Unemployment numbers for March - Same O' same O'. But who cares about jobs, right? Wall Street is doing just fine, so all must be well. And if you believe that, you also believe that Russia is our friend and the Chinese will never raise their interest rates to the U. S.

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The unemployment rate for March of 2014,  using different base numbers than was the case back in the beginning of 2009 and the Obama presidency,  remained at 6.7%,  the same as February.

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Update:  men and women rates,  in general (meaning "mostly white" male and female) stand at 6.2% for both categories.  What is driving the unemployment rate upward is the 20.9% rate for teenagers, the 7.9% for Hispanics (all categories) and the 12.4% black unemployment totals.

Generally speaking,  whites are better educated than most minority populations,  a result of availability to early-year schooling,  better financed elementary, middle and high school districts,   lower poverty levels and an existential circumstance (rightly or wrongly provided) that has given them opportunities borne of a cultural "inheritance" that has benefited whites more than some of the other ethnicity's.  This does not mean whites are "evil," only that they have been benefited as to the systemics of our culture.  The imbalance is critical.  We conservatives argue that the Constitution does not guarantee outcomes,  only opportunities.  True,  but even the "opportunities" for upward mobility are out of sync,  for the reasons stated.

We ALL need to share in the solution to this problem, if,  for no other reason,  for the most selfish of reasons.  Understand,  that if  "we" do not qualify our ethnic  and/or "disadvantaged" workforce,  they will have no choice but to add themselves to the welfare roles and live off the work ethic of the larger population.    Again I say,  THEY WILL HAVE NO CHOICE.

In the case of minority qualifications for the future,  the Left has Left Behind its faithful in the minority population.  The Dems have been putting forth empty and unfulfilled promises for decades.     If the GOP,  or the Dems, for that matter,  want to stay "in power,"  sooner or later,  this workforce problem needs to be effectively addressed.

Education in this country,  is "free" to all, at the grade school and secondary levels.  It, also,  needs to be fairly and equally supplied.  Currently,  that is not the case. ~ editor.

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More than 11 million folks have quit the workforce representing a workforce participation rate of just 63.2%, the lowest such number in four decades.  Of the 11 million folks no longer being counted in "workforce numbers,"  a huge number (well over 60% of the total 11 million) have either retired or have gone after disability benefits),  2.2 million (those "marginally attached to the workforce but no longer being counted)  are healthy,  living with family and friends, drawing what welfare benefits are available,  and the remaining 2.5 to 3 million have actually moved into the underground labor force,  no longer reporting income,  paying taxes or seeking benefits.

Understand that of the 11 million no longer being counted in the unemployment reporting,  more than 5 million are of working age and potentially able to hold down a job.

When we add these people back into the available workforce,  the "U6" unemployment rate is 12.7%.  Rather than thinking of 6.7% as being a percentage of the able bodied,  unemployed,  the truth of the matter is this,  the actual number,  the real unemployment rate,  is this 12.7% statistic.

Nancy Pelois,  the perennial "blond," within the Democrat Party,  released a statement  arguing that "the economy is headed in the right direction," as she camps on the 190,000 jobs "created" last month.  Of course,  her comments and the framing of an "improving economy,"  has a hollow sound, after five stinking years, of this "jobless recovery."

This blog and this editor (that would be me),  do not believe a recovery is based on jobless statistics.  Has the banking/investment community seen a resurgence?  Of course,  and how has that benefited you,  if the most important issue in your life is a job?

It is the Left that hates "profit" and "Big Money,"  except,  of course,  when it benefits them politically.  Be that as it may,  the jobs picture in this country,  is at a stand-still.  And that has been the case,  for so long a time  --  the longest "jobs recovery" in American history including the after-years of the Great Depression  --  that more and more folks are realizing a systemic problem is at play,  here.

Could it be that the Conservatives have been right,  all along?  That increases taxes across the board,  increasing healthcare costs,  issuing more than 20,000 regulations in five years . . . . .  could it be that these realities are stifling the drive to put America at work?
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Employment Situation Summary - Bureau of Labor Statistics
www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm‎



U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Report released Friday,  April 4, 2014 for March.  --  the PDF record

8.3%? Not really and here is why.

Updated text:
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN: Jobless Rate Falls to Lowest in Three Years...

The jobless rate fell from 8.5% to 8.3% on the wings of 243,000 jobs created.  So goes the story.  

Click on image to enlarge

So,  why are so many not all that excited?   For starters,  36.7% of those old enough and able to work  are not . . . . . . . . . working.  As of this past January, we are looking at the highest percentage of non-working working class citizens since the 1930's.  You may not believe this number,  but 1.7  million folks left the workforce in the same month we are touting the 8.3 unemployment percentage,  January, according to the Department of Labor (cf DoL pdf, p8).   

