Unemployment is the key issue we presently face

On Presidents Day, many in the private sector are working. This is because this is one of the holidays that private companies don't offer, but rest assurred, your local, state & federal employees are enjoying a long weekend.

For others, it is just another day of looking for work. This is the defining issue of the upcoming election. Gay marriage,immigration and other issues are important, but until Americans can get back to work and at a good wage, there is no more pressing issue for deciding our next election.


CBO: U.S. enduring the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression
By ALEX M. PARKER- US News
February 16, 2012

After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today.

And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven't sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.

The CBO made its comments in a report examining the long-term effects of joblessness, and possible policy options to boost employment, including unemployment insurance reforms and job training programs. The report came at the request of Democratic Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, but Republicans quickly jumped on the chance to bash President Obama's stimulus program, which is also reaching its three-year anniversary today.

"The stimulus is a stark reminder of how the president got the policies he wanted, and how those policies have failed the American people and are making things worse," said Texas Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling

A pair of feckless Pols who haven't got a clue.....

Yoda: Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.

At times like this, it is hard to decide whether Master Yoda was speaking about The Sith or Politics in Washington DC and Beacon Hill in Boston.

The Feckless POL who sits in the White House taking temper tantrums because the world refuses to recognize his "alledged greatness" got another in a long line of "reality checks" as the unemployment figures from June show that the majority of states saw an increase in their unemployment rates, with the 2nd largest group having their rates remain unchanged.....Pain & misery for all those who are seeking jobs and/or losing homes, amounting to further evidence that this idiot who was elected by those who bought into his "hopey changey" BS is as shallow as piss on a flat rock.

To think that you could have the unmitigated gall to try for a 2nd term when your first term is so marked with incompetence....His Presidency is a new high-water mark in political train wrecks and he & his feckless comrades want to try to bull-shite their way into 4 more years of this drivel.....it defies all common sense.


States see unemployment rates rise
UPI July 23, 2011

WASHINGTON, July 23 (UPI) -- Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia saw their unemployment rates increase in June, the U.S. Labor Department said.

In June, 14 states saw no change in their unemployment rates, while eight states recorded decreases, the department said in report released Friday.

The number of jobs rose in 26 states and the District of Columbia, while 24 states saw the number of jobs decline.

Texas added the most non-farm jobs in June, gaining by 32,000. California added 28,800 jobs in the month -- having lost 29,200 in the previous month -- while Michigan added 18,000 jobs in June.

The largest declines were posted by Tennessee, which lost 16,900 jobs. Missouri lost the second largest number, down 15,700. In Virginia, 14,600 jobs were lost in the month.

The unemployment rate is highest in Nevada, where the rate jumped from 12.1 percent in May to 12.4 percent. California's unemployment rate, second highest in the nation, is 11.8 percent.

North Dakota, on the other end of the spectrum, has an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, the lowest in the country, but a sharp jump from the 3.2 percent unemployment rate for the state in May.

The national unemployment rate was 9.2 percent in June


And then there's this....It seems that Governor "Spend-it-all" Deval Patrick needs to learn that " Denial " is not just a river in Egypt.....what a putz.


Gov. Deval Patrick doubts high jobless rate will cost Obama his job
By Thomas Grillo
Friday, July 22, 2011 - Boston Herald

While touting Massachusetts’ success at putting people back to work, Gov. Deval Patrick predicted yesterday that his pal President Obama won’t lose his job because of the nation’s high unemployment rate.

“I don’t think that any economic indicator will determine who the next president is,” Patrick told the Herald. “I think the economy is incredibly important, but I think it’s most important that people realize that this president has a plan for investing in our growth.”

Nate Little, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said Patrick’s comments show that the governor is out of touch.

“Isn’t the oldest saying in the book people vote with their pocketbooks?” Little said. “And I have no doubt that they’re going to next November. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ still holds true.”

Patrick, who won re-election last year despite a high jobless rate and has pledged not to run again, frequently boasts that the Bay State’s unemployment rate — which remained unchanged at 7.6 percent in June — is better than the 9.2 percent national average, which has increased in recent months.

