Obama's Socialist Policies are Ruining American Economy

[finehoe]

[finehoe]

Initial jobless claims adjusted for population set a new all-time low

This morning population adjusted initial jobless claims set a new all-time record.

On an unadjusted basis, initial jobless claims set an all-time low of 161,000 on November 30,1968, when the US population was a little over 201 million.  But US population is now over 310 million.  Here's what initial jobless claims look like (blue) compared with population (red), normed to be equal on November 1968:


In short, right now is the most secure US workers have been in their jobs for the last 50 years.

[fsquid]

cool, how is that workplace participation number?

[finehoe]

cool, how is that workplace participation number?

You mean the one that's going down because 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day?

[fsquid]

cool, how is that workplace participation number?

You mean the one that's going down because 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day?

If the workplace participation is dropping do to a voluntary removal of workers, then that would drive up the wages due to a lack of workers to fill the position.

[vicupstate]

cool, how is that workplace participation number?

You mean the one that's going down because 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day?

If the workplace participation is dropping do to a voluntary removal of workers, then that would drive up the wages due to a lack of workers to fill the position.

Yes, all other things being equal, but not if outsourcing and bring in more immigrants (legal or otherwise) occurs too.

[fsquid]

cool, how is that workplace participation number?

You mean the one that's going down because 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day?

If the workplace participation is dropping do to a voluntary removal of workers, then that would drive up the wages due to a lack of workers to fill the position.

Yes, all other things being equal, but not if outsourcing and bring in more immigrants (legal or otherwise) occurs too.

so those baby boomers are being forced out of the workforce?

[finehoe]

If the workplace participation is dropping do to a voluntary removal of workers, then that would drive up the wages due to a lack of workers to fill the position.

Not necessarily, if higher-paid older workers are being replaced with lower-paid younger workers.

[fsquid]

Thats not how it works.

Workers who are no longer working do not count in the equation, just as workers who had yet to start working are not counted.

In your scenario, let's say a person who was making $50 an hour retires. That retiree is replaced by a worker who was making $30 an hour but is now making $40 by taking on the new job.

This would net a wage increase of 33%.

What is happening is that people of retirement age are out of work, cant find a job, and taking retirement. Since there was no current job to fill, none of the other workers move up to a higher position with more pay. Or, those who lost their jobs have to take jobs that pay less than what they were making, causing their wage increases to go negative.

[finehoe]

Thats not how it works.

That's exactly how it works.  Bush's Labor Dept. predicted the current decline in participation back in 2005:

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/11/art3full.pdf

[finehoe]

The U.S. ran a budget surplus in January, dropping the annual deficit to its lowest level since August 2008.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-budget-deficit-falls-to-lowest-level-since-august-2008-1455130829?mod=e2fb

[finehoe]

Initial jobless claims fall to a 43-year low:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/business/economy/jobs-report-unemployment-wages.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[MusicMan]

This can't be. I'm pretty sure Mitt Romney went on the record shortly after Obama's first inauguration as decrying "the failed economic policies" of BO.  This of course was the same guy who wanted to let the entire US automobile manufacturing industry go bankrupt.

How's the stock market doing, by the way?   

[spuwho]

The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx

Here's something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don't know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is "down" to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed. That's right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news -- currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren't throwing parties to toast "falling" unemployment.

There's another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you're an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 -- maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn -- you're not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

Yet another figure of importance that doesn't get much press: those working part time but wanting full-time work. If you have a degree in chemistry or math and are working 10 hours part time because it is all you can find -- in other words, you are severely underemployed -- the government doesn't count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

There's no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.

And it's a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual's primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity -- it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen's talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.

Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America's middle class.

I hear all the time that "unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren't feeling it." When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth -- the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real -- then we will quit wondering why Americans aren't "feeling" something that doesn't remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class.

Jim Clifton is Chairman and CEO at Gallup.

[spuwho]

Don't listen to anyone who says the unemployment rate is a "big lie"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/06/dont-listen-to-anyone-who-says-the-unemployment-rate-is-a-big-lie/

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton has discovered a shocking secret about unemployment: its definition.

Those Chicago guys didn't even bother to hide this one in plain sight. It's just sitting there in plain sight, right on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' homepage: only people who don't have a job but are actively looking for one count as unemployed. That means someone who wants work but has given up looking for it because things seem so hopeless isn't "unemployed." Neither is someone who works part-time but can't find the full-time job that they want. Or someone who does whatever odd jobs they can find. Add it all up, and our 5.6 percent unemployment rate is a "Big Lie," according to Clifton.

Okay, that's more than a little melodramatic, but he does have a point. You know who else thinks he does? Fed Chair Janet Yellen. She's emphasized that the unemployment rate doesn't show us all the slack in the labor market right now. The Great Recession put us in such a big hole that you have also have to look at the long-term unemployed, involuntary part-time workers, the participation rate, how many people feel confident enough to quit their jobs, and how much people are getting paid to get a better idea of how the economy is really doing. She's actually talked about this a lot, and so has everyone else who writes about these things ... including, you know, me.

That brings us to one last question. If the unemployment rate is so flawed how come we pay so much attention to it? Well, because it's the worst stat about labor market slack except for all the others. The problem is figuring out which people who don't have jobs are really jobless. Take discouraged workers. The unemployment understates how bad things are by ignoring them, but we wouldn't want to count everyone who's not working and not looking for a job as unemployed, would we? If we did, then we'd be saying that college students and stay-at-home parents and even retirees are just as unemployed as someone who's sending out resumés everyday. But even that's not clear cut since some people go to school because they can't find a job, and some people stay at home since child care would cost more than they'd make, and some people are forced into retirement. That's why we look, for example, at the so-called prime-age participation rate—the percent of people between 25 and 54 years old who have or are looking for a job—to figure out far away we are from a real recovery. And by that measure, we still have a ways to go.

But even that's imperfect because it doesn't tell us why people aren't looking for work. It could be that the crisis convinced more people to go to college, regardless of whether they could find a job now. That'd be good. Or it could be that wages have been flat for so long and childcare's gotten so expensive that it's not worth it for people to work now or anytime soon. That'd be bad. Or it could be both. But if either is true, it'd mean that the unemployment rate is more accurate than you might think. In other words, since we can't read people's minds, the best way we can tell what they want is to look at what they've done. That's not entirely right, but it's the least wrong.

So the unemployment rate's not a big lie. But calling it one is.