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January 16, 2009
There is severe pain when any American wants a job, needs a job to support himself or herself and a family, but can't find one. Shockingly, there are more than 11 million Americans in that harsh reality these days, with the numbers rising.
There are governmental programs to ease unemployment for some, for a while. Some have savings. Some have family or other connections to ease hardship. But most of the millions of jobless may be in situations of anxiety that we do not want any of our people to suffer.
Ironically, with more than 11 million Americans unemployed -- the jobless rate is rising beyond 7.2 percent -- there are more than 11 million people in our country illegally, most of them employed.
Almost daily, there are new stories about companies having layoffs. In many small American towns that have relied on one or just a few major employers, jobless workers literally have nowhere to go to seek other local jobs when their main workplaces are forced by economic conditions to cut back.
The job reduction problems involve thousands of both big and small private employers. But except for the federal government, which runs regularly in the financial red, even governmental entities and their employees are adversely affected.
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen says Tennessee may have to lay off as many as 2,000 state employees to meet the responsibility of balancing the state budget.
"I've got some ideas about how to reduce that number, and I'm going to try to reduce that," Gov. Bredesen said. "I'd like to protect the state employees in this -- more than usual just because of the times. And what a difficult time it would be to lose your job."
The University of Tennessee is having similar financial challenges, facing the possibility of needing to cut or not fill about 700 jobs.
What the state of Tennessee and UT are experiencing is a reflection of what countless other employers are facing. These are not just "hard times," but one of the worst situations of economic depression in many recent decades.
There is no comfortable way out of this situation, which may be prolonged. We need to be as considerate and helpful as possible in providing both public and private assistance to those facing real privation. And we need to consider carefully the immutable but often ignored laws of economics, the general denial of which has helped bring us into these difficulties. We must seek wisely to correct economic errors and stimulate sound recovery as much as possible and as quickly as possible.
There will be many necessary adjustments by individuals and private and governmental entities.
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