The Stimulus Chart Obama Doesn’t Want You to See

By: Congressman Jim Jordan (Diary) | February 17th, 2012 at 03:30 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

Three years ago today, President Obama signed his infamous stimulus package into law. In exchange for $1.2 trillion (including interest), liberals said their plan would bring the unemployment rate down to about 6% today. It hasn’t fallen below 8% at any point in the last 36 months.

There has been a recent drop, though, which some Democrats claim as proof that their stimulus plan finally worked. But if that’s true, then where are the jobs?

As more and more people have learned recently, the official unemployment rate doesn’t actually count unemployed people who have given up looking for work. The above chart offers another look at the jobs data. It shows the “labor force participation rate,” which represents the share of working-age Americans who are either employed or unemployed but looking for work.

As you can see, only 63.7% of working-age Americans are currently in the workforce. The rate hasn’t been that low in almost 29 years! To put it another way, 36.3% of working-age Americans do not have a job and are not even looking.

Liberals think they can fabricate jobs by growing the government. What we need is to create jobs by growing the economy. That’s why conservatives in the Republican Study Committee are getting behind H.R. 3400, the Jobs Through Growth Act.

It ramps up energy production. It fights back against regulation-gone-wild. And it allows you to throw out the old tax code for one that’s simpler, flatter, and fairer.

The past three years have made clear what doesn’t work. Let’s go with what does.

COMMENTS

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Death_of_the_Donkey

The statistics behind this are pretty well documented. The majority of the decrease in the participation rate is coming from boomers leaving the workforce (just like people have always done once they start to hit 55 and at increasingly high numbers for each year after) and the continued decline in the participation rate of younger (16-24) workers who are staying in school longer (this decline has been in place since 1999). The recession has taken maybe a point off the participation rate, with other predicted and known trends making up for the rest.

http://redmeatconservative.blogspot.com/ Daniel Horowitz

your alacrity to be an obdurate contrarian might have forced you to collect your information from a cereal box.

The fact is a January 2012 CBO report (page 36) says that while

Death_of_the_Donkey

Other studies show different results.

From a Goldman Sachs report (From February 6):
o gauge the outlook for the participation rate, we update a model we developed last year. (For details see Sven Jari Stehn, ” Labor Force Participation: Only a Small Rebound in Sight,” US Economics Analyst, February 11, 2011.) The model identified the following three main determinants of the participation rate:

The age structure of the labor force. The demographic structure of the population matters because participation follows a distinct life cycle: it rises with age as teens enter the labor force, reaches a plateau between ages 25 and 55, and falls sharply thereafter due to retirement. Moreover, participation is higher for prime-age men than women, mostly due to child bearing. This life-cycle pattern can be seen by splitting the working-age population into four groups: young individuals (aged 16-24 years), prime-age men (25-54), prime-age women (25-54), and older individuals (55+). Specifically, in 2011 prime-aged individuals had much higher participation rates (89% for men, 75% for women) than young (at 55%) or older individuals (at 40%). The updated population controls from the 2010 Census revealed an increase in young and older workers relative to prime-age ones, pushing down the estimate for the aggregate participation rate.

Secular trends in within-age groups. The life-cycle profile of the gender-age group participation rates is subject to longer-term

skorrent1

The Boomers started turning 55 in 2000, after which their participation rate “falls sharply”. Youngins started staying in school longer in 1999. Therefore the chart should show a continuing decrease in participation rate from mid-05 to mid-08, and then a slight change in slope caused by the recession. Look at the chart! Doesn’t it show a pretty constant participation rate at or above 66% until mid-08 and then a sharp change in slope (starting right about the time it became clear Obamma would be elected) and continuing to this date? The data do not support your theories.

usanovak

I’m with you 100% … I can’t get the link to CBO reprot to open up. Try again.
Thanks. Jim

billyd

Are you serious? All of your statements are based on an absolute lack of a grasp on reality.
1. People do not retire at 55 unless they are working for the Government. In the private sector people don’t tend to “retire” until they have reached the age of 65 so they can collect the full amount of their Social Security payout. And if you haven’t noticed, the size of government has grown by 25% in the last 3 years. So if you really want to get technical, the private workforce (the one that actually pays for the public one) has actually shrank by more than this chart shows.
2. Why wuold you even try to throw out a BS statement like “this decline has been in place since 1999″ when the data is so easy to access…
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
You can change the length of the data in the chart right at the top of the screen. If you want to go back to 1990, you’ll notice that the Particpation rate hadn’t been below 66% for 14 straight years. It actually averaged 67% from 97 though 2001 which should actually be the baseline number for unemployment as the number of people working during a good economic stretch is an excellent indicator of people who actually want to work.

