Posted on 07/07/2012 6:57:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Nonfarm payrolls rose by just 80,000 in June, slightly worse than expected and the third straight month of sub-100,000 job growth. The jobless rate held at 8.2%. The employment report was disappointing. Here are 10 reasons why the jobs market is even worse than the headline figures. 1. Unemployment has topped 8% for 41 straight months. Last time above 8% - December 1983.
2. The jobless rate actually makes the labor market look better than it actually is. The rate only counts people who want a job but don't have one. But the labor force participation rate was 63.8% in June, just above near modern-era lows. (It was 66.2% in January 2008 and 67.3% in April 2000). Otherwise, unemployment would be around 11%.
3. The employment-to-population ratio for those aged 25-54 dipped to 75.6% in June, down sharply from 80% in January 2008. Many economists left and right view the core employment ratio as one of the cleanest views of the labor market, because it includes those who have stopped looking for work while excluding the bulge in retirees and young adults in school.
4. Chronic unemployment. The average length of unemployment rose to 39.9 weeks in June, close to recent peak. It was 17.4 weeks at the January 2008 peak and 23.9 weeks in June 2009, when the recession officially ended. Long-term joblessness is particularly bad because skills erode or become obsolete, leading to permanent losses in income.
5. The U.S. added 225,000 jobs in the second quarter vs. 677,000 in Q1. That was the smallest quarterly gain since Q1 2010 — excluding the Q3 2010 post-Census decline. June's gain of 80,000 is not enough to absorb new workers to prevent the unemployment rate from rising over the long term.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Your chart nails it. But, remember, the private sector is doing “just fine”.
Yes, it could be revealed and talked about.
But inside the Beltway, it would cause a furor.
1. Immigration needs to be curtailed - both legal and illegal. When the economy isn’t generating jobs, we’re just not able to absorb immigration.
2. We need to end the “free trade” charade.
3. We need to take on the financial sector with fire and sword. The fraud is rampant in the financial sector, and now it has reached levels where perhaps the only way to break apart the banking cartel(s) is to use martial law.
Too many people asked themselves these questions:
Why am I working when that guy/gal is sitting around all day?
Why am I paying this money into Social Security when I’ll never see a dime of it?
Why am I paying taxes so politicians can buy poor people’s votes with it?
Why struggle to do an honest day’s work politely while the crooks and the rude thrive?
Why speak up when I’ll just be shouted down?
Yeah, but remember, from Obama's perspective, this is a feature, not a bug.
The nation’s workforce expanded by 189,000 in June, 85,000 were added to social security’s disability rolls while only 80,000 unemployed found jobs, and Obama calls it a “step in the right direction”. Anyone who thinks he deserves another four years must be getting all their news from MSNBC.
“Long-term joblessness is particularly bad because skills erode or become obsolete, leading to permanent losses in income.”
That one jumped right out at me. I guess I hadn’t thought about the fact that NOT having a job for a very long time makes you less employable in the future. Reminds me of the days when many SAHMs were forced back into the workforce under President Carter, to keep their families afloat. My Mom, included.
Scary times for us all.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.