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Posts Tagged ‘March Jobs Report’

The Obama Boom: 88,000 jobs created in March, but 496,000 leave the workforce

by Phantom Ace ( 109 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Economy, Progressives, Socialism, unemployment at April 5th, 2013 - 11:30 am

The media has been trumpeting that the economy is running on all cylinders. Thanks to Ben Bernanke’s infusion of $80 billion a month into the financial sector the Stock Market is at record highs. The dirty little secret is that the actual value of the stock market is lower due to a devalued dollar. But it does not matter, the media is claiming we are back in the 90’s again and Obama is awesome. Reality is a starkly different story altogether.

March’s jobs numbers were very disappointing. Only 88,000 jobs were created for the month. The media will trumpet the drop in the unemployment rate to 7.6% as a positive. What they will not tell the public is that the drop is due to 496,000 people leaving the labor force. Want to bet the majority will be put on disability?

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up in March (+88,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment grew in professional and business services and in health care but declinedin retail trade.Both the number of unemployed persons, at 11.7 million, and the unemployment rate, at 7.6 percent, were little changed in March. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (6.9 percent), adult women (7.0 percent), teenagers (24.2 percent), whites (6.7 percent), blacks (13.3 percent), and Hispanics (9.2 percent) showed little or no change in March. The jobless rate for Asians was 5.0 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

In March, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 4.6 million. These individuals accounted for 39.6 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.)

The civilian labor force declined by 496,000 over the month, and the labor force participation rate decreased by 0.2 percentage point to 63.3 percent. The employment- population ratio, at 58.5 percent, changed little. (See table A-1.)

The jobs reports confirms the economy is not booming as the media claims it was. Zerohedge has an even darker and stark analysis of the numbers. The labor force participation rate is at 35 year low!

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% – the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is “improving.”

Check out the charts Zerohedge has on this subject. It’s very frightening.

The economy is not roaring or on fire as the media has been claiming. Food stamps and disability claims continue to rise. This indicates an anemic recovery that is not benefiting American workers. Most of the job growth has been in low wage, part time jobs. The Obama Boom is the worse recovery on record.

None of this will matter to most Americans anyway. The media will continue to tell the American public that the economy is booming. OFA will send email talking points out and do Facebook postings extolling the Obama economy. The American public will continue to love Obama as their god-king. No bad news hurts this guy, even bad economic data.

Update: 81,000 people in March went on disability.

Almost as many people signed up with the federal government’s permanent worker disability program as got jobs in March, according to two sets of government data, continuing a troubling trend throughout the Obama recovery.

Last month, 81,804 workers left the workforce to join the Social Security Disability Insurance program. So far this year, nearly a quarter million workers have joined the program.

Over the past four years, 4 million left the workforce to go on disability. Even after accounting for those who dropped out of the program because of death or retirement, the ranks of the disabled have shot up more than 1.4 million under Obama.

This is where the people dropping off the rolls are going.

(Hat Tip: Iron Fist)

The Obama Boom Stalls: 120,000 Jobs created in March; Unemployment falls to 8.2%

by Phantom Ace ( 149 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Economy, unemployment at April 6th, 2012 - 11:30 am

After receiving media adulation the past few months as the best job growth since the 1990’s, the Obama Boom returns to form. Job growth for March fell to 120,000 created. This is below the 150,000 needed to keep up with population growth. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.2%. This fall was due to workers leaving the labor force and not job growth. This report was below the 200,000 estimate the media was expecting.

U.S. payrolls rose far less than expected in March, keeping the door open for further monetary policy support from the Federal Reserve, even as the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent.

Employers added 120,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October.

[….]

The weak employment growth last month likely reflected the fading boost from unseasonably warm winter weather. The payrolls count for January and February was revised to show just 4,000 more jobs created than previously reported.

The drop in the unemployment rate, to the lowest level since January 2009, reflected a drop in the labor force. The separate household survey, from which the jobless rate is derieved also showed a drop in employment.

This was a bad jobs report no matter how its spin. The Pharaoh in Chief with the assistance of his high priests (media) will claim times are good and these are good numbers. Hopefully Americans will not believe the lies. But seeing the hold the Pharaoh has in people, I will not count on it. The Obama Boom is a myth that refuses to die.

Update: Dorian Grey linked to a great article showing why the 8.2% rate is a bogus number. The real number should be 9.4% is people were not vdropped from the rolls.

Recall that back in 2009, White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer used their old-fashioned Keynesian model to predict how the $800 billion stimulus would affect employment. According to their model—as displayed in the above chart, updated—unemployment should be around 5.8% today.

But the true measure of U.S. unemployment is far worse:

1. If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.8% today down from last month—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%.

2. But what if you take into the account the aging of the Baby Boomers, which means the labor force participation (LFP) rate should be trending lower. Indeed, it has been doing just that since 2000. Before the Great Recession, the Congressional Budget Office predicted what the LFP would be in 2012, assuming such demographic changes. Using that number, the real unemployment rate would be 10.5%.

3. Of course, the LFP rate usually falls during recessions. Yet even if you discount for that and the aging issue, the real unemployment rate would be 9.4%.

4. Then there’s the broader, U-6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged plus part-timers who wish they had full time work. That unemployment rate, perhaps the truest measure of the labor market’s health, is still a sky-high 14.5%.

5. The employment-population ratio dipped to 58.5% vs. 61% in December 2008. An historically low level of the U.S. population is actually working.

The media can spin all they want, but the unemployment situation sucks.

(Hat Tip: Doriangrey)

The Obama Boom adds 216,000 jobs in March

by Phantom Ace ( 81 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Economy, Misery Index, Progressives at April 1st, 2011 - 11:30 am

Pop the corks everyone, good times are back. The greatest economic recovery in this quadrant of the Galaxy since the collapse of the Alpha Centurion Empire 100,000 years ago is lifting all boats. The economy added 216,000 jobs, thus giving the regime of Barack Obama something to crow about. The Progressive media is jumping for joy and will be running Obama Boom feel good stories.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate fell to a two-year low of 8.8 percent in March and companies added workers at the fastest two-month pace since before the recession began.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy added 216,000 new jobs last month, offsetting layoffs by local governments. Factories, retailers, education, health care and an array of professional and financial services expanded payrolls.

The second straight month of brisk hiring is the latest sign that the economy is strengthening nearly two years after the recession ended.

[…]

“The U.S. labor market is finally making some serious progress. No fooling,” said Sal Guatieri, economist at BMO Capital Markets Economics.

[….]

Workers’ paychecks were flat in March. Average hourly earnings held steady at $22.87, unchanged from February. Workers have little bargaining power to demand big pay raises because the job market is still healing slowly

Read the rest: Unemployment rate falls to 8.8 pct, two-year low

According to this survey, pay didn’t increase. Thus with surging oil prices, pay really declined. This doesn’t matter, all you will hear is about the strong labor market. What the media doesn’t tell people is that this is hiring season. There was a pop in hiring last year around this time and then it fizzled. With increasing inflation, expect to see businesses slow down the hiring. The Obama Boom had a decent month, but the jobs created are not jobs that one needs to get ahead in life. Until we get good paying jobs again in the American economy, our living standards will continue their 11 year stagnation. The US is rapidly becoming the new Argentina.

Note: Lobo points out that it takes 150,000 people just to keep up with population growth. This means in reality only 66,000 net jobs were added in March.