Numbers in Thousands.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
(http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm)
The chart above was taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics August 2012 Employment Statistics, Table A-1.1 The last line in the chart is a calculation function, added by me, of the number of jobs per population. The “big number,” the unemployment percentage that catches everyone’s attention, has dropped slightly, but so has the number of people in the labor force; the number of people who have dropped out of the labor force keeps rising.
The calculation I added shows one thing very clearly: there are fewer jobs available per person; the job market under President Obama has not improved, but has gotten worse, and was virtually identical in August of 2012, when unemployment was listed as 8.1% to August of 2011, when unemployment was listed at 9.1%. When President Obama tells us that things are getting better, even if too slowly, he is lying to you; things are getting worse under his leadership.
- The data at this link change every month; the data used were accessed on Saturday, September 8, 2012. ↩
It is a fact that Congressional Republicans have exerted maximum effort to prevent President Obama and the Dems from putting into place policies which would have improved the job picture and simultaneously cut the deficit.
What better time to stimulate the economy more than when interest rates are near zero, then to close the deficit gap with the resultant increased revenue without a large tax increase or austere spending cuts. This was the reason for the ARA law, which did indeed stimulate the economy, as the data on jobs created, and the increase in the GDP proved.
Last Fall, President Obama and the Dems understood that more stimulus was needed, so the jobs bill was introduced which the Republicans promptly rejected.
Now our Editor here comes back with data indicating the gradual decline in our economy since.
Isn’t it remarkable that the Republicans refuse to cooperate in this measure whose first iteration worked, then criticize when the slight slowing down could have been prevented?
This is the same Republican strategy which attempts to essentially blame the President and his Party for the negative effects of the Great Recession which was occurring in full force in January 2009 the day they stepped into power, then refusing to work with the other side to work out appropriate actions.
We never ever hear from our Editor or from the Republicans exactly what they would have done to recover the economy by now to where it was before the Great Recession hit. No, it is all criticism, nothing positive, regarding the effects of their policies from January 2009 to this date, given that their policies prior to January 2009 caused the Great Recession. Do Republicans have short memories, or is their thinking delusional, or both. You choose!
And worse, they are campaigning on restoring the exact same policies which produced this Great Recession: Reduce taxes, especially for the 1%, and remove regulations.
This is ideological insanity!
The Repubican Party leaders are incapable of conceiving long term solutions, and their lemmings back them to the hilt, including some on this blog.
Long term thinking involves invoking some additional stimulation, the phasing in of the ACA which will produce savings in Medicare, Medicaid, and out-of-pocket health care costs to employers and employees alike in the long run, and already have. Long term thinking involves making the military more efficient while simultaneously gradually cutting the DoD budget. Long term thinking involves upgrading our K-12 schools, and making it easier for qualified students to get advanced academic and vocational training. Long range thinking involves exploiting our newly discovered natural gas resources here at home, and continuing the move to non-fossil fuel sources of energy.
Why are we not hearing about long-range thinking from the Republicans?
My overall point is that we have to do the cutting gradually, which in ten years will cut $4.5 T in spending, while continuing the stimulus for infrastructure purposes, spreading this stimulus over longer periods of time. This is the Dem way, and sounds pretty good to me. I would like the Republicans to join in to work out the details of our future activities.
WW complained:
You are joking, right? He had two years of a virtually rubber-stamp Congress, and couldn’t get the economy going. Nor did he have any serious plans to cut the deficit. Even in his FY2013 budget proposal, which assumes that he’ll get the budget passed as submitted, he projected larger deficits than any run by President Bush.
Well, that’s the Keynesian meme, but when have we ever seen this put into practice? The last time the budget was balanced, it was because total federal spending was cut, cut to levels far lower than what President Obama has projected to spend.
And, of course, we tried what you have suggested already, and it didn’t work.
The misbegotten stimulus plan was signed into law in March of 2009, but the employment/population ratio continued to slowly decline throughout the stimulus plan. A low point of 58.2 jobs per 100 population was reached in December of 2009, with a couple of upticks, 58.7 being reached in April and May of 2010, but it dropped back to the Obama Administration norms soon enough, 58.3, 58.2 and 58.3 in the last three months of 2010, when the Democrats still controlled both Houses of Congress. Despite the stimulus plan, despite doing exactly what you said should be done, despite complete Democratic control, the number of jobs per population steadily declined.
And, of course, the statistic you don’t want to hear: despite a recession to start his term, and a fading economy at the end, the number of jobs per 100 people under George Bush never dropped below 61.0, not once, not one single time, never.
Why wouldn’t we want to pass another stimulus plan? Because the first one a trillion dollars to te national debt, and didn’t work. The ration of jobs per population today is as bad as the worst of the recession, despite President Obama’s “leadership,” despite the passage of the stimulus plan. President Obama’s policies didn’t work!
