Posted on 05/04/2012 6:44:14 PM PDT by tobyhill
If the same percentage of adults were in the workforce today as when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11.1 percent. If the percentage was where it was when George W. Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 13.1 percent.
That helps explain a seeming contradiction in the unemployment numbers — the rate keeps dropping even though job creation has been soft.
In April, the U.S. economy added a mere 115,000 jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday. In a normal month, that would not even be enough to keep up with new entrants into the labor market. But in this economy, it was enough to drive unemployment from 8.2 percent down to 8.1 percent, the lowest point since January 2009.
The explanation is a little-watched measure known as the “labor force participation rate.” That tracks the number of working-age Americans who are holding a job or looking for one. Between March and April, it dropped by 342,000. But because the official unemployment rate counts only those workers who are actively seeking work, that actually made the unemployment rate go down.
Critics of the Obama administration have been quick to seize on this as the real reason for the falling unemployment rate. In February, the Republican National Committee released a research note on “The Missing Worker,” arguing that “over 3 million unemployed workers have called it quits due to Obamanomics.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Don’t look now but The Washington Post just committed a “Truth”. Must be getting it out of the way early so that they can get back in bed with Obama for the rest of the campaign. Criticize them and they will point to this single article as ‘proof’ that they are ‘balanced’.
Bush’s fault.
Simple solutions: tax billionaire’s, free condoms, increase regulations, block pipelines, push unconstitutional healthcare, piss away billions on green projects, cash 4 clunker’s, free student loans, and frequent vacations for the first family.
What’s so crazy, and tells you how worthless the headline unemployment number is.....
If everyone in the US lost their jobs and didn’t look for work, the unemployment rate would be ZERO using their methodologies for calculating the number. If that happened, the media and everyone would cheer! “The unemployment rate dropped to 0.0!!!!” “Life is better than we’ve ever had it!”
I believe the ‘Labor Participation Rate’ is the number to watch. It’s the number of working aged people that are actually working. For some reason, the media and public seems to totally ignore that one.
Wow!
From the Washington Post!!!
Perhaps they may be beginning to dust off their Zer0 kneepads as they arise from their bowing to the Obama east on their prayer-rugs, realizing that the American public is beginning to understand the monthly reporting scam!
Maybe next they will tell us that all the cash we sent into Social Security, that the government ripped off and gave us an IOU, represents a piece of the $15 trillion that the government owes, and we’re in line, just like all the other creditors of this bankrupt nation.
Wow! That’s just horrible.
The Leechf#ck ‘American Dream’ now is when your job is offshored or outsourced, simply get on SS ‘disability’ when the UE checks run out. A very sad state of affairs....
If our great country is to remain great, we need to turn this horrible trend around RIGHT NOW.
Wow...the WP is calling “Bunk” on the Obama employment fakery. Who’d have thought it?
“The percentage of Americans in the labor force has been declining for more than a decade. In January 2000, 67.3 percent of Americans had a job or were actively seeking work. By 2007, just before the recession, that had fallen to 66 percent. In January 2009, the month Obama assumed the presidency, it was 65.7 percent. Since then, it has fallen to 63.6 percent, a level not seen since the first year of the Reagan administration.”
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So it took 9 years for it to slip by 1.6 percent and in the past 3 years it has fallen 2.2 percent? These people cook the books like friggin’ Emeril whippin’ up gumbo.
The BLS (Bureau of Lying Statistics) is staffed by professionals per the government. The question is ... professionals at what, surely not mathematics or statistics or logic or most importantly “the truth”.
Bookmark
Actually it would undefined, 0/0. However if one stupid guy was still looking for work, then the rate would be 0.
But remember the government workforce is counted in the workforce and as employed. So it could get to 0 if everyone who had a job worked for the government, and everyone else was not looking.
No kidding!
I was listening to NPR in the car tonight and they did the same thing - talked about the big sucking sound of workers missing and numbers missing..thank goodness I had my seatbelt on.
Agree..you nailed it
Following a recession, economists say we are in a “recovery” when economic growth rate exceeds the long term trend line (about 3 and 1/2 percent annualized). In other words, the economy plays catchup. The latest recession bottomed out in March 2009, a few weeks after Obama took office, and we were officially in a “recovery” . However, the economy ceased to grow at “recovery” rates in about June 2010, and has been growing at only 1-1/2 percent to 2-1/2 percent ever since. This means that the recovery ended about 21 months ago.
So this bad economy is no longer a cyclic phenomenon, right? Is this consistent with the definition of “depression”. At any rate, structurally, we’ve become a poorer country.
The reality is we have been in a real depression. Bailing out the banks instead of letting them default (which would have cleared the debt and we would be recovered by now, ala Iceland), printing money, forcing low interest rates, banks parking the cash they borrowed from the FED *in* the FED instead of lending because their capital ratios suck, are all symptoms of the death spiral we are in.
We have known about the cooked books on unemployment numbers for a long time. Similar to the fact that the CPI no longer includes prices of the TWO things people CANNOT live without: Food and Energy, and we have a real understanding that our government is no longer about the people or for the people.
When a long train of abuse and usurpations...
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And radically downsize the military. All in all, an excellent way to create still more government dependancy and more Democrat voters ... When no one is working, the unemployment number will be synonymous with our beloved Great Leader's name - Zero.
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All in a day's work for our friends in the Federal government. How soon can the US become Nigeria?
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