Well when home price fall back in line with 1970 then I'd be interested in 1970 participation numbers.

Now way can current home and auto prices be supported with a large precentage of single wage earner families common in the 1970's.

Not that I think we won't get there but your own comparison is a bit misleading. I've actually used a similar approach to show that overall we have a ways to go before we reach depression level problems since we first as you point out have to rollback to more single income families before we get a significant population with no wage earners.

For the US this means U6 has to reach 40% not 20%.

I'm not exactly disagreeing with you but even hitting 1970's participation levels is going to hammer housing prices and also of course excess cash flow and general consumer spending. Its back to the 1970's in a lot of ways.

memmel,
The point is there was not a LOSS OF 660,000 jobs in March the figure is actually 160,000; The 660,000 number refers to increased numbers seeking work. BIG difference.

Neil understood things are not quite as bad as people think they are.
I've actually argued the same point myself. I'm not at odds with you just trying to put it in perspective.

Simply going back to a 1970's economy alone will cost thousands of jobs and trillions in lost equity.

Its the differences that matter in money not the absolute value. Going from 65% -> 60% is the same as going from 60% -> 55%.

And the headline number i.e the total losses are important when you dealing with illiquid long lasting fixed assets like houses. If you have community of 100 people and 90 houses if ten people leave no big deal but if you have 90 houses and 90 people and 10 people leave then the value of the remaining houses drops 90%.

The problem at the moment is leverage everyone bet on the 100:90 ratio and its now 80:90. Your right we are not even close to real pain that years out but leverage is just as deadly over the short term.