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Former British prime minister and parliamentarian Benjamin Disraeli once said “there are three types of lies: lies; damn lies; and statistics.” What a great lead-in for this post.
An opinion article titled The Vanishing Workers in last Saturday’s (May 6, 2012) Review & Outlook section of The Wall Street Journal addressed the current status of our unemployment rate (8.1%). Which is down from 8.2% last month. But what the numbers don’t reflect is that an additional 342,000 unemployed folks gave up getting a job. These folks aren’t counted in the 8.1% statistic because they’re not in the job market. Say what!
The economic recovery can’t proceed until the housing market begins to correct itself and I don’t believe that will happen until our unemployment rate drops below 6%. And that’s going to take time even though we are seeing interest in second homes in some areas (for example: Cape Cod, MA; Naples, FL; Santa Barbara, CA; upstate NY).
The most important factor to remember is that many folks are still scared about the economy and whether they’ll have a job next month. Until we’re past this, the housing market overall will remain fragile.
