Showing posts with label labor force. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labor force. Show all posts

Unemployment rate for April has some very good news and some very bad news:

58 share 

Updated for "related" and chart on the labor force.   

Good news:  Unemployment rate fell 4/10 of a percent in the single 30 day period,  6.3% , down from 6.7%  . . . .   the lowest rate (by hook and crook) in 5.5 years.  I say "by hook and crook" because the numbers used to justify today's report,  are not the same as those used 5 years ago.

Like I wrote,  by hook and crook, this is the lowest unemployment rate since 2008.  A solid 288,000 jobs were created in April,  the most since mid-2012,  and,  the March jobs report was revised upward by 36,000 [more] jobs, and this is very good news.  

Unfortunately,  all this good news is clouded by the following facts:

GDP for the 1Q of this year,  came in at a nominal zero.  The actual reported number was .1% which is "zero" growth,  in my book.  A penny on the dollar would be 1% growth.  A 1/10 of a penny?  Common folks  . . . . .   THAT is "zero" in the real world.

Of the 3 million jobs created in the past two years,  we know that 2 million are low paying and minimum wage jobs while one million high paying jobs ($17.00 per hour and higher) have been lost.

Labor participation rate, i.e. "our workforce,"  is in its
sharpest decline in half a century.  Maybe we would
be better off,  if Obama stop trying to create jobs, no? 
More bad news:  The unemployment drop,  the highest rate of decrease in a decade (6.3
down from 6.7) is,  primarily, is due to a monumental drop in the labor participation rate,  down from 63.2% to 62.8% as 800,000 Americans left the labor force and were not counted into any other employment/unemployment numbers.  Fewer Americans,  percentage wise,  are working today,  than were working in 1978,  under Jimmy Carter,  a 36 year low.  86 million folks are working full-time versus 146 million Americans who are drawing income from some sort of entitlement,  including food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, housing and income subsidies.

Of course,  H Obama will brag about the (U-3) unemployment rate but that is because he knows nothing about jobs creation and has no experience as to national finance, either educationally or in a practical since. What is disturbing about this last observation,  is the fact that Obama,  after 5 years,  has learned nothing about the relationship between the horde of regulations and associated uncertainties versus to the need for planning and free choice within the business community.

The good news,  in a final since of that term,  is found in the reality that our private sector,  capitalist economy,  will find a way to succeed in spite of  Central "Planning."  Problematic to this fact,  is the rate of success,  which is effected by feckless,  governmental meddling.  At some point in time,  that "rate of success" will no longer have the ability to "float all boats."  

Trickle down economics is the way an economy works  . . . .   the only way.  But,  as long as we are lead by folks with no practical experience or training in economic matters,  we will continue to see downward pressure on our quality of life.  Like they say,  "When everyone draws the same benefits or income,  everyone is equally poor."
__________________

Related:

An European view of the unemployment picture in the US:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10805350/Shocking-US-jobs-data-impugns-recovery-Fed-tapering.html