Death_of_the_Donkey

The decline I prefaced was in the 16-24 age group, and yes it has been in place since 1999. Also, the participation rates for both men (25-54) and women (25-54) had declined since their peaks in the late 90s up through 2007 (ie before the recession). As for the participation rates of the 55+ crowd here you go (these are all December 2007 rates):
50-54 – 81%
55-59 – 73%
60-64 – 53.2%
65-69 – 30.8%
70-74 – 16.8%

Also note that the biggest age cohort (in numbers terms) is the 45-54 group (by a large margin). In other words, assuming historic trends continue, we should expect to see large declines in the overall participation rate as those boomers retire in larger numbers than the groups coming behind them can replace. Demographics play a much larger role in the participation rate than you are trying to portray.

billyd

Your declines for those groups from 1999 though 2007 have to be offset by an increase in another age group or population sample. The workforce participation rate has remained steady during a 25 year stretch where the participation rate hovered around 66%. You can say that the participation rates for the young and women have declined but in order for the overall rate to remain where it is, someone other than the young or women had to take those jobs.

The average participation rate for all demographics has remained steady up until the last 3 years which is when it saw a substantial drop.

Here’s another great chart for you to see….
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm
Here’s a figure that you aren’t going to like…
2010 62-64 rate was 49.8%
2010 65 and older was 17.4%
Which means exactly what i stated. People aren’t retiring at 55, they are retiring after they hit 65 in order to maximize their social security benefits.
You’ll also notice in that chart that from 2000-2010

Death_of_the_Donkey

the participation rates of older americans has been rising for many years, BUT it is still much lower than the participation rates of the very large 25-54 cohort. Now that the 55+ demographic is growing by huge numbers each and every year, the overall participation rate is declining even though the rates of the 55+ crowd are increasing. What happened in the last 3 years (besides the recession)? The boomers started to turn 62 and become eligible for social security benefits. You cannot look at the participation rates in a vacuum, you need to attach population numbers to them to get the whole picture.
billyd

People aren’t retiring early due to a recession in order to collect a partial payment of Social Security. The fact is that people are working longer because they are living longer and have to afford their expenses which Social Security does a very poor job of covering.
Here’s another chart for you reflecting the participation rate for those in the core labor pool of 25 to 54 years of age…
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/02/goldman-no-labor-force-participation.html

You’ll notice that the participation rate was steady for both men and women in that core group from Jan 03 to mid 08. Then it began to fall off sharply from mid 08 to Jan 10 and then remained flat. That doesn’t mean that the people don’t want to work and are taking themselves out of the labor pool.
You’re assuming that people don’t want to work during a recession which is in direct contrast to the reality in america. Do you really think that people are losing their homes because they don’t want to work, or are they losing their homes because they can’t find work?
And as a final point… For every person that retires, there needs to be someone else to fill their job, unless of course that job no longer exists. Which would mean… The economy is still shrinking.
Death_of_the_Donkey

it was an employment-population chart. Completely separate things. And you are right about retirement (to some extent). For every retirement (which can drag on the labor force participation rate) we get a new hire (assuming that the job is filled), but we do not necessarily get a new entrant to the labor force. Which means, the unemployment rate goes down while the participation rate stays the same/goes down.

The fact is that boomers are retiring and in ever greater numbers and that this is going to keep a lid on the participation rate in the future. Even the calculated risk article you linked to has a link to a BLS study showing the projected rate out is even lower in the future than now (even after assuming a recovery).
billyd

is an estimate and then gives an opinion as to why that rate would fall. It says nothing about those who wish to work but can’t find a job. And the only way that the government can classify you as a participant in the workforce is if you are either employed, or collecting unemployment. Once you’ve exhausted your unemployment, you are no longer counted. That would explain the 1.2 million people who fell out of the laborforce between December and January.

Just so i’m clear on this one…. You’re saying that a chart that shows those that are employed out of the population isn’t reflective of the laborforce?

The facts are… The percentage of people who are considered part of the labor force is falling faster than it has in the history of the data being tabulated.

as far as the retire/hire and no new entrant. That is correct, however it would not affect either the labor force participation rate, or the unemployment rate as the unemployment rate is based on those who are counted as part of the labor force who are not currently working. What would cause the participation rate to go down would be the population increase without an equal increase in the number of jobs.

