JOBS UP 288K, BUT LABOR FORCE SHRINKS BY 806K …
The U.S. economy added a whopping 288,000 jobs in April, according to official government data released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That’s the highest new job total recorded since January 2012 – and well above even the most optimistic forecast. Also, total employment in the United States is now less than 100,000 jobs away from matching its December 2007 (a.k.a. pre-recession) level.
Add it all up and the official unemployment rate plunged from 6.7 to 6.3 percent.
Celebration time, right?
Not so fast. Amidst all this good news, the nation’s workforce shrunk by 806,000 positions (from 156.2 million to 155.4 million) – dropping the labor participation rate from 63.2 to 62.8 percent. That print matches its 2013 low – which at the time was the lowest mark recorded in three-and-a-half decades.
Ready for the doom and gloom statistic? A record 92 million Americans are not part of the labor force.
Wanna see what that looks like visually? Of course not … it’s depressing. But it’s a reality we need to start addressing as a country, so here goes …
(Click to enlarge)
(Chart via Zero Hedge)
During U.S. President Barack Obama’s first full month of office in February 2009, the labor participation rate stood at 65.8.
(For more on what these numbers mean, CLICK HERE).
As for the quality of the jobs created, four of the top six industries were in the lowest-paying sectors – including leisure and hospitality, retail and temporary help.
60 comments
another BRILLIANT analysis fits. Labor participation rate is down from 6 years ago. These slack off, unpatriotic retiring baby boomers need to be marched into work camps to keep alive your dream of a free market economy. and what’s with these parents choosing to stay home with their babies instead of flipping burgers?? single income families place undue upward pressure on wages. can somebody please think of the job creators!?
I need a tax cut!
Two things:
#1
You missed that the story is unemployment has not responded to the Boomer retirement wave.
#2
The actual percentage of working age Americans with a job hasn’t actually changed from the previous month:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-04/number-working-age-americans-without-job-has-risen-27-million-2000
I don’t see Will decrying Boomers their retirement, I see him trying to put numbers in perspective.
That being said, the mistake Will makes is trusting that the government issued numbers aren’t being manipulated for political purposes, but I digress and in the big picture it doesn’t matter as you can cross reference like the link above to get a better idea of fact from fiction.
GDP 0.1, 288,000 new jobs, no wonder some people that want to increase minimum wage.
I would love to see Fits spend one week writing nothing but positive news at his usual posting rate.
Until Obama leaves the White House there is NOTHING BUT bad news. That B@$*@*d has been a F*#king Disaster. Despite the fact that he has a cult following of Dumb@$$#$ who refuse to admit what a mess he has made of America.
6.3% unemployment is a disaster? 13 million people able to obtain health insurance is a disaster? Deficit falling at fastest rate since WWII is a disaster? Once, just once, be factually objective and admit that 288,000 new jobs indicates an improving labor market. You can pee on the particulars if you want – but up is up, and down is down – and private companies are hiring.
where can i get me a pair of them there blinders you be wearing!
Damn Rocky.They told us yesterday that 33% of those that signed up for CastroCare on federal exchanges have NOT paid!
Let me do the math.Even using the fake number of 8.5 million sign ups,33 % have not paid and 6.5 million lost their insurance.
Appears we are at ZERO as the number that have obtained health insurance as Sebeliusbortion says if you have not paid you do not have insurance.
Sandy: Rocky openly admits his Obamacare plan costs him $900 more a year, but (somehow, in his mind) it’s worth it. That tells me all I need to know about any “data” that he submits.
Rocky is being paid by somebody connected to democrat propaganda politics. I BET you that…
What I see on the ground is no where near his claims.
I rarely disagree with you however in my opinion there is not a dem/lib/soc smart enough on FITS to earn a paycheck blogging ‘democratic propaganda politics’.
Just think socialists like Chris Matthews or Sharpton or Carney says it and they repeat it.
There was an article about paid liberal news site commentors a few months ago. Obama has spent A LOT of Our money trying to pop up his bad policies…That’s why I’m suspicious of Rocky.
I heard the same thing about the liberal commentors on the Rush program yesterday.
I don’t have an Obamacare plan. I have an ACA compliant plan through my employer. Yup, it went up $900 a year since 2011 – for an expanded coverage that includes no lifetime caps, no annual caps, expanded mental care treatments (sorry I can’t share that with you) and even birth control, allows me to keep my kids on it until they are out of college and / or grad school, low deductibles, moderate co-pays, blood tests and physicals 2x a year – on and on – plus really low cost prescription drugs. Sort of like trading in a Geo-Tracker for a BMW X3 – costs more – rides nicer.
I’m not paid by democratic propoganda – they make many offiers, but I’m too busy working and living in the real world.
