Bloodthirsty Liberal

As we all know, unemployment is plummeting, the economy is roaring, people are lighting their e-cigarettes with hundred dollar bills.

Sorry? What’s that?

We regret the error.

The U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 9.0% in mid-February, up from 8.6% for January. The mid-month reading normally reflects what the U.S. government reports for the entire month, and is up from 8.3% in mid-January. …

Underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed with the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, is 19.0% in mid-February. This is higher than the 18.7% recorded for January, and is up significantly compared with January’s mid-month reading of 18.1%.

I mean, I knew the only way unemployment was coming down was by not counting the unemployed. How else could so few new jobs be created, while the population grew, without the unemployment rate going up? Looking at the percentage of employed, rather than unemployed, betrays the charade. It’s at a historic low—63.7% last month.

It hasn’t been that low since the recession of ’81-’82—and we’ve (supposedly) been in recovery for over 2 1/2 years!

As Biden would say, this is a big [bleeping] deal. A smaller percentage of workers (unprecedentedly small in a recovery) is supporting an ever-larger welfare state—and it’s being spun as a robust expansion. We’re swirling in the toilet, and Obama is telling us it’s a water park.

The tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free-market capitalism.

Why, I do believe this is what Rush would call a random act of journalism: [Boston Gob article, by subscription only]

The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University found that there were 5.4 million fewer people in the workforce last year than projected by the Labor Department in 2008 – many the “hidden unemployed’’ who, no longer searching for work, are not counted in the official jobless rate. In Massachusetts, their numbers have more than doubled over the past decade to about 120,000.

Among the missing are teenagers who have stopped looking for mall jobs that are now going to college graduates, and laid-off 60-year-olds who have reluctantly retired as employers turned to younger, cheaper talent. Some are at home, supported by spouses. Others are in college or training programs, hoping to gain marketable skills. A few have ended up homeless.

Despite the steady decline in unemployment recently, the study is a reminder of how far the economy has to go. The Labor Department reported Friday that the official unemployment rate slipped to 8.3 percent in January, but when labor force dropouts and the underemployed – those working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs – are included, the rate doubles to about 17 percent.

Losing the productivity of more than 5 million people over the past three years means a slower recovery, with fewer people contributing to the nation’s economic output, buying products, and paying taxes, said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. These missing workers are more likely to become poor, rely on government assistance, and develop mental health issues.

And when hiring picks up, many of these long-term unemployed will have lost so many skills and so much work experience that they won’t easily reenter the labor market. “Their difficulties will end up being paid in part by us,’’ Sum said.

Or, as I like to put it: Obama wins—youth, poor, minorities hardest hit.

Compare the graph above with the GDP graph below (helpfully provided by the White House itself):

We’ve been in “recovery” for 10 quarters, from the middle of ’09 to the present (with persistent revisions downward, we must remind ourselves). Splitting the difference of 2009, therefore, over one million people have dropped out of the workforce since Obama’s recovery took hold. However many jobs he claims to have created or saved, his economic holocaust has wiped out the equivalent of Dallas, Texas. Gone, probably forever.

Since the “recovery”!!!

This reporter, Katie Johnston, is a new name to me. And I’ll never hear of her again if this is the type of story she brings to her editors.

Rush called this—Obama would get the unemployment rate below 8% by election day, by hook or by crook. Turns out it’s by crook:

The Zero Hedge site suggests this is a deliberate revision to make the unemployment rate appear lower than it is:

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month!

…

It is fantastic that the number of Americans working is increasing. But those working Americans are supporting more and more non-working Americans. There are a lot of reasons to leave the labor force, some by choice and generally happy (parenthood, going back to school, affording early retirement) and bad and unhappy ones (despair, unaffordable involuntary early retirement). The number of Americans not in the labor force jumped from 86,001,000 to 88,784,000 with this revision. While they may have been invisible in the previous figures, the bottom line remains the same: a gargantuan number of Americans who could be working aren’t.

…

As long as your labor force doesn’t grow, even anemic-to-modest job growth can chip away at the unemployment rate.