Then you can look at why people work. Why do people work? Well, people work to afford the lifestyle that they desire, which would go right in line with the steady increase in the workforce participation rate to it’s peak of just over 67% in the mid to late 90′s. People were entering the workforce because they wanted to increase their standing. Today, people are increasingly falling into the levels of poverty and food stamp qualification and yet, according to your reasoning, they are choosing not to work rather than being unable to find a job. I honestly hope you can see the flaws in your argument and the rational for the actual number of people who desire a job to be much higher than what the government currently classifies as the laborforce.
Finally, if you look at the original BLS data and go back to the last major recession (late 70′s) you’ll see the labor force actually increased, which would actually follow the rational of both the husband and wife looking for work in order to make ends meet. The main difference between then and now is that that recession didn’t last nearly as long as this one has.
jamesm

to all americans. Policy wonk stuff will not win elections. You might win an argument but lose the election.
billyd

And that’s what really pisses me off. The Republicans have all the information and the american people can see what is going on around them, yet you have the MSM saying things are better because the unemployment rate fell and they never mention that the number of people that do no work has drastically increased. The Republicans need to take charge of the media meme and throw out the participation rate every time they are in front of a camera. Say what you will about Pelosi and Wasserman-Schultz but at least they are willing to drive the meme and throw out their talking points no matter what topic is being discussed.

We have record foreclosures, and the government is telling us that the percentage of people who want to work is falling.
Death_of_the_Donkey

unemployment benefits have 0, zilch, nada, nothing to do with the unemployment rate/participation rate. Not up for argument. The unemployment rate/participation rate come from the Household Survey (72,000 households each month) conducted by the BLS and again has nothing to do with unemployment benefits. You are counted as in the labor force as long as you say that you want a job and are looking for one.

As for the 1.2 million people “leaving between December and january”, that is a garbage argument put forward by illiterates. If you read the BLS report, it clearly states that the 1.2 million is from a once in a decade revision they do because of the census data and that they even provided a nice little table to show what the change would have been without those revisions (a whopping 75,000).

It is very obvious from your postings that you have no idea how the statistics are derived at all. Please go read some of the methodologies before you spout off like you know what you are talking about.
billyd

however, your basic argument about the labor force participation rate dropping because of baby boomers still holds no water. And if you really want to try to nail someone, you should make sure that your figures are EXACTLY right. The survey is actually of 60000 households with an estimate of 110,000 working age people. Not the 72,000 you claimed.
So, the BLS calls 60,000 households for a maximum of 4 straight weeks to determine what the participation rate is and over the last 3 years, there has been a 2% greater chance that the people on the other end of that line will say that they have not looked for work in the last 4 weeks. You attribute that increase to an increase in retirements brough on by a baby boomer generation which is complete garbage.
So, what the chart in the posting shows is an unprecedented drop in the percentage of people who are part of the laborforce. Now, i would love for you to answer why foreclosures are up, and yet, more and more people have stopped trying to earn money.
Your two claims that the participation rate is dropping because people are staying in school longer and retiring at 55 both have no basis in reality. As shown in the data, people are not retiring at 55, but are at 65 (which is directly related to the amount of social security that can be collected at age 65), and the rate at which people are graduating college has been on a steady incline since the late 80′s with no spike begining in 08 to account for your claim (the actual laborforce percentage and unemployment percentages of college students was nearly identical between 09 and 10.
Death_of_the_Donkey

See this explanation of methodology if you are interested:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch1_f.htm

You are so wrong on the numbers, I don’t even know where to start. Up thread I posted the rates of participation for each 5 year age block (as reported by the BLS) starting at age 50 (even used pre-recession data to show the decline isn’t new). And again gross numbers matter. If a huge block of people go from participating at say 73% to 53% (the difference between 55-59 and 60-64 (ie before 65)), it will have a large negative effect on the participation rate. As for staying in school, I didn’t reference college graduates. It can be a combination of staying in high school, community college, or other training programs as well. And that trend has been in place for a while. Look at the drop in participation rate for the 16-24 cohort between 2000 and 2007.
billyd

Each month, about 72,000 housing units are assigned for data collection, of which about 60,000 are occupied and thus eligible for interview.
Here’s my favorite part… In 1999 the Participation rate was just over 67% and the BLS had a prediction for 2015 of a participation rate of 66.9%.
And can you please provide a link to your 07 data. Everything i’m seeing is for 2000 and 2010 and all of that data shows a greater percentage of those over 50 continuing to participate in the labor force.

55 and older workforce participation went from 32.4 to 40.2% from 2000 to 2010 which is contrary to your argument. In fact, every age demographic over the age of 55 shows a higher percentage of workforce participation between 2000 and 2010.
And dropping a huge block of people out of the workforce, only to have another huge block of people then enter the workforce to fill those jobs means that the participation rate shouldn’t change at all as the gross population stays the same only the employment variable has been moved from one group to the other.
Death_of_the_Donkey

You have to go to the data drop down at the top of the BLS homepage and then do the “one”screen” thing to get access to all the data and breakdowns.

As for the part rates of the 55+ going up, they did. However, the math works because those rates are still lower than the rates of the 25-54 population and the sheer number of boomers brings down the overall rate. And once again, please read the more recent studies by the BLS, Fed, or Goldman on future part rate predictions (or the social security administration form early 2008).

