The Struggles of the Middle Class (comScore Voices)

The August 2010 government jobs report showed that unemployment remains stubbornly high at a level of 9.7 percent of the civilian labor force and rose marginally by 0.1 percentage points from July.

The loss of jobs during the current recession has been deeper and more prolonged than was seen in any other recession since World War II.

It isn't yet clear whether there is a "structural" element to the job losses, or whether something "merely" related to continued uncertainty about the business environment which is causing the unusually-deep and protracted job loss pattern.

One suspects there is a structural element, at one level related to recoveries after "financial" induced recessions. The other possible structural element is akin to what happened in many countries as economies changed from "agricultural" to "industrial" stages, and are continuing to evolve from "industrial" to "information" based forms.

The Struggles of the Middle Class (comScore Voices)