The Occupy D.C. Protest was recently granted a four month permit according to NBC Washington. That means one thing among others to the homeless, free camping in a great downtown location without the same stigma of sleeping under newspapers on a curbside. In a word, depressing; this public camping shares similar themes to the 1930's Hooverville shantytowns built across the U.S. to protest President Hoover's administration.
Image attribution: Community of the Ark of Lanza del Vasto
If the 'Occupy Together' movement does not sound recessionary, economists that use the GDP decline measure of recession may be fooling themselves. According to the New York Times, the measure of recession used by the U.S Bureau of Economic Research emphasizes business cycles in their recession metric. Since some business cycles can have down trends during GDP up-trends, the concentration of the GDP metric is somewhat illusory in its representation of the 'whole' economy.
To add credence to the view recessionary conditions are represented by the Occupy Together movement, government statistics prove helpful. For example, The New York Times also reported that a U.S. Census study found inflation adjusted median household income declined 6.2 percent between June 2009 and June 2011. In other words, in terms of household income, the recession never ended during that period.
The principle of recessionary conditions can also be applied to median household net worth which declined a staggering 26.5 percent or $17.5 trillion between Q3 2007 and Q1 2009 per the Washington Post. The recession may have ended for some businesses, but not for the average American which has something to do with what Occupy D.C. is all about i.e. a growing concern over a widening income disparity, and a need for free camping.
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