“We have an unemployment rate which is well below the national average,” said Patrick yesterday. “We have been growing jobs here in the Commonwealth faster than 46 other states and that’s not by accident. We have a strategy based on investing in education and innovation and infrastructure and it’s working. But at 7.6 percent here in the Commonwealth, we still have a lot of people out of work so we have to keep going and I’m determined to do that until everybody who seeks work can find it.”In fact, 263,800 Bay State residents remain unemployed and major employers continue to move high-paying jobs out of state.

“They are dealing with growing pains and economic adjustments like everyone else,” Patrick said of companies that are moving jobs out of Massachusetts. “I’m obviously concerned about any individual whose life and family has been disrupted because of some of the decisions of those firms, but we are doing everything we can in every sector to expand opportunity and we are playing a long game here.”

While the state lost 4,100 jobs in May, the Patrick administration reported that Massachusetts added 10,400 jobs in June, which is astonishingly more than half the new jobs created in the entire United States — a meager 18,000 — last month. The state unemployment rate is based on a monthly sample of households, while the job estimates are derived from a monthly sample survey of employers, which is why the two statistics for June exhibit different trends

The Unemployment Numbers are an " Unmitigated Disaster" - the real numbers are much, much worse....bleak times for US Workforce

Here are some of the remarks made by economists based on the updated Unemployment Rate released on Friday:

" Unmitigated Disaster ", " It will be many years before the nation eliminates the current shortfall in jobs ", "We can see no silver lining in this employment report, which is weak, weak, weak."

You get the picture. Too bad the empty suit in the White House doesn't get it as he is trying to say he deserves another 4-year term to keep driving the American Economy into the ground. If your job performance at work was a poor as his, you would have been fired about a year into the job. Too Bad we can't do that with Obama.

The DEMS in Congress are Obama's cheerleaders and equally culpable. The GOP will only help if it suits their political gains and ultimately, the US Taxpayers are the ones getting screwed.

Well, let's interject some sobering reality into the situation - If you look at and include those who have fallen off the numbers who are counted, the unemployment issue is much, much worse than the present resident of the White House would like to admit...any wonder why some would seek work outside the US (or in Afghanistan) if this is the situation back home ?


Without Dropouts, Jobless Rate Would Be Over 11%
Wall Street Journal - July 8, 2011

The unemployment rate increased to 9.2% in June, the Labor Department reported, but if the recession hadn’t pushed so many people out of the labor market it would have been much worse.

The duration of unemployment continues to increase and sat at an average of 39.9 weeks in June. More than four million people who want jobs, or nearly a third of the unemployed, have been out of work for more than a year. Those are the people are hanging in and looking for work, but a large number have given up altogether.

The share of the population in the jobs market, called the labor-force participation rate, fell to 64.1% last month — the lowest level since 1984 when women were still just beginning to enter in full force. The participation rate peaked in 2000 and has been steadily declining since as the effect of women taking full-time jobs plateaued and Baby Boomers began to retire, but the decline accelerated sharply during the recession. The participation rate was 66% at the start of the recession and 65.7% when the recovery started in June 2009. If the participation rate were still at that level, the unemployment rate would be more than 11% right now.

With nearly a third of the unemployed out of work for over a year, it makes their reintegration back into the labor market more and more difficult. People out of a job that long tend to lose skills and experience long-term effects on their lifetime earning power. It’s even harder to reintegrate workers who have dropped out altogether.

There’s also a problem of underemployment. A comprehensive gauge of labor underutilization, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. That number shot up in June to 16.2% from 15.8% a month earlier.

The U-6 figure includes everyone in the official rate plus “marginally attached workers” — those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that’s all they could find. People who drop out of the labor force completely aren’t included in this tally.

Sometimes the jobless rate can rise because people re-enter the work force. That can be a positive sign for the economy, indicating a strengthening labor market and improved confidence. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case in June. The number of people in the labor force dropped last month, while the number of people employed tumbled and the number of unemployed increased.

Unemployment is 16% - We now have more idle men and women than at any time since the Great Depression....

If you believe the crap the press is putting out, they keep bleating about the economy getting better and jobs being created....well, REALITY is something the media has never really gained a good grasp of....especially when they are trying to prop up their Chosen One....

The millions who have been hurt by the lack of real Leadership over the past 2 1/2 years know the real story....Regardless of what you might read elsewhere, the enclosed report from US News & World Report brings the issue into clear focus.