Put another way:

One source from Capitol Hill wants to make this point as well:

Here is an important fact: Despite a population increase…

People working in Jan. 2009 – 142,099,000
People working in Jan. 2012 – 141,637,000

Fewer people are working than three years ago, while the population has increased—yet unemployment is falling???

Now that’s voodoo economics!

Who do you have to [bleep] to get a job in this country?

As the economy slowly improved last year, the unemployment rate fell for both whites and Latinos.

But at the end of the year the black unemployment rate was 15.8%, exactly where it started out 2011, according to the government’s December jobs report released Friday. That’s a sharp contrast to the white unemployment rate, which fell to 7.5% last month.

…

Black men captured about 237,000 job gains in 2011, whereas black women actually ended the year with fewer jobs than they had a year ago.

Black men still have a higher unemployment rate overall, but their’s at least improved — while for black women, it got worse.

Aren’t a disproportionate number of black women also single moms? Then what are we cheering about?

Indeed, what are we cheering about?

Those headline economic numbers are terribly misleading, hardly reflecting the devastation most Americans still see every day. An 8.5 percent unemployment rate? Please. If the size of the U.S. labor force was as large as it was when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 10.9 percent. But since so many people have gotten discouraged and stopped looking for work– and thus disappeared by government statisticians — the jobless number has been artificially depressed. A better gauge of the jobs picture is the broader U-6 rate, which includes part-timers who would rather have full-time jobs. It stands at a whopping 15.2 percent.

It is only because the labor force has shrunk (while the population has grown) that unemployment appears to be going down. By reducing the participation rate to 64% from its recent average of 66%, and by putting record numbers on food stamps and extending unemployment benefits to a record length, Obama is buying his way out of a jobless recovery. No one’s actually working (or very, very few), but he’s putting that Columbia education to work: if you can’t increase the numerator, you can at least decrease the denominator.

Oh, and those 200,000 “new” jobs boasted of?

Part of the strong gain reflected a 42k increase in employment for “couriers and messengers”, which likely reflects temporary employment for holiday gift delivery persons. A similar spike occurred last December and was reversed in the following month, indicating that the payroll statistics are not properly seasonally adjusting for this type of hiring. Taking this into account, December employment growth was still firmer than the preceding two months, but the underlying trend is likely still below 200k.

Ding-dong! Candygram…land shark.

PS:

Overall, blacks accounted for only 9% of the nation’s job gains during the year, even though they make up 12% of the civilian population, according to Department of Labor.

May I, Buck? RAAAAACIST!!!

New unemployment claims dropped again, but…

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits dropped last week to its lowest level since April 2008, extending a downward trend that shows the job market strengthening.

First-time applications for unemployment benefits fell 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 364,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the third straight weekly drop.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile gauge, fell for the 11th time in 13 weeks. At 380,250, it’s the lowest since June 2008. Applications generally must fall below 375,000 — consistently — before hiring is strong enough to reduce the unemployment rate.

…

The declining number of applications suggests that the U.S. economy may finally be regaining strength, 2 1/2 years after the Great Recession ended. The nation added at least 100,000 jobs every month from July through November, the first five-month streak since 2006.

One hundred thousand jobs! Wow!

Wow?

The economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with normal population growth.

I’ve seen that number as low as 90,000—but 150,000 is most common. Either way, unemployment can’t fall (much) with job creation like that. Further proof that the fall to 8.6% in the unemployment rate was bad news. People are dropping out of the work force forever, the labor participation rate is falling again (still), and the percentages of people paying no federal income tax and going on some form of welfare is rising again (still).

Still, give AP credit for joy this holiday season!

If unemployment applications continue declining, Greenhaus said, the number of jobs created each month will rise to 200,000 and the unemployment rate might fall as low as 8 percent before November’s elections.

In the past three months, employers have added an average of 143,000 net jobs a month. That compares with an average of 84,000 in the previous three months. [WTF---this completely contradicts the 100k average claimed above---but still doesn't add net jobs. Ed.]

