Better off?

In a post this morning, we addressed the issue of whether the nation is better off than it was four years ago.  Some interesting light is shined on that question by a Bureau of Labor Statistics study that concludes--surprisingly in my view--that

From January 2009 through December 2011, 6.1 million workers were displaced from jobs they had held for at least 3 years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This was down from 6.9 million for the survey period covering January 2007 to December 2009. In January 2012, 56 percent of workers displaced from 2009-11 were reemployed, up by 7 percentage points from the prior survey in January 2010.  

In particular, I was surprised that markedly fewer workers lost long-term jobs in 2009 through 2011 than had done so from 2007 to the end of 2009.  And that a significantly higher percentage of those who lost one job found another, which seems to contradict, to some extent, the .

Now, the BLS also concludes that more than half of those who were re-employed (itself only 56 percent of the people who lost jobs) were earning less than they had been in their previous employment.   That's certainly not good news.    But, all in all, some progress.