Dang.Everybody I speak with had their deductibles go 100-300% and premiums rise 40-100% and/or losing their doctor and choice of hospital.I have one friend that signed up for Medicaid in Ohio months ago and still has not been processed.
Sounds more like trading in an Escalade for a Pinto or Pacer.
Rocky done got religion.
Tell it bro. You are describing what I’m hearing.
That other crap you were peddling makes you the ONE (kinda) success Obamacare success in the country. You’d be on every TV network and the front page of every establishment newspaper in America, if you really existed.
My employer has 7900 employees across the US – so I guess we’re all that ONE success Kinda – but again I get my insurance through the same old private provider system that’s existed well before ACA. So you don’t seem to get it – I don’t have exchange-provided coverage for an individual or family – I get my insurance through my employer. Then again – according to you all everyone is unemployed and poor. Well I’m not. Gosh, debating with you all is like trying to talk common sense with the militia guarding Cliven Bundy.
… and Bengazi as well
My deductible didn’t change one bit. My premium went up partly due to ACA changes and partly because it didn’t go up the last few years.
Oh, and I know someone who was covered by insurance for 15 years and got fucked out of coverage due to preexisting conditions. I’m glad I’ll never have to worry about that for myself or my family, even if you enjoy getting raped by for profit insurance companies.
…and Bengazi too
Rocky, be very careful with that info. The HATERS will accuse you of belonging to a UNION!
Good ol’ GOP fuzzy math. “The numbers are fake if I don’t like them, and I get to pretend the numbers I do like are completely factual and can only be broken down how I want!”
That you Jay Carney?
Nice little empty retort.
Your “33%” figure falls flat because those who purchased insurance after March 15th, which was a lot of people due to a stampede of last-minute signups, do not have to make their first payment until May. Wait until the true deadline for first premium payments for all exchange customers comes and get a hard, final number. Of course, it may not be something you like.
Your little “more people lost insurance” line is also utter bullshit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/01/06/the-gop-claim-that-more-americans-have-lost-insurance-than-gained-it-under-obamacare/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/mar/18/john-boehner/john-boehner-says-more-people-are-uninsured-obamac/
A huge number of the people whose coverage was discontinued were either automatically enrolled in an ACA-compliant plan or were insured otherwise.
Oh, and the uninsured rate keeps going down. Oops.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/167798/uninsured-rate-continues-fall.aspx?ref=more
Your turn, Reince Priebus.
Kinda like the economic boom in SC, right ?
Might need to do some additional calculations – you can’t pay the premium if you haven’t gotten the bill as of 4/15 – which if you read the CBS report – they a) expect the number paid to come in very high b) at this stage in the game even insurance industry folks are saying 70% paid is really, really good.
Tango was right. How much?
My calculations are closer to the truth than those from Kremlin D.C..
8.5 million signed up on federal exchanges
33% have not paid
______
roughly 5.7 million have insurance according to Sebelious
6.5 million LOST insurance
We are down about MILLION insured since Castro Care was implemented by the regime.
A VAST, VAST number of the US workforce is under-employed. I wonder how many of those “New Jobs” are PT. And: What is the average salary compared to 6 to 10 years ago???
Employers are doing all they can to avoid the paralyzing impact of Obamacare…remember the “Employee Mandate” was postponed until after the 2014 General Election, so the media can keep lying about the catastrophe of Obamacare, to try to save the US Senate o Obama cannot not be run over until the GOP gets a Conservative in the White House to get our country back…
24,000 – or about 8% of the total. The full time permanent jobs were broad based across most sectors including manufacturing, professional services, retail and construction.
What about salaries, compared to five years ago?
And can you give me a link?
You asked the number of temporary jobs – 24,000. Of those who left we do not know which ones gave up because they reached retirement age and retired, or those who stopped looking because the elected to stay at home (Moms), or who left the workforce to go back to schoool, or who simply wanted to become moochers. The report also doesn’t address wages. It simply says that there were 288,000 new jobs. Just google the report – it comes in PDF format from the BLS.
With 0.1 GDP Growth. These job numbers just do not seem realistic.
And we know the Obamacare sign-up numbers are massaged. Not to mention, these job numbers get revised…mostly downward w/ Obama, anyway…
Obama is SCARED TO DEATH, the US Senate will be over-run in Nov. And a GOP Senate is close to as bad news for him as losing the 2012 Election would have been to his obscene movement.
There is hit-or-miss (Lexington County, but not Richland) good news, if you look closely enough. Mostly in Conservative-based areas. But the idea that we are ANYWHERE near a recovery, jobs or anything else, is absurd, based on what I SEE, day-to-day…
Obama has lied over and over…I think he is lying here. And Rocky is just a soldier in Obama’s Department of Mis-Information.
I will say he appears to be one of the more intelligent,though misinformed ‘soldiers’ enlisted in pResident Obumbler’s mission to destroy America.