…

Overall economic growth appears to be tracking the job market’s improvement. The economy was barely growing when the year started. In the final quarter, growth might exceed 3 percent, up from 2 percent in the July-September period.

How does the old saying go? If ifs and mights were candy and Sprite, we’d all have a merry Christmas.

We covered a lot of this yesterday, but the WSJ summarizes nicely:

An 8.6% unemployment rate is hardly worth celebrating, but after nearly two years of mediocre job growth and unemployment at 9% or above, yesterday’s November jobs report feels like a bigger improvement than it is. Private sector job growth of 140,000 was respectable but still less than half the 300,000 or so monthly job creation that is typically associated with expansions. The September and October payrolls were revised upward by 72,000 jobs, also signs that the economy has bounced back from the growth slump earlier in the year.

There was a huge 594,000 decline in the number of Americans who are officially unemployed. But the main reason for the big drop in that number and the fall in the jobless rate wasn’t more people working, but fewer people looking for work. The labor force declined by 315,000 workers and the labor force participation rate fell to 64% from 64.2% in October. The labor force participation rate has fallen by some two percentage points since early 2009, which means that more than two million Americans have withdrawn from the work force. Normally during a recovery as hiring picks up, Americans get back into the jobs market.

…

All of this points to an economy that is growing, but in fits and starts and at a low trajectory. There are still six million fewer Americans working today than before the financial meltdown, making this by far the worst jobs recovery in modern times. Americans deserve better, and in particular they deserve a Presidential debate focused above all on returning the private economy to the engine of prosperity it was until only a few years ago.

Inspired by my liberal friends, who were so febrile during the Bush years, let me indulge in a little freestyle, improvised conspiracy theorizing myself. No numbers can be believed if they come from the Executive Branch led by this regime. None. Sometimes they admit their deception, as when “growth” is “revised” from 2.5% to 2% or “productivity” from 3.1% to 2.3%, with further “revisions” “expected”. (Those “numbers” are provided by the Commerce and Labor Departments, respectively.)

Other times, as now, we are left scratching our heads.

How can the economy add jobs (both in initial counts and in “revisions”), dropping the unemployment rate a whopping 0.4% in one month (when “expectations” were for no change), yet the percentage of people in the workforce actually fell?

Here’s how:

That’s a chart of workforce participation rate over the last decade from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fairly steady during the Bush years, it fell sharply in 2008, as you might expect—and hasn’t stopped falling since. We’ve been in “recovery” for two and a half years, and 64% is the new 67%. There are 6,000,000 Americans working today than before the 2008 crisis. Where did they go? What are they doing?

That’s a chart of foodstamp (SNAP) participation (sorry for the truncation—full chart here).

Notice a correlation? Let me spell it out: fewer people are working than either before or during the recession; more people are on foodstamps than either before or during the recession.

Here it is in percentages:

Is it any wonder the Obama reelection strategy is to shun a shrinking demographic (workers) and embrace a growing one (welfare recipients)? He couldn’t have done better if he tried—which I maintain he did. This is all going according to plan.

As he told Joe the plumber, he’s not about creating wealth, he’s about spreading it. As was said of the Messiah, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.” (Isaiah 40:4) In a modern translation, that would read “I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage… If I help Him, He’s gonna help me.”

Aggie and I have been wondering how the unemployment rate can drop when…

* the number of new jobs added was less than population growth;

* the number was less (only just) than economists were expecting—and they “expected” unemployment to remain unchanged;

* new claims for unemployment rose above 400k again last week.

Here’s your answer, and it’s not anywhere near the good news that you’re hearing:

The economy added 120,000 jobs in November, and unemployment fell to 8.6% from 9% in October.

It’s probably closer to 18%.

Job growth in the range of 120,000 should be expected to accommodate labor force growth, but not a much-lower unemployment rate — especially not by nearly half a percentage point.

However, the scarcity of jobs is causing many professional to establish home-based businesses that really don’t provide full-time employment but do take workers off the unemployment rolls.

