: Eviscerating the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Breaking the Treasury Secretary

Democratic Strategist: Political Murder-Suicide?

The Pump Handle: Occupational Health News Roundup

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Michael Moore hits back at Wolf Blitzer for his question about "the charge that either has been made or will be made that (he) is being hypocritical". Blitzer seems to have a bit of trouble understanding that someone can be wealthy themselves and still care about the poor and as Moore notes, those two things don't have to be at odds with each other.

BLITZER: But let's talk about -- most people going to see this movie who don't like you are going to say, you know what? Michael Moore has done pretty well in this capitalist or free market system. You've become a fairly rich guy yourself.

MOORE: Well, first of all, Wolf, there's nobody that doesn't like me. I don't know who these people are.

BLITZER: There are a few.

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: If you have a list of names...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: A tiny number out there.

MOORE: Provide me with those names, and I will go to their homes and cook them dinner. And perhaps they will like me better.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: So, yes. Your point was, I have done well. Yes, for a documentary filmmaker, I have done very well.

BLITZER: You've done very well. And the allegations of...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: ... you're being hypocritical.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Explain, because you're hearing a lot of that.

MOORE: Why am I against capitalism if I have done so well?

BLITZER: Right.

MOORE: Isn't the question better put -- and I'm not trying to do your job for you -- but wouldn't the question better be, gee, Mike, you have done so well. Why don't you just kick back at the lake and enjoy life? Why are you caring about all these people losing their health care and their jobs and all that? You're not losing yours?

I wonder if there was like a Wolf Blitzer like 200 years ago who asked Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or George Washington, hey, you know, you guys are wealthy landowners. You have benefited from the king's system. What are you complaining about? What is this revolt all about?

It's like, sometimes, people, even people who have actually had the good fortune and blessings in life to not have to struggle with worrying about their health care, whether or not it's going to be here tomorrow or the next week, sometimes, those people actually are willing to take great risks and create sacrifices for themselves, in the hopes that others will have it just as well.

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John Fund at Americans for Prosperity's Right Online Conference cites Nate Silver's predictions for 2010, and the possibility of the Democrats losing 20-50 seats in the House. Nate talked about this with Ron Reagan Jr. on his radio show the other day and wrote about it at his blog Likely Voters and Unlikely Scenarios where he qualifies his predictions with this:

Is it possible that the electorate which is voting in November 2010 will be so down on the Democrats that they trust Republicans more on issues like these? Sure, it is possible -- if the enthusiasm gap is wide enough, if Obama's approval is low enough, if the health care debate has been bungled enough, and if the economy is still hemorrhaging jobs. But I'd consider it something of a worst-case scenario. That's probably the best way to regard these Rasmussen polls for the time being.

So maybe not quite as doom and gloom as Fund is making it out to be. As for the rest of his nonsense, well that's another matter. Fund goes on to claim that the Democrats' problem is they don't know how to govern as moderates. Heh. That's rich. Yeah, here we are again as Fund says, but not because the Democrats are governing from the left, but because they're governing as triangulating corporate "centrists".

See, Republicans and corporatists will love this - they'll say, "See how much they're producing with fewer people? Obviously, they were slacking off before." Remember, Republicans believe they're entitled to cheap, disposable labor without any pesky legal rights or protections that may get in the way of their profits.

Kind of reminds me of that scene in "Schindler's List," where Ralph Fiennes as the camp commander shoots a very sick man who somehow did the impossible task he was ordered to perform.

"Why did you shoot him? He did what you asked," another guard says.

Fiennes replies, "Why didn't he work that hard for me all the time?"

Yes, welcome to America, where "Work Will Make You Free". (Or is it "You'll Work Almost for Free"?) Hey, at least they don't shoot us - those of us who still have jobs, I mean:

Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.

That is, despite the deep job cuts of the past year, workers who remain on the payroll are filling in and making up the work that had been done by their departed colleagues. In some cases, that extra work came with a smaller paycheck.

The higher worker output and lower labor costs have been good news for companies struggling through the worst recession since World War II. So far, some 70 percent of companies in the S&P 500 have turned in better-than-expected profits for the latest quarter.

