Thomas Mott Osborne: “often perception does not match reality. I believe that this is true in regard to our present economy. Many would…”

“often perception does not match reality. I believe that this is true in regard to our present economy. Many would characterize the economy as very poor. However, as we can see on the following chart, short-term interest rates are the lowest in 40 years; inflation, according to the Producer Price Index, was 1.5 percent over the last 12 months; productivity expanded 5 percent the last four quarters, the highest in 20 years; manufacturing employment reached a 30-year high in May with orders up for manufacturing; and home ownership was 68.6 percent last quarter, which is a record. All of these things would indicate a strong economy, so what is the problem? Why do people continually talk about what a bad economy we have? I would say that probably the main concern that we hear is simply what one of the previous speakers referred to, unemployment. I would like to call attention to the fact that during the 1970s, the unemployment rate was 6.2 percent for that 10-year average; during the 1980s, it was 7.3 percent; during the 1990s, it was 5.8 percent; and, today, in 2004, it stands at 5.6 percent. We added 248,000 new jobs to the economy in the month of May, and during the last 9 months of consecutive growth, we have added 1.5 million jobs to the economy. Certainly this 5.6 percent rate is considerably lower than the 30-year average of 6.4 percent. Currently unemployment in the European Union runs 9 to 10 percent.”