Math:

If a million people go from an age cohort that participated at 80% to one that participates at 50%, but only 500,000 move up into the 80% cohort, the participation rate falls (as for employment, the unemployment rate could then drop at a much sharper rate than would otherwise be predicated by a given job growth number).
billyd

The replacement factor of those entering the labor force who were not previously counted. For every person who leaves the workforce someone has to enter to fill that job, or the job must have been eliminated. You also don’t account for mortality rate increases with age which will also lessen the size of that demographic group.
The typical growth of the US population has increased by just under 1% on average which means that those entering the workforce must be greater than those leaving simply based on year over year population growth and a need to work.
So, if you actually had a 0% mortality rate, until the age of say 75, you would still have 1% more people entering the potential labor force each year simply based on population growth. Now when you calculate in mortality rate you get a much larger number of people entering the potential labor force than those leaving the labor force. And what the chart posted above shows is that the labor force over the last 3 years has dropped by a substantial amount at an incredibly fast rate.
calivancouver

So this chart shows that about 2-3% (66% to 63 ish% of the population has dropped out of the labor force. It is known that during recessions many people go back to school-finish GED’s, go to grad schools, finish four year degrees that they’ve been meaning to polish up on, enroll in community college.

This takes time, and once people are back in school, they need to finish. What happens when you abstract such people out of the Republican Study Committee’s raw presentation ?
renl57

Gallup just polls Americans and asks them two questions:

1. Are you unemployed right now even though you want to work?

2. Are you working part-time now even though you want to work full-time? (Gallup’s measure of underemployment)

These numbers fluctuate more than the Government’s numbers, because the Government does seasonal adjustment but Gallup does not.

And here’s the result:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152753/Unemployment-Increases-Mid-February.aspx

The unemployment rate has been declining until this month when there was a slight uptick. We’ll have to see if that’s a new trend or not.

The UNDEREMPLOYMENT rate has been rising for over a year now. Evidently millions of Americans have decided to work part-time since they can’t find full-time work.
Death_of_the_Donkey

Gallup fluctuates because it doesn’t adjust. If you want to quote unadjusted numbers, fine, but just be prepared to quote huge gains in March and April (something like 2 million jobs added in those two months alone last year).

Kyle-MI

Because your comments do not match with the actual data shown by this chart. For example, the line is flat from 2005 through the middle of the recession. It continues at a steady state down from that point up to today. Everything you cite effecting the labor participation rate also effects unemployment, so what is your objective data backing up your claim? Do you have numbers and links or are you just pulling stuff out of your fanny?

The recession has certainly accelerated early retirements and delayed younger workers from entering the marketplace, but this is out of necessity not a continuing trend. What else are these people suppose to do? People could take early retirement before because they had good savings and investment. The retirement investments have taken a hit along with everything else.

Finally, it does show that Obama’s stimulus has been a big nothingburger. The best you can say about the stimulus is that it had no effect. It hasn’t created or saved jobs. And it has been worse, because it has taken money out of the private sector both now and in the future through the debt.

Death_of_the_Donkey

I have lots more. Also see the Goldman study I quoted above as well. This trend didn’t sneak up on anyone. Heck, the Social Security Administration was predicting a participation rate of 64.x% for 2012 all the way back in 2008. Demographics are playing a huge role here, it just so happened that this recession coincided with boomers getting to the age where participation rates start to decline rapidly.

Kyle-MI

Your numbers are completely arbitrary. First you cite 55 as the magic early retirement number for baby boomers and then you cite 62.

Look, I am all for being up front on using data, but if this graph had been true for Bush during his first term, the press would be thrashing him mercilessly (and with good reason for a change).

Nothing you have presented dissuades me from using this chart to indicate that Obama’s employment policy has been nothing but a disaster. Everything you have counter-argued has been weak garbage and a pathetic excuse of Obama’s policies.

Meanwhile the press has been going full out liberal propaganda mode to make it seem as if Obama has been a success when he clearly hasn’t. So let me ask you straight up. Do believe Obama’s stimulus and jobs policy has been successful? And if so, present clear, clean evidence that it has.

Death_of_the_Donkey

I am arguing that the participation rate was coming down anyways regardless of the recession. What I cited was that at 55, the participation rate starts to decline significantly. That is a fact. It is also a fact that it declines in greater amounts for every 5 year increment after 55 (as i showed above). I never said anything about jobs. Read the Goldman quote from above. Or any one of a number of BLS or Fed research papers on the subject. This had been predicted for years.
jamesm

What else is new? So what are we going to do about it? Put in the next president so he can put pressure on the BLS to manipulate statistics? No-we need to be honest with the american people and tell them the truth. Tell them them how many people are working versus how many were working 3 years ago.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

I actually brought up the BS aspect of the U-3 rate as an economic major over 25 yrs ago and Reagan did the same in the White House.