Obumbler apparently had another foreign policy success today as the radical islamists he and Hillary installed in Libya (like in Egypt) demonstrated their strength today by killing 6 more in Bengazi.
He’s not more intelligent, necessarily. It seems maybe he gets the Talking Points from the DNC before they filter down to the less literate liberals.
Rocky’s may just be better connected. (I I think paid.)…Their rank and file usually reference biased media accounts. At least Rocky is accessing (or being fed by) the BLS….
They are faxed into my brain around 2 a.m. every morning directly from the NSA and David Alexrod. I also have teleprompter contacts inserted into my eyes so I can type and read from them at the same time.
That’s a lie. Because you don’t disseminate new propaganda each day. You’ve peddled that Obamacare claim for weeks. The details just become more developed every few days.
The employment “data” just came out today. The rest of your “intelligence” is media cookie-cutter, that all the other minions regurgitate, but maybe yours sounds a little more official.
Well double thank you. Have a good weekend.
My apologies.You were right. Pravda would be proud.
Sounds like someone has ” hungchow “.
…not to mention Benghazi
Well thank you.
…and Benghazi
…and Benghazi.
Pssst! The IRS is feeling left out . . . and you know you don’t want to piss them off . . . .
Hell no! I ain’t paid taxes in a decade.
Hell, that’s the most important thing in SC.
I disagree!! Sorry Jay, I am a racist. I took the post down.
LOL Some people love playing the victim.
First thing I want to know every day when I get up.
I know alot of people will blame Obamacare and that is part of it, but the real reason businesses are not expanding is because of Dodd Frank and the banks inability to lend money. Banks can take almost zero risk when lending money now and so businesses can not get access to capital they need to grow. If the banks did start lending, this economy could easily grow at 4% or better and jobs would be plentiful, but this damn knee jerk reaction and killing the small banks is holding this economy back and making it a plow horse economy. Slow and somewhat steady.
About half of my friends my age cannot find jobs, so it makes sense. I saw a report on CBS today that said the real number is close to 92 million (out of work). But you know what, does it matter? Survival of the fittest! Sure, the economy is bad, but there is no use complaining about it. Most of the unemployed are not employed because they are not valuable assets. Until you know how to program, speak multiple languages, fix things, and/or have some actual skill, you can’t complain.
Many American have a steak taste on a hamburger budget . That’s part of the problem we now face from a long time ago. They feel entitled to a job, a house, a high salary, etc… They borrow to the max and then whine about now having enough money . Nice house , car or truck and boat. Can you afford them or does it really matter at this period of time?
Me – I’m going to constantly educate/improve myself. I’m going to rent until I have enough money to buy a comparable place in full. And only when I find a place I want to spend the rest of my life in.
While waiting for that, I will make smart decisions with my money:
1) Paying off my debts as they come to me. Never holding a credit card balance longer than a month. If this means living in a small studio apartment and eating ramen, rice, and beans, so be it.
2) I will always buy small, fuel efficient and durable cars. I drive a 2006 Honda Civic now. It costs me nothing to fill up and next to nothing to insure ($25/month from 4AutoInsuranceQuote… woohoo!). I will not drive when I don’t need to, and use public transportation whenever possible.
3) Developing multiple revenue streams. Doing side jobs. Building up small businesses. Doing contract work. Basically doing whatever I can to generate income from multiple sources.
4) Grow my revenue and assets no matter what. Make sure I am always expanding and develop them to the point that they consistently generate reliable cash flow.
5) I need life insurance to protect my daughter, but I ditched a $275 a month whole life policy for a policy from LifeAnt and now I only spend $25 a month. I save the difference to my Roth IRA.
6) The most important one – make as much as I can. Save as much as I can.
^ x 10, One of the most sensible post I have read in a long time.
Good luck young Lady but I’m sure luck has little to do with your situation. Having a plan, sticking to the plan and working hard at the plan will breed success. The bumps in the road will happen but use those bump to your advantage, learn from them and they will reenforce your belief in yourself. Wait for nothing or no one to improve your situation, you and you alone are in the drivers seat of your journey through life.
id your right. Move asap.
Move, why would I want to do that?
blame Obamacare
——-
and Benghazi
Nikki Haley’s economic miracle is why the stats are going way up.
Under Obama, more – by a LARGE margin – have been terminated, than new jobs announced. So it’s been more than five years of BAD news for Obama. No good news, that’s based in reality….
And: The democrat pollsters (including leftwing god, Jim Car-vile) have now issued an edict, warning democrat candidates not to use the term: RECOVERY…because people KNOW that’s a LIE.
To all people in SC, want to make money, move elsewhere. Plain and simple.
Bengazzi is the real reason SC is doomed. Check the facts. Move asap, for real. Add Obamacare and now you know, move from SC if you have a brain.
Is that an assembly line for the new “Republican Proof” pay toilets at US Airports?