When the above interview was taped in January, the actual unemployment rate was 14%. Now it's around 15.5%. And NYT financial columnist Floyd Norris takes a look at some other depressing numbers from a recent release from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development:

As I went over the numbers, the one that leaped out at me was that the auto manufacturing business had added 28,200 workers. Added? That sure is not the impression you’d get from the reports coming from Detroit.

It turns out those are seasonally adjusted numbers. Before seasonal adjustment, the number of auto workers fell by 8,600. I doubt the seasonal adjustment factors have much to do with current trends.

Still, it is clear that things are getting worse slowly. Fewer people are losing their jobs. But long-term unemployment is higher than ever.

The number of unemployed people who have been unemployed for 14 weeks or less was 6.79 million in July, the lowest figure for that group since December. But the number unemployed for 15 weeks or more was 7.88 million, up 74 percent since December and the highest figure ever.

For the first time ever — or at least since the government started counting the figures in 1948 — more than a third of the unemployed have been out of work for at least 27 weeks. The average unemployed person had been jobless for less than 20 weeks at the end of last year. Now the figure is over 25 weeks.

Is it good news that fewer people are losing their jobs? Yes. Is it bad news that the number of long-term unemployed is rising? Yes.

This week, I realized it was the one-year anniversary of my layoff. Yikes.

This is the most depressing segment I've ever seen on Comedy Central. Krugman looks even sadder than usual, and his sigh at the 2:45 mark regarding profit reports at Goldman Sachs speaks volumes.

As usual, Stephen Colbert illustrates the right wing naysayers perfectly, to paraphrase: "Ten percent of the stimulus money is spent, which means it's a one hundred percent failure. If I have a fever, and I'm not better after one penicillin pill, I'm back to the leeches."

From The Onion:

The President says the purpose of the performance reviews is to have a little face time to make sure we're all on the same page going forward.

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Just how bad does a Republican sex scandal have to get before one of these guys resigns? Rachel Maddow fills us in with the latest news on John Ensign's problems, and for anyone that would like to follow all the sordid details, I'd highly recommend reading TPM's coverage on the subject. I would imagine Rachel or her staff are reading there as well to keep up on the latest twists and turns of this story.

From TPM:

Tangled Web Of Jobs, Money, Illicit Sex Links Ensign, Former Staffers

EXCLUSIVE: Son And Husband Of Ensign's Girlfriend Work For Company Run By Ensign Backer

Is Ensign Walking Back Extortion Claim?

Ensign Has Close Ties To Second Firm That Employed Hampton

Ensign Admits He Helped Girlfriend's Husband Get Jobs

Husband Of Ensign's Girlfriend To Fox's Kelly: Help Me Expose Senator's "Relentless Pursuit Of My Wife"

Timeline Suggests Ensign's Help For Hampton Was Hardly Routine

Fox: We Didn't Tip Off Ensign About That Crazy Letter To Kelly

The Pics John Ensign Doesn't Want You To See

Ensign Lover's Hubby Wanted Money -- But Through His Lawyer

Offhand, I know maybe six people who want divorces but can't afford to get them - and since the divorce rates are down, I'm guessing the two things are connected to this story:

Stranded by the nationwide slump in housing and jobs, fewer Americans are moving, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.

The bureau found that the number of people who changed residences declined to 35.2 million from March 2007 to March 2008, the lowest number since 1962, when the nation had 120 million fewer people.

Experts said the lack of mobility was of concern on two fronts. It suggests that Americans were unable or unwilling to follow any job opportunities that may have existed around the country, as they have in the past. And the lack of movement itself, they said, could have an impact on the economy, reducing the economic activity generated by moves.

Joseph S. Tracy, research director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the lack of mobility meant less income for movers and the people they employ and less spending on renovation and on durable goods like appliances. But, Dr. Tracy said, the most troubling prospect is that people were no longer able to relocate for work.

