Posted on 05/04/2018 2:17:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Trump is proud of the 3.9% unemployment rate, the lowest since 2000. But it’s not as great as it sounds.
Employers added 164,000 jobs in April, which was lower than forecasts but still okay. Employers have created an average of 200,000 new jobs each month so far in 2018, which is a strong pace of job growth. But the unemployment rate, which fell from 4.1% to 3.9%, is a puzzlement. There were fewer people looking for jobs in April, which means fewer people counted as unemployed. When unemployment falls because people get jobs, that’s good. But when unemployment falls because people give up looking for jobs, it’s not so good.
For that reason, our weekly Trumpometer says: MEDIOCRE.
Economists struggle to explain two oddities in the current labor market. The first is the relatively low portion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one. The so-called labor-force participation rate is 62.8%, a level it has generally been stuck at since 2014. The peak was 67.3% in 2000. So while the unemployment rate is back to the low levels of 2000, the portion of Americans working or looking for work is considerably lower.
An aging labor force might explain part of the problem, since workers aged 55 to 64 — a bracket that is swelling, as the baby boomers age — are less likely to work than younger folks. The opioid epidemic might keep some people who would otherwise have a job from working. Recent research from the Conference Board suggests more people consider themselves disabled these days, a third possible explanation for the low participation rate.
The other oddity is weak wage growth, with wages rising just 2.6% during the last 12 months. Ordinarily, employers hike pay as unemployment drops and workers become scarce.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Sorry I guess I was being a bit confusing. It’s partly because Obama’s minions immediately claimed the improvement was due to Obama, when in fact Obama did not create a single job that was filled by Americans.
https://news.grabien.com/story-valerie-jarrett-we-should-give-obama-credit-todays-jobs-repo
So Obama’s “jobs” were actually low-wage positions all filled by immigrants—I suspect a large number of them were illegals. Meanwhile, the American labor force was decimated and has yet to recover. On top of that, the Democrats established the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, which caused many American companies to leave and relocate to other countries. Huge amounts of capital fled the country. Whole segments of industry and manufacturing are just gone now. The result was an 8 year economic depression which we’re just starting to come out of under Trump.
Your story is not at all unique. I’m a consultant doing finance/audit/risk management projects for large companies - most often banks. There were times during the Great Recession when I would have long stretches between getting contracts and my rate did not increase in over 10 years.
Fast forward to now. My contract will end in a week and I have recruiters beating down my door bringing me projects to take despite the fact that I’m now demanding 15% more than I was making a year ago.
Gee what’s changed? It isn’t me. I didn’t magically become more qualified or capable overnight.
we have a permanent population that will not work, do not want to work, would rather be on disability and go to the casino and act like bigshots...
and our govt allows them too...
sometimes I feel I'm the only one supporting this country with my work ethic...
Not to mention all those that were allowed to “medically retire” under Obama’s gyrations to reduce the unemployment on [paper by doctoring the numbers and how they were interpreted.
Obama worked as hard as he could for eight years to pad the disabled list with guaranteed Democrat voters. It will be a challenge to get that undone.
People in their late fifties who lose their jobs cannot get a new one. So they stop looking. Why is this difficult to understand.
There were stories about this everywhere during Obama’s administration. This is a demographic issue.
Next in the wings - "the homeless" to make its first encore performance since Reagan.
The irony however is this -— if you dig into the numbers, IT IS NOT THOSE WHO ARE IN THEIR 50’s WHO ARE CAUSING THE PARTICIPATION RATE TO BE LOW. It is actually those in the the 18-24 age range.
True words
it is the gig economy, people living on education loans and government hand outs
You have to be kidding me. FOR 8 years they did not give a darn about the participation, not even mentioning how bad it was. Now all of a sudden its concern.
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