Death_of_the_Donkey

That was a once in a decade census revision (clearly stated in the release). The actual month-month change without the revision was 75,000.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

could actually understand your position. My position is that the U-3 rate has been misleading for its entire history and your info about the “once in a decade” revision, substantiates my point about Obama. But the major point is that U-3 is a guess with a major variable that can’t be known, i.e. whether one “wants” a job.

What we can know is the actual population of working age people, how many of those have jobs and how many don’t. We can then know how many of those w/o a job are disabled.

A comparison of the net of those numbers over the years would be a better one number barometer of the health of the economy/job market than U-3 and not be subject to manipulation by “experts”.

Give us the damn raw numbers.

Death_of_the_Donkey

But it has essentially become an international standard that we can compare to other countries. The problem with using the employment population ratio is that demographic changes play a large factor. About the best we can do is to look at the various rates of the prime working age group (25-54).
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

that was one that documented that 20% of all males in the US was not employed, which was a record and it included in that 20% all men not working including very high number that were disabled and that had not applied for a job w/i 4 months and that so many were not employed for whatever reason tells me more about the state of the nation than guessed at U-3′s.

The other very telling raw number is simply the number of people employed and that is down which is soooo telling given the population increase.

We are in a kind of depression, have been for a few years and will be for many more even if we elect Reaganites to every office on Earth. Natural Law is in force.

demsaresatanic

is for those of working age;

“As you can see, only 63.7% of working-age Americans are currently in the workforce. The rate hasn

jamesm

explained to the american public. All other numbers are democratic propaganda.
Death_of_the_Donkey

working age ONLY applies to the bottom end. The data are for 16+ (no upper limit).

demsaresatanic

Where is your proof that “working age” includes everybody over 16 with no upper age limit? Maybe 90 is still working age after lying democrat rats ruin the economy and wipe out the life savings of the elderly.

Patrish

Retire05, So glad to see you made it back onto Redstate, albeit under a different moniker.
demsaresatanic

you talking about?
Patrish

n/t

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

This was the last straw. Getting condescending to a Congressman to provide cover for Obama? Get lost.
roberthawk

The missing data here is reference to the several ways that the US government produces and provides unemployment numbers. There are six categories which are provided by the government they are U1 through U6. The most commonly released number is the U3 which stands at slightly less than 9% currently. The actual full unemployment number is U6 which is currently slightly under 16%.

In actuality the current administration is understating employment figures by nearly 1/2 of their actual value. They currently are providing the U3 number when actual unemployment is the U6 number. Further there is the game of deceiving the American public by producing numbers with data which is a few months or weeks old. We are currently in the Month of February therefore the data we are receiving from the Government is based upon December 2011 and Jan 2012 numbers. We will not see the actually February numbers until sometime in late March or early April. During a campaign year, its most likely the numbers will lag behind to mask any trends which are not beneficial for the democratic-marxist party.

Dave_A

In fact, it’s almost useless.

U6 counts everyone who’s dissatisfied with their job, everyone who is unemployable due to lack of skills, and a host of other factors that have nothing to do with the state of the economy.

‘Economic Unemployment’ is defined as those members of the labor force who do not have a job.

‘Member of the labor force’ means an individual who has or is actively seeking employment.

The reason that economists make this distinction, is to prevent the UNEMPLOYABLE from being counted in economic unemployment.

EG, we want to reflect the number of people who COULD GET and WANT TO GET a job, but cannot.

Not those who would be unemployed even in a perfect economy running at full economic employment (full employment = 4-5% economic (U3) unemployment, aka the ‘Natural rate of Unemployment’).

funwithknives

Out Of Touch and disconnected from reality, and and go from there.
Example: I Double-Dog Dare You to go to any large grocery chain M-F and look around, in the middle of the day. Note all the middle-aged males doing the shopping. {Think they would rather be somewhere else?}
Talk to them and find out for yourself just how many of these poor unfortunates do not fit, into your tiny little mold.
I know of where-of I speak because I am One of Them. Living in S/E Michigan I see full well how many of these willing-to-work Citizens there truly are, and they have been cast aside,and virtually no one responds, when contacted, by them.{as-in: ‘Resume’ or ‘answer to ad’
Your last sentence , illustrates your total cluelessness concerning this topic. *Trend*, it might be but this pale see-through attempt at a “Damned Lie” is seen for what it is.
Get off your high horse and go do your own personal poll. I have, do it at every opportunity,and please allow me to exclaim: “…it ain’t purdy…”

wantthegopback

In the end all this argument is kinda pointless IMHO. I don’t think you can fool people with numbers to win an election. People will know what the real economic situation is, because they live it. They’ll know if they have a job, like it (as in, it’s a job they want, not some crap they had to take), if their friends/relatives have jobs, if their business is doing well etc etc. Obama can tell people all day that the economy is great, but if it isn’t, it won’t matter to anyone but pundits and such in DC.