16% of Americans who want work are either w/o work, settled for part-time work or gave up looking all together.....This was not the CHANGE the Knuckle-Head-in-charge promised but based on his track record, it was easy to see that this would be the outcome of electing a feckless community organizer who has no business running our country.....It was like handing the keys for a brand new Corvette to a 17 year old kid and knowing what the outcome would be, but doing it anyway.....This is why I still display the McCain for President bumperstickers on the back of my p/u truck....so people know that I didn't help elect the Idjit-in-Charge

Why the Jobs Situation Is Worse Than It Looks
We now have more idle men and women than at any time since the Great Depression
By Mortimer B. Zuckerman - U.S.News & World Report 06/20/11

The Great Recession has now earned the dubious right of being compared to the Great Depression. In the face of the most stimulative fiscal and monetary policies in our history, we have experienced the loss of over 7 million jobs, wiping out every job gained since the year 2000. From the moment the Obama administration came into office, there have been no net increases in full-time jobs, only in part-time jobs. This is contrary to all previous recessions. Employers are not recalling the workers they laid off from full-time employment.

The real job losses are greater than the estimate of 7.5 million. They are closer to 10.5 million, as 3 million people have stopped looking for work. Equally troublesome is the lower labor participation rate; some 5 million jobs have vanished from manufacturing, long America's greatest strength. Just think: Total payrolls today amount to 131 million, but this figure is lower than it was at the beginning of the year 2000, even though our population has grown by nearly 30 million. [Check out a roundup of political cartoons on the economy.]

The most recent statistics are unsettling and dismaying, despite the increase of 54,000 jobs in the May numbers. Nonagricultural full-time employment actually fell by 142,000, on top of the 291,000 decline the preceding month. Half of the new jobs created are in temporary help agencies, as firms resist hiring full-time workers.

Today, over 14 million people are unemployed. We now have more idle men and women than at any time since the Great Depression. Nearly seven people in the labor pool compete for every job opening. Hiring announcements have plunged to 10,248 in May, down from 59,648 in April. Hiring is now 17 percent lower than the lowest level in the 2001-02 downturn. One fifth of all men of prime working age are not getting up and going to work. Equally disturbing is that the number of people unemployed for six months or longer grew 361,000 to 6.2 million, increasing their share of the unemployed to 45.1 percent. We face the specter that long-term unemployment is becoming structural and not just cyclical, raising the risk that the jobless will lose their skills and become permanently unemployable. [See a slide show of the 10 best cities to find a job.]

Don't pay too much attention to the headline unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. It is scary enough, but it is a gloss on the reality. These numbers do not include the millions who have stopped looking for a job or who are working part time but would work full time if a position were available. And they count only those people who have actively applied for a job within the last four weeks.

Include those others and the real number is a nasty 16 percent. The 16 percent includes 8.5 million part-timers who want to work full time (which is double the historical norm) and those who have applied for a job within the last six months, including many of the long-term unemployed. And this 16 percent does not take into account the discouraged workers who have left the labor force. The fact is that the longer duration of six months is the more relevant testing period since the mean duration of unemployment is now 39.7 weeks, an increase from 37.1 weeks in February. [See a slide show of the 10 cities with highest real income.]

The inescapable bottom line is an unprecedented slack in the U.S. labor market. Labor's share of national income has fallen to the lowest level in modern history, down to 57.5 percent in the first quarter as compared to 59.8 percent when the so-called recovery began. This reflects not only the 7 million fewer workers but the fact that wages for part-time workers now average $19,000—less than half the median income.

Just to illustrate how insecure the labor movement is, there is nobody on strike in the United States today, according to David Rosenberg of wealth management firm Gluskin Sheff. Back in the 1970s, it was common in any given month to see as many as 30,000 workers on the picket line, and there were typically 300 work stoppages at any given time. Last year there were a grand total of 11. There are other indirect consequences. The number of people who have applied for permanent disability benefits has soared. Ten years ago, 5 million people were collecting federal disability payments; now 8 million are on the rolls, at a cost to taxpayers of approximately $120 billion a year. The states today owe the federal insurance fund an astonishing $90 billion to cover unemployment benefits. [See cartoons about the deficit and debt.]

