July 2 this year we published a chart showing a significant and growing gap between the unemployment rate for men and women. Even sent a copy of the chart to a couple of media folks. Either missed all of the media discussion on the subject or no one thought it was interesting enough to report.
Yesterday’s opinion piece in the WSJ, by David Paul Kuhn, is the first I’ve seen on the subject.
Why is this gap significant? If we assume that in most American households the man is still the main source of income, the impact of the unemployment rate on American families is greater than has been reported since the rate for men 20-years and older passed 10% all the way back in July.
Here’s the latest chart:
Not sure why this has not been worthy of discussion before today, but here are some excerpts from the WSJ article:
Last month the unemployment rate climbed above 10% for the first time in more than a quarter century. Less noticed is that male workers crossed this same threshold six months earlier. Since the U.S. became the world’s dominant economic power, no downturn has fallen more disproportionately on one gender.
The unemployment rate for men, 11.4%, based on seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, outpaces the rate for women, 8.8%. We now have the largest jobless gender gap since tracking became possible in 1948.
<snip>
And yet, for all its unprecedented scope and nature, the limited attention and passive response it has received are remarkable. Imagine the outcry if women amounted to roughly three in four lost jobs in this recession.
<snip>
The solution is not a male version of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau. Men don’t need to start viewing themselves as victims. But the stimulus or new jobs bills could be adjusted to address the wave of male unemployment by expanding public works spending. It would make for more effective policy and be fairer. As the feminist movement taught us, what happens to one gender happens to us all.
Especially since the impact spreads to the whole family when dad is out of work.
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