“Last week’s job numbers were generally positive. Now if those numbers pick up steam, if the housing market begins to recover, if Europe doesn’t sink the U.S. economy, if the situation in the Middle East and especially Iran doesn’t cause oil prices to spike, and if we don’t immediately disrupt government spending through premature austerity, we could see some major job growth in 2012.”

“What about those who still have a job? We focus on the unemployed for many good reasons. Economists do this because of it is so miserable to be unemployed in this country and because they function as a good barometer for the health of the economy. We “see” changes in unemployed in the data much quicker than movements in GDP and other aggregates.”

“But the economy also has major problems for those with jobs. Be honest: how many of you spent the past two months thinking, “I’m going to quit this job I have now”? Personally, many friends of mine have discussed how they want to move on and quit their current jobs and were putting in the energy to find new ones. They’ve mostly failed and are taking it as a personal failure.”

“Except it’s less a personal failure than a macroeconomic one.”

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