cbartlett

Numbers, statistics – most people don’t understand their own tax return. They sure don’t understand (OR trust) charts graphs and statistics that come from suspect sources – blah, blah, blah. Just ask the age-old question: “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?” How about your neighbor? or your kids? or your parents? I’m guessing the answer is no to most, if not all, of these.

And BTW – someone upthread said this: the only people who still have enough in retirement are either government or, possibly, union employees. Those of us with 401K’s in private business have lost almost all of it. Personally, my husband & I own two small businesses and we’ll be working ’til we’re 80 or die trying. Retire at 55 – or even 65? I wish!

renny

I am going to drop in some anecdotal remarks:

I have been “retired” –and not at 55–for nine years and was never an unemployment figure, but I and all my retired friends save a couple stray people basically with inheited means behind them are really STILL working–in our sixties and seventies and not on anyone’s chart because we are not “under employed,” as our part-time endeavors are by “choice”, but some would not be paying for gas every week or shopping anywhere except Aldi’s (discount) if it were not for this “voluntary” extra work. I teach, coach, and tutor, and when motivated by worse circumstances than normal, sell on Amazon and ebay. There’s an entire sub-ec. outside the stats. and reflect a terrible situation among supposed middle class individuals and families that are not reflected anywhere.
roberthawk

These numbers do not agree with what I was able to contrive from data.
According to the actual data, here is how the numbers tell the story. Attempting to measure un-employment is a game of stupidity. We know historically what our actual permanent employment is at full pool (2007). Measuring from that point here is how the numbers actually appear.

In Q4 2007 our permanent employed totaled 108,178,000
In Q3 2009 our permanent employed totaled 99,004,000
loss of permanent employed totaled 9,174,000

In Q4 2011 our permanent employment totaled 101,294,000

Data related to that Q4 2011 number or permanent employees
316,000 were an increase in federal employees (through Dec 2011)
Accurate State numbers of increased employees through 2011 are not yet available
Q4 2011 permanent employment numbers remain 6,884,000 less than the reported Q4 2007 number of permanently employed. The 2007 permanent employment number includes a U6 un-employment number of 8.3% and a U3 un-employment number of 4.5% (Between 4.5% and 8.3% unemployment).

Using 2007 as the base number is actually more accurate as it represents the highest pool of permanent employment in recent history related to the population. Using that figure indicates we remain with 6.9 million people out of employment and 0.7 million people either not considered in the employment pool, or on disability. That provides a total of 7.6 million people or the original 9.1 million (2009) who remain un-employed to date.

This indicates that 1.5 million permanent employees have returned to work, with 316,000 of those permanent workers being hired by the federal government. The final numbers indicate the economy has struggled to reinstate 1.2 million of the 9.2 million jobs lost in 2009. Those are the real numbers which no politician will ever provide. Extrapolate 1 trillion dollars for 1.5 million jobs and you can understand the effectiveness of the stimulus package (about $667 million per job)

U3 un-employment numbers dropped an estimated 666,061 possible employees from their roles due to disability increase (278,411 (2009,2010) + est 139,205 (2011)). and those listed as No Longer in employment pool (165,630 (2009,2010) + est 82,815 (2011)). U6 unemployment numbers remain at well above 15%
jamesm

in America. This is what happens when conservatives are not in power. We must elect conservatives! The MSM is the voice for the destruction of a successful America. Liberal policies can only exist because a foundation was built by our ancestors. Like a leech than can only feed off the good works of people that came before them. Ideology of the left trumps doing what is right to make America prosperous. History proves that liberalism destroys economic and religious freedom. Liberalism weakens our national defenses. It is nothing but a cancer in the minds of a percentage of the american public. We are as a nation in the spot we are because of lack of conservatives running Washington.
earlgrey

obama and co. have been like a wrecking crew through our economy, the private sector, our churches and our way of life. It seems however, that the public isn’t learning from all these failed initiatives –stimulus, cash for clunkers, solyndra, even his embarassing Olympics “it’s all about me” bid.

What does it take??
acat

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded
earlgrey

nt.
renl57

Here’s a chart that neither Bush nor Obama would like you to see–because it doesn’t reflect well on either of them.

This chart compares job losses–and subsequent job gains–in every recession and recovery since the end of World War II.

http://tinyurl.com/7pjk4v2

As you can see, the current economic slump has been the deepest and longest since 1945.

