o Unemployment: closing in on 10%. The true unemployment rate is somewhere between 15-22% (At the peak of the Great Depression, unemployment was 25%)
o Long-term unemployment is higher than at any time since the Great Depression.
o Real wages are in decline.
I don't think most Americans are sitting around on the chaise longues by the pool, asking their butler, Jeeves,
if there isn't something they can clutch their pearl about. Much of America is troubled, deeply troubled by what they are experiencing in their own lives -- real lives, not imagined lives.
I'll second that -- though unemployment here passed into double digits long ago, even by official figures.
That's a realm where the stimulus package infrastructure spending is almost literally saving lives: our county got more money than any other in the state, and more per capita than most in the nation, for infrastructure, because we've needed it so badly -- and when time to apply for those dollars came along, the county commissioners merely had to pull a stack of files out, enough to fill a truck, of work that's been needed for much more than a decade. Now when I drive that highway with the sign reminding me of Bush's Folly, I see construction happening, or completed, that isn't just making the road smoother, but safer for all, and aiding flood safety in the river the route follows, improving fish habitat (and thus helping protect jobs), and stronger to carry heavier traffic (which is already bringing back tourists who used to avoid the place) -- and I see faces that a month or two ago were lining up at the soup kitchens, instead out there holding signs, tamping fill (there aren't enough machines to do all the work, now!), sweeping fresh pavement, and all the pesky little tasks necessary for repairing, rebuilding, and improving a winding rural highway through forest land.
Word is they waived union rules, so they could get people employed (yes, Virginia, unions really do get in the way of people having work!) immediately, and get more people employed (no more starting wage of $18/hr, going to $24 after the first week and $36 after the first month).
It's a bit of an eye-opener to walk by an outdoor table for a local cafe and see/hear a gal in tears because she's able to stop for a 75-cent cup of coffee and split a 50-cent apple fritter with her toddler for the first time since spring, because her husband is now working at $12.50/hr on maintenance the county hadn't been able to do for the last ten years or more -- that wage being his second step up, from minimum to $10/hr, and if he gets moved to another project when this one's done he'll be getting $15/hr.
And if you can't see people rejoicing in an income at that level, you're out of touch -- I hear real anger and bitterness at unions that think their people are entitled to $90/hr, when every fifth person on the street here is unemployed, and more anger at Obama for thinking that people making $250,000 a year should be protected from tax increases (most folks around here think that anyone making half that is very well off).
Unfortunately -- and this is a point at which the "Dems favorable rating" is hurt, here anyway -- in spite of the work on highways and all, every fifth person on the street is unemployed, and it's obvious to just about everyone that there are a lot more things needed for our infrastructure.
BTW: that last fact is where the infrastructure stimulus here and the useless ones in Japan part ways, and hopefully ours will prove a real stimulus: Japan was polishing a superb infrastructure, whereas in the U.S. a great deal of the work is serious repair and improvement -- and there's enough left that isn't being done that if half the stimulus money were diverted to infrastructure it wouldn't all get done (just as an example, our county could use $250 million easily, just repairing and upgrading roads that don't carry modern traffic, have no shoulders, have lanes narrower than today's RVs, etc., and another $100 million replacing, repairing, and upgrading railroads that are no longer serviceable or safe... and that doesn't even begin to address water channels or port facilities. We've steadily lost jobs due to the deteriorating infrastructure; fixing it all would not only provide immediate jobs but restore lost, and provide new permanent ones).
And you didn't throw up? 
