(snip)Been Down So Long …
There has been some celebrating over the jobs report, and for sure 200,000 jobs is better than 100,000, or none at all.
But still: here’s the employment-population ratio:
BLS Employment-population ratio
We need much more than this."(snip)
from
Krugman's point, which has been strongly registered by many less 'liberal' financial pundits, is that the official U1 gov't unemployment statists stop counting unemployed people who have exhausted their unemployment benefit check coverage and/or people who have actively stopped looking for work as being officially unemployed. The official employment versus total population chart tells a much more accurate story.
That story is that millions of unemployed / underemployed Americans have been officially 'forgotten' by the gov't statistics agencies. The story is that since the unemployment rate continued to rapidly rise up until the latter half of 2009, and with 99 weeks of unemployment eligibility, there are now tens if not hundreds of thousands of additional long term unemployed Americans who are being 'forgotten' with each passing month as their unemployment checks are now finally running out ! Additionally, given the fact that the EMployment rate of Americans under age 25 is only half as high as was the case a decade ago, every additional high school and college graduate or dropout is far more likely to add another unemployed person to the US 'labor force' ( even though that person may not be officially counted as unemployed because they may have never previously held a job thus are ineligible for unemployment benefits coverage )
Also, none of the above address the fact that many recently created new private sector jobs - particularly the recent increase in manufacturing employment - have been at pay rates that are far lower than the jobs that continue to be lost - particularly so for $50k+ per year government employees now starting to receive pink slips. Put another way, given rising gasoline, food, clothing, insurance and other costs, and given rising state and local taxes, it's highly doubtful that many of those newly hired $14 an hour factory workers ( see ) are likely to have an extra couple of hundred bucks per week left over to spend on lap dances !
Additionally, none of the above address the fact that the US 'work force' continues to grow at a rate just under 200,000 per month due to domestic population growth, legal immigration etc.. Thus the most recent 'rosy' official unemployment report at best amounts to 'treading water' as opposed to any actual improvement in US employment levels.
~




Reply With Quote


Bookmarks