If present trends continue, we wouldn’t get back to full employment till 2016 at least.

Just 3 months before the financial markets collapsed, Bush had assured our G-8 trading partners that America had “turned the corner” on the economy.

And of course, we’ve had nothing but a steady stream of such happy-talk from the Obama Administration: Christina Romer’s infamous prediction that the unemployment rate would be 6.3% by now and dropping; Joe Biden’s equally infamous “Recovery Summer” (in 2010); etc.
http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Other than that, cool story, bro.
http://www.ajharaldson.com lakeworthcane

The President doesn’t “create jobs.” The President gets his big-earred self out of the way and allows the economy to create jobs. I don’t need the President to get me a job. I never have.

A “stimulus bill” to “create jobs” is stupid, especially for a bird-brained President who’s trying to alter our accepted way of life by depressing our existing job market and creating a new one with borrowed money.

I don’t buy into this crazy notion that my President is supposed to “create jobs.” Who said that’s what a President is supposd to do? It’s not true.

I’m an American. I take care of myself. I neither need nor want any assistance from slick-talking public servants. I started working and paying my own way before I was three feet tall. I’ve always found work on my own.

For all of that, my employers have always had a whole lot more to say about my life than any of the eleven Presidents who’ve been in office (some for two terms) since I’ve been alive.

So, to me, this whole argument is a “red herring”: a diversion from the more poignant issue. I don’t want to know what the President is going to do. I want to know when the President is going to stop doing things and get out of the way. I don’t want the President to have the power to “create jobs.” I don’t want the President in my life at all, unless he, as a public SERVANT (regardless of skin color), wants to stop by, do my laundry, clean my house, and wash my car.

Beyond that, I really have no need for a President and do not see any President as the one with answers to my problems, or really as anyone with much say at all about what does on in my life.

So, please, stop telling me the President is supposed to “create jobs.” Stop telling me the President matters that much to me at all. I’ve lived through 11 of them. I’ve heard them speak. I know how they get elected. I know what they can realistically do.

This is a free-market (i.e. capitalist) economy. The President isn’t in charge. Our means of production–our economy–is still largely in private hands. The President isn’t in charge. Stop telling me what the President is supposed to do because the President can’t do anything. He’s a stuffed shirt with a big mouth, and the media focus all our attention on him (whomever he happens to be), and meanwhile, the people who really have the power to change–to control–our lives operate without any restraint.
funwithknives

think back to a public statement The Fed made where they told all of America, *Jobs* were in their self-made resume.
My blood ran cold and that was just the beginning….
Dave_A

And it’s not just liberal pols who play this game….

Thanks to subsidies, tariffs, union actions, and every-election-year promises, we have a significant portion of the population that have no job skills viable in a non-distorted market…

I’m talking about the manufacturing labor-pool that still expects a ‘job’ doing what their dad did in the 70s – building cars, making other consumer products, etc…

Politicians love to pander to this group – especially because they’re concentrated in ‘swing’ states like Ohio…

The problem is, the US economy is too advanced to offer any real opportunity in the civilian economy, beyond retail & unskilled-service work, for those without at least a technical (A.S.) degree… Even if manufacturing does return, it will return in automated form, with a workforce of engineering technicians & such rather than HS-educated line-workers.

Obama’s ‘solution’ to this, was to try and create manual-labor jobs with the ‘stimulus’ – the problem is, that makes them dependent on govt for a job, because when the highway is built, or the new bike trail cut, the only way the workers will still be employed is if there’s another pork-project waiting for them…

Other politicians promote tariffs and so-called ‘fair trade’ as an alternative – believing that it’s ‘unfair’ for countries with a minimal standard of living to compete with the US, and that government should tip the scales in favor of ‘the American worker’…. Problem? First off, it robs Peter to pay Paul – it takes money from productive ‘naturally employed’ Americans, and gives it to the ‘government employed’ manufacturing workers. Second, tariffs are like ‘corporate crack cocaine’ – once a company starts operating in a tariffed market, they become addicted to the government’s ‘help’, and cannot compete without it.

The problem with BOTH these scenarios, is that they distort the market-forces active within the labor market. Without government intervention, new entrants to the labor force would realize they need certain skills to be a success, and would take that career path.

With ‘government created jobs’, there is a false illusion of market-demand for unskilled/low-skill labor, which only exists due to government, and cannot be sustained on it’s own – this false-demand encourages people to seek out these ‘created’ jobs rather than develop the skills to make it in the market without govt meddling.
Dave_A

By preventing deflation & keeping the cost of money low, the Fed has done their part….

