How can you possibly fix the economy if you don't acknowledge the problem in the first place.
Last Friday the delusional Obama administration applauded the latest 'statistics' from the BLS - the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I prefer to call it these Bullshit Labor Statistics.
The BLS 'statistics' supposedly show that total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 295,000 in February, and the total unemployment rate edged down to 5.5 percent.
This is crap. Since 1994 the BLS rules were changed so as not to count 'long-term discouraged workers', ie the long term unemployed. These people are still unemployed. The BLS figures also do not count another category which includes short term unemployed workers who have stopped looking for work and other marginally attached workers, and workers who are part-time but want to work full-time.
When you add and adjust for these other categories the true unemployment rate is 23.2% which is an economic crisis level.
The BLS 'statistics' also hide other important information about the context and quality of jobs, and whether the jobs reflect a healthy or an unhealthy economy.
In reality, the context and quality is at an alarming low level:
1. Since February 2008, the size of the U.S. population has grown by 16.8 million people, but the number of full-time jobs has actually decreased by 140,000.
2. The percentage of working age Americans that have a job right now is still about the same as it was during the depths of the last recession. The chart below shows how the employment-population ratio has changed for the worse since the beginning of the decade.
3. Nearly 33 percent of Americans above age 16 are not part of the workforce, the highest number since 1978. As at February 2015, 92,898,000 Americans above age 16 are not part of the labor force. When President Obama took office in January 2009 this figure was 80,529,000, so the number has increased by nearly 12 million.
4. The quality of jobs continues to decline. Right now, only 44% of U.S. adults are employed for 30 or more hours each week.
5. Many millions of Americans are forced to take part-time jobs because that is all they can find. A staggering 39% of American workers make less than $20,000 a year, 52% of American workers make less than $30,000 a year, and almost three quarters or 72% of American workers make less than $50,000 a year.
6. The average duration of unemployment for an unemployed worker is still about twice as long as it was just prior to the last recession.
The United States is not just a nation in decline, but a nation in denial.
Old news is good news? I found most of this article in an October 2014 doomsday site http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-percent-of-american-workers-make-less-than-28031-dollars-a-year
The site's principal purpose is to sell self sufficient farms, emergency rations, water filters, bullion, pepper spray and of course, books on the end of the world. I was surprised not to find any firearms for sale. (Perhaps blocked from overseas view?)
That is not to say that I do not want to see the US adopt a more socially responsible economic doctrine and a focus on employment, but I would also like to see Indonesia review the death penalty, and Scotland win the cricket world cup. You can't always have what you want.
Posted by: PythonMagus | Tuesday, 10 March 2015 at 05:11 PM