December 21, 2011

Chart of the Day: The New Normal

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EPI has a handy year-end collection of “11 Telling Charts From 2011” that’s worth checking out. Everyone loves a good chart, after all. I’ve taken the liberty of adding some holiday festoonment to one of them, which shows the total number of people who are unemployed or underemployed or who have just given up completely. As you can see, things have been improving over the past couple of years, and if we continue at our current rate we should reach a decent level of unemployment by around 2020 or so. Assuming, of course, that there are no additional setbacks or economic turndowns along the way. Needless to say, we could do better than this if we wanted to, but guess what? It turns out that not everyone wants to do better. Merry Christmas from the GOP, everyone!

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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