The jobless and the purple squirrel.

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: Vox Populist - Viewpoint essay

"It's a sign," exclaims a February Associated Press story, a sign that our economy is "healing." "It signals that things are getting back to normal," chimed in a delighted market analyst. And a March 4 New York Times report heralded it as "a golden age."

The "it" they're hailing is the Dow, that mystical force believed by Dowists to be "the way"--the provider of good fortune, often bestowing its beneficence by magical means.

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In early March, the Dow Jones Average reached a new high, having regained every dime of the $11 trillion that Wall Street investors had lost in the 2007 crash. "Hallelujah!" shout the devout, "All praise the Dow!"

Unless, of course, your wealth is dependent not on stock prices, but on wages. In that case, you're among the majority of Americans who're more concerned about the Doug Jones Average. Forget the buzz about "a golden age," Doug, Darcy, Diego, Deewana, and all the other Joneses who can't even afford to enter the Golden Arches--for they're still mired in the Great Job Depression that Wall Street's crash caused.

Washington rushed to the rescue of the financial elites, but the Joneses are still getting double-stiffed by Washington policymakers and by the very elites Washington continues to coddle.

As a result, the share of America's total income that goes to workers has now tumbled to the lowest level in nearly half a century.

United Technologies (one of the 30 corporations whose financial performances are measured to calculate the Dow Jones Averages) is a force in that knockdown. This industrial giant, which is fed a regular diet of fat government contracts, has enjoyed annual revenue increases of some $2 billion a year since 2005, yet rather than increasing its workforce, CEO Louis Chenevert is shedding workers. Only four days after announcing that United Tech's stock price had leapt to a record high, the corporation revealed that it will fire 3,000 employees this year, on top of the 4,000 dumped in 2012.

That is the harsh math behind such recent smiley-face headlines as this one: "Household wealth back at pre-recession levels." Oh, joy--we're all rich again!

Or not. The article attributes the gain in household wealth to "surging stock...