The 2nd chart,  my home grown adaptation of the original,  actually has "Reagan"  misplaced.  As you well know,  Reagan came into power following the Carter years and a recession  with higher negatives in many categories than the current recessionary period.  The Reagan Recovery saw the fastest increase in the workforce in history.  By contrast, the Obama Recovery (that is what he is calling this thing,  right ??) includes the sharpest decline in the size of the workforce [also] in history.  

In the second year of the Obama Recovery (2010),  much like the Reagan Recovery,   there was an increase in the size of the workforce (April of 2010)  . . . about the time Biden announced that the recession was over and introduced  us to his  "Summer of Recovery."    But,  unlike Reagan's recovery, Obama's policies failed within weeks, literally,   and the remainder of the "recovery years" has been a disaster with the work force at its lowest percentage of the total number of folks able to work  (63.7) in decades  [see chart immediately below with Department of Labor stats,  for a comparison of the past 10 year totals].  

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	President
2002	66.5	66.8	66.6	66.7	66.7	66.6	66.5	66.6	66.7	66.6	66.4	66.3	Bush.. 43
2003	66.4	66.4	66.3	66.4	66.4	66.5	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	65.9
2004	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	66.0	66.1	66.1	66.0	65.8	65.9	66.0	65.9
2005	65.8	65.9	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0
2006	66.0	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.3	66.4
2007	66.4	66.3	66.2	65.9	66.0	66.0	66.0	65.8	66.0	65.8	66.0	66.0
2008	66.2	66.0	66.1	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	65.9	66.0	65.8	65.8
2009	65.7	65.8	65.6	65.6	65.7	65.7	65.5	65.4	65.1	65.0	65.0	64.6	Obama..
2010	64.8	64.9	64.9	65.1	64.9	64.6	64.6	64.7	64.6	64.4	64.5	64.3	Obama..
2011	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.1	64.0	64.1	64.1	64.1	64.0	64.0	Obama..
2012	63.7												Obama..

Unemployment went down because [in part] 1.7 million people left the work force,  to fend for themselves. Understand that I am telling you that 1.7 million left the official "workforce"  in just one month. [In December,  50,000 dropped off the roles.  In November,  350,000 left the public workforce.]  Some went on welfare of some sort; the younger adult crowd moved back in with their parents;   others went to work "under the table,"  not reporting their wages in return for not having to report their income.  Still, others went to work for themselves,  again,  making money "under the table."  More than 5 million Americans have opted out of the public workforce since Obama took office, preferring one of the several options listed above.  There are 89 million able bodied adults no longer figured in the "unemployment" numbers (see ZeroHedge for more discussion).  


Remember Obama coming up with the bright idea of forcing everyone who paid out $600 or more for anything,  food,  gas, lawn care,  property clean-up, helping a family move  . . .   whatever,  to fill out and report these transactions on a 1099 form?   It was part of ObamaCare and was to go into effect this month (Jan 2012).  Of course,  the logistics of such an asinine provision made the law impossible to enforce,  a laughable bit of idiocy coming from the fertile mind of Obama.    


As an example of just how nonsensical this proposition would have been,  I have a friend who drives truck cross country.  With this law,  he would have had to keep all receipts for  diesel  and record them separately,  per each gas station at which he purchased fuel,  just in case he bought $600 of fuel over the course of the year from any one of those stations.  


What Obama was trying to accomplish was this:  he knew the workforce was "shrinking," that these folks didn't just disappear;  they were making a living some way.  So he tried to tax the "underground economy"  (more power to those folks,  btw) via the 1099 idea,  a task that proved to be impossible.  

Update and end notes:  the U6 unemployment number is 15.3% (folks unemployed but on benefits and those who are underemployed) or around 19 million Americans,  in addition to the 89 million "doing their own thing,"  working in the growing labor force that is the American Underground.  

Point of post:  to give context to all this "good" news we heard,  today (Friday, Jan 3rd)).  When 1.7 million people leave the workforce in a single month,  a lower unemployment rate (8.3% in this case) is hardly the good news we had hoped it might have been. . . . . . . . . . .   And I haven't discussed the 2.3 million people who lost jobs in January,  but,  because of the process known as "seasonal adjustments,"  we are being told that 243,000 jobs were created.  While "seasonally adjusted" might be an important process,  still,  2.3 million working in December have been laid off in January.  


Conclusion:  its a terrible, terrible mess. 


Related story:  see this short CNBC video news story :  SANTELLI: Here's What's Wrong With Data...