The problem is, that the President & his allies in Congress have so intimidated the investors & entrepreneurs of our economy, that although the monetary conditions are favorable to growth, no one wants to risk becoming the next target of a regulatory smack-down…

So we sit, with the money there but not being used, and wait…
Repair_Man_Jack

You can thank a Congress in the late 1970s for that particular dumbness. I agree that the FED has no business caring whether or not you or I are gainfully employed, but the law of the land reads differently.
lineholder

in the worst sort of way.

One more sector of industry in our nation dependent on government subsidies…with a product that government can mandate purchases of to its citizens? That’s a progressive’s dream come true.
ihateliberals

that has cause the unemployment numbers to show 8%. the truth is that the ones that dropped did so because they lost their eligibility and no longer qualify for benefits. They still don’t have jobs but aren’t counted anymore. This is the great recovery of the Obama administration! well the only good thng to come from the higher gas prices is that maybe that will defeat Obama at the polls. I would be willing to pay more for things if it meant getting rid of him.
ihateliberals

Jobs are long term employment whereas work is of a temporary nature. when the work is done then the government has to make more work. this is the very basis of Liberalism, socialism, communism etc etc. Russia proved that this doesn’t work and after 7 decades of deceiving their people the system finally collapsed. The only way a system like that can survive is to be fed by a Capitalist system that infuses money into the failing one. Russia didn’t have the Capitalist system feeding it money and it failed. China right now is feeding off of our capitalist system and they are bleeding us dry. Eventually they see our system failing and then they will return entirely to their communist rule which will then eventually fail as well. Capitalism has been proven the most successful type of government the world has ever known. Our government never promised everyone to be equal but to have equal opportunity if they were willing to work for it.

We survived the many attempts by dubious Presidents to kill capitalism. woodrow Wilson, FDR, LBJ and now Obama hve tried. The difference before Obama is that 90%+ of our economy was based in America. We werent’ dependent on the rest of the world to provide us anything. WWII spoiled FDR’s plan by making us realize of how fast and how productive we could be. LBJ with his Great Society tried once again to destroy our incentives to be successful but again we were too independent from the world. Now under the rule of the Progressive Liberals that we have had like GHW Bush, Bill Clinton, GW bush and now Obama most of our mfg is off-shore. we couldn’t be self-sustaining if we had too. Most of our products are made some where else. Bush 41 with his WTO agreements and Bill Clinton with NAFTA and GW Bush with his do nothing and then Obama with apologizing to the world for us being successful we are doomed.

The government is getting tothe point it can’t even make work anymore. we owe more money than our GDP can sustain. Technically we are bankrupt. If the government were a person they would have been shut down a long time ago.
carolina

and $4+/gal of gasoline.
The Saudis now say they will ‘target’ $100 per barrell for oil – BECAUSE OUR $ IS WORTH LESS than it used to be.
ohtimtim

Just as Greenspan caused the downturn in 1994 by raising interest rates umpteen times in six months (and then had to drop them just as fast because the economy tanked), Bernanke did the same thing in 2008- raising rates 1/4 to 1/2 %/ month for umpteen months. The only difference was that in 1994 adjustable rate mortgages were not as common as they became in 2008. Many,many people who were happily living the American dream suddenly became despicable “sub-prime borrowers living in houses that they had no business buying in the first place ” thanks to your precious Federal Reserve. Do you work for the FED?
Dave_A

The price of oil is not rising due to inflation…

If it were, you’d see identical price rises simultaniously, across the entire economy.

You’re not.
Dave_A

OMG, they caused it by keeping rates too low…

OMG, they caused it by raising rates…

It gets old after a while…

The fact is, Congress & multiple past Presidents own 2008 – not the Fed, not the banks…

The housing bubble was a creation of decades of ‘promoting home ownership’ – and it was doomed to pop eventually…

A .25% interest rate increase isn’t what popped it – the fact that it was an unsustainable situation, created by government leaning on banks to lend where they should not, is what was to blame.

And no, I don’t work for the Fed – currently I’m deployed to Afghanistan. I do, however, recognize that the Fed is an *almost* perfect solution to the problem of how to supply a country with money without allowing any one interest to exert undue influence on monetary policy.

The LAST thing we want, is Congress or the President being able to directly control the money supply.
http://www.twitter.com/AWG9_yoyo yoyo

The gas price is an artifically inflated commodity right now.

In 08, it touched $4 a gallon for a couple of weeks and – BAM – the bottom dropped out. I recall commenting that the Saudi’s were going to have a rough Christmas (tongue-in-cheek) that year with oil topping out at $30 a bbl.

My point? Low *fabricated* unemployment numbers + a crash in gas prices in July/August/September/October = OBL 2012!

All bubbles pop. It is all in the timing.

As you say, “…higher gas prices … will defeat Obama at the polls.” The reverse is also true.

RS

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