Also, many adults have quit looking for work altogether, and the adult labor force participation rate fell sharply in November. Working-age adults not participating in the labor force — those neither employed nor looking for work — increased by 487,000 in November.

As Rush noted:

Now, the truth of the matter is — and Bloomberg News even points out that the only way — it’s a corrupt number. It is a corrupt number. Folks, the number of people who have quit looking for work in the last few weeks is 315,000. Those are the people have thrown up their hands after 99 weeks or more of being unemployed; and they’ve said, “I’m quitting. I’m not looking.” So they’re not counted. Therefore, the universe of jobs available in the country is down by 315,000. That is the labor force participation rate. The labor force participation rate is a meager 64%. It fell to 64% from 64.2%. So the 0.2% drop equals 315,000 people leaving the workforce.

I asked where did they go, the people who dropped out?

How could I forget?

Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The number of Americans using the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — more commonly referred to as food stamps — shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported. That’s up 12% from a year ago, and 34% higher than two years ago.

Do you see the evil brilliance of the Democrats? Discourage workers to drop out of the labor force (perversely lowering unemployment) and go on welfare (insuring their dependence on Democrats).

It’s a win-win—for everyone except the country!

Unemployment claims rose for the second week in a row.

I confess that I’m surprised by this because the malls are jammed around here. Or maybe it was just for one weekend?

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits rose for the second straight week, a sign the hiring market is recovering at a slow and uneven pace.

Weekly applications for unemployment benefits rose 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 402,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Applications had been below 400,000 for three straight weeks.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, was mostly unchanged at slightly below 400,000.

The average fell to a seven-month low two weeks ago. Weekly applications had been declining for two months.

Applications would need to stay below 375,000 consistently to push down the unemployment rate significantly. They haven’t been at that level since February.

The report comes one day before the government reports on job growth in November. Economists project that employers added a net 125,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate stayed at 9 percent for the second straight month.

While the job growth would be an improvement from October, when the economy added just 80,000 jobs, it’s still barely enough to keep pace with population growth,

Keep doing what you’re doing guys, it’s working!

- Aggie

Sorry we missed this, but there were turkeys to brine and cranberry sauce to make:

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits crept back up last week, after easing to a 7-month low in the previous week, but remained below a key threshold for gauging the job market.

There were 393,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Nov. 19, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was up 2,000 from the week before, when initial claims dropped to a 7-month low.

The weekly figures were worse than the 391,000 claims economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected. But a level below 400,000 is typically associated with payroll growth.

…

Continuing claims — which include people filing for the second week of benefits or more — ticked up by 68,000 to 3,691,000 in the week ended Nov. 12.

Economists were expecting continuing claims to edge down to 3,620,000.

The four-week moving average for ongoing claims fell by 2,250 to 3,671,500 from the preceding week’s revised 3,673,750.

The weekly jobless claims data follows a government report issued Tuesday indicating that economic growth slowed much more than expected in the third quarter.

Three examples of unexpectedness! Either economists had their heads up their a**es, or CNN is messing with us.

in Alabama

Alabama decided to make it difficult for illegal immigrants to work, and it turns out that US citizens do want those jobs. Imagine that.

Unemployment rates have fallen in Alabama amid new legal pressure on companies to comply with a popular immigration reform law.

September was the first full month that the reform was in force, and the unemployment rate fell from 9.8 percent in September to 9.3 percent in October, according to a Nov. 18 report from the state government.

The rates fell from 9.9 percent to 9 percent in Etowah County, from 8.8 percent to 8.1 percent in Marshall county, and from 11.6 percent to 10.6 percent in DeKalb county.

“The latest fall in unemployment numbers is proof that American citizens will work, and continues to solidify [the evidence] that self-deportation [by illegal immigrants] due to the Alabama Taxpayer & Citizen’s Protection Act is occurring,” said Chuck Ellis, a city council member in Albertville — the main town in Marshall County, northern Alabama.

Obama take note: US citizens are not so lazy after all.

- Aggie