Here’s a good report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) showing the staggering cost that the Great Recession is forcing working men and women to bear:
Using a methodology that produces a conservative estimate of expected losses, we find that the fall in employment from its 2007 levels will cost U.S. workers just over $1 trillion in lost wages and salaries during the five-year period 2008-2012.
The estimated lost wages and salaries exceed - by about $150 billion - the CBO’s estimate of the full ten-year cost of the health-care reform bill that recently passed in the House of Representatives.
For another perspective on just how much $1 trillion in lost wages is, consider that it would be enough to pay all the expenses of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date and still have some change left over.