Study: Recession is a Depression for those at bottom

Posted by Ken on February 17, 2010 under News | Be the First to Comment

The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University recently released a study detailing the  impact of the economic recession on U.S. workers across income groups:

What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets.

Their findings reveal that fundamentally different labor market conditions prevail for the poor and the well off:

At the end of calendar year 2009, as the national economy was recovering from the recession of 2007-2009, workers in different segments of…income distribution clearly found themselves in radically different labor market conditions.  A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution, a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top.  There was no labor market recession for America’s affluent. 

Read the entire study here