South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Writing in The Washington Post, Mohamed El-Erian of the investment fund Pimco warns that the United States is “still losing the war on unemployment.”

Now, given that the unemployment rate has come down markedly in the past year, some analysts are inclined to see our unemployment problem as both containable and reversible quickly enough. The compositional aspects, however, suggest that they are being too optimistic. In fact, our current unemployment crisis is a force for broad and disruptive economic, political and social dislocations.
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It will continue to undermine a still-fragile housing sector, discourage banks from lending to households and small businesses, and limit the appetite of large companies to invest in new plants and equipment. It will also further polarize an unusually dysfunctional political discourse, worsen income inequality and fuel protest movements around the country.