“The thing that would be of deeper concern is if job-related moves are getting suppressed and workers are not getting re-sorted to the jobs that best use their skills,” he said. “As the labor market started to improve, if mobility stays low, you can worry about the allocation of workers.”

How long will the downturn in mobility last? Michael J. Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana, said, “I think it will be well into next year before we see any growth in migration, and that still may be optimistic.”

“If the stock market rebounds before the housing market, we might see a scramble for retirement housing,” Professor Hicks added.

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Mayor Virg Bernero was invited on CNN's Your Money to talk about how people are dealing with unemployment when it looks like there are no jobs coming back. I don't think Bernero's response was exactly the one they were looking for. Give 'em hell Virg.

VELSHI: The number of people getting jobless benefits in the United States tops 6 million for the first time this week. When the economy recovers the jobless rate should go down, but that 6 million people is even deceiving because that's the number of people getting jobless benefits and there are a whole lot of people who have been unemployed for so long they are just not getting benefits.

ROMANS: Right. People who have completely dropped out of the labor market as well, who have just sort of given up.

And frankly, some jobs especially in the manufacturing sector, there's a lot of concern that some of those jobs won't come back and there's even kind of an argument from people who say well those jobs aren't coming back so let's talk about innovation and something else.

We wanted to ask someone who has been dealing with this directly, what to do when your jobs are gone. Virg Bernero is the mayor of Lansing. Welcome to the program.

VIRG BERNERO, MAYOR, LANSING, MICHIGAN: Welcome -- hello, good to be here.

VELSHI: Let's talk about this. You are the mayor of Lansing. Michigan is clearly the state with the highest unemployment rate and there have been so many jobs lost and I just want to give our viewers a sense of this, back in 1999 the unemployment rate in the state of Michigan was 3.9 percent.

It went from 3.9 percent to 7.6 percent almost ten years later in 2008. By 2009 the state of Michigan has an unemployment rate of 12.6 percent and Lansing has a higher unemployment rate than that. Tell me your situation.

BERNERO: We are challenged. It's tough, but we are not alone. We're not unlike a lot of industrial cities. I've formed a group with other mayors the Alliance for the Automotive Coalition and other manufacturing mayors. We are hurting, there is no question about it and we do not accept that manufacturing is over because we think that manufacturing is key to the economic future of this country.

Our industries were in transition and General Motors we're a GM town, proudly so, we created a the Cadillac CTS motor trend car of the year last year and we know how productive and capable our people are and the great products they can produce, but we're in a global environment and we're in a free trade environment that has been created by Wall Street and Washington.

So our people struggle to compete and to win in that global economy, and I'm afraid that it's a race to the bottom. There's something wrong, I tell you, when you can produce great products and yet still, not be quote, unquote, competitive enough to win in this global economy.

ROMANS: Mayor you have been a big critic of free trade agreement and you blame some of these free trade agreements for the situation we're in now and here we now in a global recession where around the world we're talking about not putting up barriers and not moving toward protectionism and trying to make sure that we're all in this boat together.

BERNERO: You're talking about that. You are talking about that, I'm not talking about that. If you read about the ...

ROMANS: Our leaders are talking about it and I want to know what is your reaction. Don't blame me. I'm telling you, what is your reaction when you hear leaders around the world, G-20 leaders talking about making sure that the barriers aren't put up with other people's workers when in fact you are so concerned about free trade agreements in the first place.

BERNERO: I challenge your viewers and you all to look at what's really happening. Even "The New York Times" recently reported that the countries that are doing the best are the countries that are most isolationists and most protectionists. So for all the worry that Wall Street always warns us that we're going to start a trade war, if we have fair trade, if we insist on fair trade for our workers that's going to result in some kind of a trade war and even "The New York Times" reports that the countries that are doing the best are the ones that are least connected to the global economy.

I'm not suggesting that we become completely isolationist, but what I'm suggesting is that the Korean government puts Korean workers first, the Japanese government puts Japanese workers first, and the Chinese government in their own way puts their workers first. Who is putting the American worker first? I think it's time that Congress steps up to the plate and protect -- provide some degree of protection for the American way of life.

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