In past recessions, the economy recovered lost jobs within 13 months, on average, after the trough. Twenty-three months into a recovery, employment typically increases by around 174,000 jobs monthly, compared to 54,000 this time around. In a typical recovery, we would have had several hundred thousand more hires per month than we are seeing now—this despite unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus (including the rescue of the automobile industry, whose collapse would likely have lost a million jobs). Businesses do not seem to have the confidence or the incentive to add staff but prefer to continue the deep cost-cutting they undertook from the onset of the recession.

But hang on. Even to come up with the 54,000 new jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics assumed that 206,000 jobs were created by newly formed companies that its analysts believe—but can't prove—were, in effect, born in May under the so-called birth/death model, which relies primarily on historical extrapolations. Without this generous assumption in the face of a slowing economy, the United States would have lost jobs in May. Last year the bureau assumed that 192,000 jobs were created through new start-ups in the comparable month, but on review most of them eventually had to be taken out, as start-ups have been distressingly weak given the lack of financing from their traditional sources such as bank loans, home equity loans, and credit card lines. [Read more stories on unemployment.]

Where are we today? We have seemingly added jobs, but it is not because hiring has increased. In February 2009 there were 4.7 million separations—that is, jobs lost—but by March 2011 this had fallen to 3.8 million. In other words, the pace of layoffs has diminished, but that is not the same thing as more hiring. The employment numbers look better than they really are because of the aggressive layoffs in the early part of this recession and the reluctance of American business to rehire workers. In fact, the apparent improvement in job numbers has been made up of one part extra hiring and two parts reduced firing.

Even during past recessions, American firms still hired large numbers of workers as part of the continual cycle of replacing employees. Of the 150 million workers or job seekers in America, about one third turn over in a typical year, leaving their old jobs to take new ones. High labor "churn" is characteristic of our economy, reflecting workers moving to better jobs and higher wages and away from declining sectors. As Stanford business professor Edward Lazear explains so clearly in the Wall Street Journal, the increase in job growth over the past two years is attributable to a decline in the number of layoffs, not from increased hiring. Typically, when the labor market creates 200,000 jobs, it has been because 5 million were hired and 4.8 million were separated, not just because there were 200,000 hires and no job losses. But when an economy has bottomed out, it has already shed much of its excess labor, as illustrated by the decline in layoffs—from approximately 2.5 million in February 2009 to 1.5 million this April. In a healthy labor market like the one that prevailed in 2006 and into 2007, American firms hired about 5.5 million workers per month. This is now down to about 4 million a month. Quite simply, businesses have been very disciplined in their hiring practices. [Read Zuckerman: America's Fading Exceptionalism.]

We are nowhere near the old normal. Throughout this fragile recovery, over 90 percent of the growth in output has come from productivity gains. But typically at this stage of the cycle, labor has already taken over from productivity as the major contributor of growth. That is why we generally saw nonfarm payroll gains exceeding 300,000 per month with relative ease. This time we have recouped only 17 percent of the job losses 23 months after the recession began, as compared to 207 percent of the jobs lost from previous recessions (with the exception of 2001). There is no comfort either in two leading indicators of employment, with no growth in the workweek or in factory overtime.

Clearly, the Great American Job Machine is breaking down, and roadside assistance is not on the horizon. In the second half of this year (and thereafter?), we will be without the monetary and fiscal steroids. Nor does anyone know what will happen to long-term interest rates when the Federal Reserve ends its $600 billion quantitative easing support of the capital markets. Inventory levels are at their highest since September 2006; new order bookings are at the lowest levels since September 2009. Since home equity has long been the largest asset on the balance sheet of the average American family, all home­owners are suffering from housing prices that have, on average, declined 33 percent (compare that to the Great Depression drop of 31 percent). [See a slide show of the 10 cities with the lowest real income.]

No wonder the general economic mood is one of alarm. The Conference Board measure of U.S. consumer confidence slumped to 60.8 percent in May, down from 66 percent in April and well below the average of 73 in past recessions, never mind the 100-plus numbers in good times. Never before has confidence been this low in the 23rd month of a recovery. Gluskin Sheff's Rosenberg captured it perfectly: We may well be in the midst of a "modern depression."

Our political leadership in both Congress and the White House will surely bear the political costs of a failure to work out short- and long-term programs to fix the job shortage. The stakes are too high to play political games.