The bright side of the recession

Despite the hordes that lost jobs and the harsh economic downturn of the Great Recession, there is a morbidly positive side to it as well. The brighter side of the turmoil of the past couple years is seen best by the workers who managed to hold on to their jobs and paychecks. That is, because of the relatively stagnant pool of unemployed workers, those who are employed have seen an increase in the spending power of the dollar. The slow down of the recession over the past few months has helped to fend off the stage where it is safe to re-hire workers. As a result, the people who are without jobs are the same people who were without jobs half a year ago, which is much different than previous economic downturns (almost 45 percent of today's unemployed workers have been without a job for at least 27 weeks). Coupled with the fact that inflation has fallen to nearly zero, the purchasing power of everyone who has a job has increased relatively.

Even more so, the wages of currently employed workers have increased more than usual. Employers seem to be willing to increase wages but unwilling to re-employ workers. In the past slumps of the 70's, 80's and even 90's, wages were decreased anywhere from 6 to 2 percent. However, since the end of 2007 hourly wages have increased 5 percent.

The positive side seen by employed workers is only possible because of the extremely stagnant pool of unemployed workers. Furthermore, those with jobs have seen a greater percentage of hourly wage increase than during any other economic downturn in the past.