Sandra Fluck will be pleased to hear that. Maybe she can get the government to force the taxpayers to give her ribbed rubbers!
There is no one on this planet stupid enough to believe that. If you want to improve efficiency and cut costs, the LAST thing you do is get the government involved.
Will you stop lying about the “Great Recession”? What we had was a temporary financial crisis that (according to the experts) the TARP bailout took care of. The rest occurred under Obama’s watch. Most recessions last about 18 months, Obama’s has lasted 4 years.
Don’t forget the unelected and unaccountable EPA has cost the US a lot of jobs in electric production and coal mining. So don’t put all the emphasis on “Jobs Bills” Problem is, this maladministration has given given us jobs alright, and no thank yous in the morning.
“Will you stop lying about the “Great Recession”? What we had was a temporary financial crisis that (according to the experts) the TARP bailout took care of. The rest occurred under Obama’s watch. Most recessions last about 18 months, Obama’s has lasted 4 years.”
Bravo, Eric. As a PROFESSIONAL, EDUCATED and CERTIFIED economist, I agree! This “great recession” crap is just that, CRAP. When Romney wins the entire country will begin to move. I’d bet even before January 20th, we’ll see an upturn in the economy. You know why Wagonwheel? Cause there would be HOPE AND CHANGE! Stupid people vote Democrat, we don’t.
We gotta get rid of this stupiud looser. Romney/Ryan!!!
[...] The First Street Journal digs deeper into the unemployment numbers [...]
” It is a fact that Congressional Republicans have exerted maximum effort to prevent President Obama and the Dems from putting into place policies which would have improved the job picture and simultaneously cut the deficit.”
Really? How about the Dems try passing a damn budget first, then we’ll talk.
“Isn’t it remarkable that the Republicans refuse to cooperate….”
” …then refusing to work with the other side to work out appropriate actions.”
“I would like the Republicans to join in to work out the details of our future activities.”
All three of your statements are lies. They’re lies because if you really wanted to cooperate, work together and “join” you wouldn’t keep calling us racists, anti-woman, cowards, unpatriotic, greedy and all your other ugly, vulgar and low-life names. You’re like a wife beater. You think you and your party can slap us around then in the morning we’re gonna wake up and smooch with ya. Wrong again. We’re not NAZI’s, we’re not racists, we don’t want to “suppress” anyone’s vote, we don’t have a war on women, we’re not cowards, nor Machiavellian. We’re Americans who have a vision of a great country guided by LIBERTY, not sloth, not dependence and not some ass-hole bureaucrat telling us how much soda we can drink.
The problem with you leftists is that you’ll never understand conservatives. Our problem is we DO understand you liberals and exactly what you want: to fundamentally change the United States. We don’t need changin’. We don’t need to be a socialist sewer like France or Greece. We don’t need to be a communist pig sty like North Korea or Cuba. We need to be, should I say remain the becon of Freedom and Light in a world dominated by people like yourself who wish to dictate how others live, what others may earn and how others will “belong to their govenment”. We don’t boo God, we don’t use abortion as birth control and we don’t think black Americans are so stupid they can’t get an ID card.
And if you believe a statement like: “The Repubican Party leaders are incapable of conceiving long term solutions, and their lemmings back them to the hilt, including some on this blog.” is going to win friends and influence people you’re sadly mistaken.
Real Unemployment at 19%
by Wynton Hall 8 Sep 2012 (same data date above)
Beneath the surface of Friday’s jobs report lies the reality of just how disastrous the Obama economy truly is. Consider the following 11 economic facts:
1. When you include the underutilized labor figure with the eight million Americans who have lost hope altogether and stopped looking for a job, real unemployment now stands at just under 19 percent.
2. If the labor force were the same as when President Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate reported on Friday would be 11.2 percent.
3. A record 88,921,000 Americans are no longer in the labor force. To be included in that figure, an individual must be over 16 years of age, a civilian, not in a mental hospital or nursing home, and have stopped hunting for a job for at least four weeks.
4. The average American lost 40 percent of their wealth from 2007 to 2010.
5. Every fifth man in America is out of work.
6. One out of two Americans are now low-income or below the poverty line.
7. Over the past four years, 400,000 food stamp recipients a month have been added to the welfare dole.
8. In 2006-2007, 90 percent of college graduates landed jobs. Under Obama, just 56 percent find work after college.
9. A gallon of gasoline cost $1.84 when Obama entered office. Today, a gallon of gas costs $3.77.
10. Every fourth home mortgage in America is underwater.
11. Under Obama, healthcare costs have skyrocketed 18.9 percent.
The latest Gallup tracking poll shows Mr. Obama leading Republican challenger Mitt Romney 49 to 45 percent.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/08/Real-Unemployment-Now-19