Huh?

Let’s see. New home starts are off 12%, and the sales of existing homes are down 7.2%, the second such housing slump in a month. The February 26^th Washington Post states the obvious: “The sales are 11.5 percent higher than they were a year earlier, but the monthly trend is ‘not encouraging,’ the … chief economist [for the National Association of Realtors], Lawrence Yun, said in a statement. The group has set its sights on spring, when more people are expected to take advantage of a recently renewed tax credit for first-time buyers and some current homeowners.” At least 11 million homeowners are current in their mortgage payments but are underwater (loan exceeds value) and seem to be the most vulnerable to default and foreclosure.

And there’s almost no lending out there for small and medium-size businesses. The February 24^th Wall Street Journal notes: “U.S. banks posted last year their sharpest decline in lending since 1942, suggesting that the industry's continued slide is making it harder for the economy to recover… .While top-tier banks are recovering at a faster clip, the rest of the industry is still suffering, according to a quarterly report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Banks fighting for survival, especially those plagued by losses on commercial real estate, are less willing to extend loans, siphoning credit from businesses and consumers… Besides registering their biggest full-year decline in total loans outstanding in 67 years, U.S. banks set a number of grim milestones. According to the FDIC, the number of U.S. banks at risk of failing hit a 16-year high at 702. More than 5% of all loans were at least three months past due, the highest level recorded in the 26 years the data have been collected. And the problems are expected to last through 2010.” There’s about $200-$300 billion of expected commercial real estate defaults expected over the next few years, and with the federal government also sapping the credit markets with a huge deficit, the likelihood of normal growth capital being out there for most U.S. businesses is pretty slim.

Jobless claims are still rising even as people who simply cannot find work are falling out of the unemployment statistics. While the raw unemployment percentage remains unchanged at 9.7% from January through February, the number of underemployed Americans continues to rise: “Officially, underemployed workers include those who are unemployed and looking for work, those who are settling for part-time work but want full-time work, and those who aren't actively looking for work, although they want to work and are available. In the March unemployment report, the [Department of Labor’s underemployment] number rose to 16.8%, up from 16.5% the month before. In a recent survey, Gallop estimated the underemployed population to be 19.9% of the workforce.” DailyFinance.com (March 7^th).

The February 20^th New York Times notes how recent recessions have sequentially taken longer and longer to replace lost jobs: “After the recessions in 1990 and in 2001, 31 and 46 months passed before employment returned to its previous peaks. The economy was growing, but companies remained conservative in their hiring.” With many companies telling us that they still have some serious “payroll paring” yet to accomplish, the likelihood of any real positive movement in the job statistics on the horizon appears to be exceptionally slight. So the timeline on job recovery this time around should be exceptionally long.

Which brings me to the title of this blog, “Huh?” Well, you have hard statistics that tell you we are in growth mode, that the recession is over. DailyFinance.com (Feb. 26^th): “The U.S. economy rocketed ahead at a 5.9 percent pace in the final quarter of 2009, stronger than initially estimated. But the growth spurt isn't expected to carry over into this year… The fresh reading on the nation's economic standing, released by the Commerce Department on [Feb. 26^th], was better than the government's initial estimate a month ago of 5.7 percent growth. It would mark the strongest showing in six years.”

In reality, the numbers are, obviously, deceiving in both what they measure and what they reflect. You always have extraordinary growth rates after a recession, but it’s more like s seesaw seeking a balance; the numbers are never sustainable at those rates. And given the underlying economic realities, anything that would constitute a real “recovery” for ordinary Americans is simply not in those numbers. Take for example the statistic that increasing manufacturing is part of that growth number. DailyFinance.com explains: “Roughly two-thirds of last quarter's GDP growth came from a burst of manufacturing — but not because consumer demand was especially strong. In fact, consumer spending weakened at the end of the year, even more than the government first thought… Instead, factories were churning out goods for businesse s that had let their stockpiles dwindle to save cash. If consumer spending remains lackluster as expected, that burst of manufacturing — and its contribution to economic activity — will fade.”

Maybe the dollar will continue to rise against the Euro – we don’t have a collapsing Greek economy to support (but we do have a number of failing state governments!) – and maybe if you work on Wall Street, well, things couldn’t be any rosier. But tough times are anywhere but gone, and there doesn’t appear to be any significant reason for a stunning reversal in unemployment or housing values that would materially impact everyday American families. In fact, most folks lucky enough to still have jobs are still, for the most part, either scared of the near-term or at least confused by what is happening… undermining the very confidence level needed to provoke people to start spending again, even if they have money to spend. The market may rally again, but in the near term, there really isn’t any news that would suggest the market can sustain any real growth, and t here are real signs that it may be overvalued.

What’s missing in all of these optimistic government numbers? A reality check! There’s no one overriding statistic that reflects how average Americans are in fact doing economically. We may have “growth statistics” for the GDP and individual statistics for problem areas like housing sales and unemployment rates, but if there were a number reflecting “us,” I’m pretty certain that it wouldn’t be very pretty. The “average American recession” is nowhere near over.

I’m Peter Dekom, and keeping it real seems hard with so many agendas trying to spin the numbers.