Break out the party hats! Unemployment is all the way down to 8.5 percent! Whoo-hoo!
Zero Hedge spotlights the steady increase in the number of Americans not in the labor force; he points out, “the labor force itself declined by 50K from 153,937 to 153,887. In fact, persons not in the labor force have increased by 7.5 million since January 2007.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers this chart:
The recession may have ended in mid-2009 according to the economists, but the normal rate of growth in the size of the labor force stopped in 2008 and has yet to return.
Labor Force Size January 2009: 154,236,000.
Labor Force Size December 2011: 153,887,000.
We’re still down 349,000 from the size of the labor force when Obama’s term began. The labor force hit its lowest point during that time in January 2011, at 153,250,000.
Now look at the labor-force-size growth over the preceding three years:
January 2006: 150,214,000.
December 2008: 154,626,000.
That’s 4,412,000 more Americans in the labor force.
Heck of a job, Mr. President. If you drive enough Americans out of the labor force, unemployment will get down to the 4 to 6 percent range it was during the Bush years!
I wonder how much of the decline in the labor force is due to the economy, and how much is due to the retirement of the leading edge of the baby boom.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis (demographic effects) was the party line on CNBC Friday. I haven't looked at the numbers in detail (not a labor economist), but it sounds a bit suspicious. If this is indeed the case, it would have been very foreseeable, and it wouldn't have just appeared on the stage like this. My guess is that this is being forwarded to downplay the mass exodus from the labor force. Perhaps, the front end of the baby boom is retiring early due to changes in the tax code or simply, poor job prospects, but my instincts here tell me that the straight up demographic effect is nonsense.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEllen, get a clue. Retired are not counted as unemployed. Welfare recipients aren't counted as unemployed. Only people who filed for unemployment benefits are counted as uemployed. After the benefits expire, miraculously they're not counted as unemployed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Ellen....with this economy the way it is, I suspect most boomers are holding off retiring ( if they still have a job that is)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAccording to the US Census Bureau, the overall US total population (resident population plus armed forces overseas - monthly) went from 306.2 million to 311.2 million from January 2009 until December of 2010, and the estimate for December 2011 is now 313.0 million residents.
That is an increase in total population of almost 7 million people. If the workforce is normally about 60 - 65% of the total population (excludes children and the elderly, etc.), we should have seen a growth in the labor force over that time period of about 4 million additional workers, just to account for the population growth.
Even if the labor force had grown by 2 million workers, that would have essentially been a loss, since it would not have covered all of the new workers. To have the labor force drop by 349,000 on top of the over 4 million new workers available is astounding!
I guess that this is called "Change you can believe in" ........ or not.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy work place just cut hours and pay across the board. We're not unemployed, according to the Government, but our economic circumstances have worsened; none of this is reflected in the unemployment numbers.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Bureau of Labor Statistics attempts to measure your plight in the U6 unemployment figure. And U6 is not surprisingly quite high.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe economy won't really recover until Barry is out of office, whether this Novermber or in 2016. Why? At his core, Barry is a socialist, therefore he is against firms and people making "too much profit". Socialists believe that govt officials, aka, politicians, i.e., Barry Soetoro, should decide who makes what and how much profit they will be allowed to earn.
Barry has the boot of the govt on the throat of the economy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEach and every month 100,000 new jobs are required to adjust for new entrants ( graduates and young people) and those that exit (retirement and death). This does not include any unemployed or underemployed. So these monthly increases of 50k to200K are not making much of a dent in real unemployment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEach and every month 100,000 new jobs are required to adjust for new entrants ( graduates and young people) and those that exit (retirement and death). This does not include any unemployed or underemployed. So these monthly increases of 50k to200K are not making much of a dent in real unemployment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEach and every month 100,000 new jobs are required to adjust for new entrants ( graduates and young people) and those that exit (retirement and death). This does not include any unemployed or underemployed. So these monthly increases of 50k to200K are not making much of a dent in real unemployment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy benefits were cut -- I'm paying about $3,000 more in medical expenses due to Obama-care, and I'm paying $4,000 more in taxes. Inflation eats up another 10% of my income, because my salary increases have averaged 1% since 2008, while inflation has been at least 14% since then. Obama's website during the campaign promised me a $2,000 tax cut -- I put in my income and ran his "calculator" to check it out. Anyone doing better than in 2008? Oh, that's right, Obama's FRIENDS are getting better benefits and million-dollar bonuses. And he has single-handedly saved "millions" of jobs. Hah! We don't need to keep government make-work jobs in the face of our debt crisis.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEveryone knows these numbers are government BS. If you still have a job you have plenty of family and friends who don't.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConsidering demographics indicate more than 2 million young adults are entering the labor force each year, and another 1 million are immigrating into the USA, Obama's ability to lose 50,000 jobs in three years translates into a real unemployment increase of over 9 million since he took office (+6% -- that is, a total of up to much more than 10% now). The only way the unemployment statistic could be recorded as low as 8.5% (13 Million) is if one considers Christmas seasonal jobs as real employment growth. Nonsense. The reason why the White House took over the Census Bureau in 2009 was just so that they could manipulate these statistics to their advantage. The Obama administration knew without doubt that their policies would cause MASSIVE increases in unemployment, which requires MASSIVE deficit spending (or so they believe), thereby assuring votes for 2012. Expect more lies regarding unemployment statistics coming out of the White House during 2012.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse