Is the Obama Administration "cooking the books" on unemployment to give the appearance of an improving economy?
JenSemPa
2012/05/12 02:28:12
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Top Opinion
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J.W. Howler 2012/05/12 03:25:56Is Obama cooking the books??? Is the Pope Catholic?
+10I believe book-cooking, propaganda, and corruption to be the Obama admin's life blood.
http://www.sodahead.com/unite...
The Employment Situation in April by Alan Krueger 4 May 2012 @ 9:30 a.m.
“Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but much more remains to be done to repair the damage caused by the financial crisis and the deep recession.”
Translation: As we continue to tighten the tourniquet around the neck of those Americans (those who have stop looking for work) in order to stop the financial bleeding that is the U.S. economy.
The official unemployment rate, currently at an unattractive 8.2%, understates the true weakness of the labor market, and regardless of how the government, markets and Main Street interpret the number, the weakness will, in the long run, make itself manifest.
The plain fact of the matter is fewer people, as a percentage of the population, are working today, and more importantly, there are more people who have left the labor force, possibly forever (whether or not it actually is forever is something being hotly contested; see: debate, structural vs. cyclical.)
That means fewer people to contribute to economic growth. Fewer people to pay taxes. Fewer people to help the U.S. earn its way out of a $15 trillion debt hole (if indeed anybody thinks that’s even possible.)
Consider for a moment what’s called the participation rate. This is simply a measure of the percentage of working-age Americans — who aren’t in jail or the military — “participating” in the work force; either people with a job or people looking for a job. It’s been falling since January 2007, when it stood at 66.4%. It slid to 65.5% in July 2009, as the recession was officially ending, and currently sits near a 30-year low at 63.8%.
If you applied the July 2009 number to today’s pool of potential wo...
The official unemployment rate, currently at an unattractive 8.2%, understates the true weakness of the labor market, and regardless of how the government, markets and Main Street interpret the number, the weakness will, in the long run, make itself manifest.
The plain fact of the matter is fewer people, as a percentage of the population, are working today, and more importantly, there are more people who have left the labor force, possibly forever (whether or not it actually is forever is something being hotly contested; see: debate, structural vs. cyclical.)
That means fewer people to contribute to economic growth. Fewer people to pay taxes. Fewer people to help the U.S. earn its way out of a $15 trillion debt hole (if indeed anybody thinks that’s even possible.)
Consider for a moment what’s called the participation rate. This is simply a measure of the percentage of working-age Americans — who aren’t in jail or the military — “participating” in the work force; either people with a job or people looking for a job. It’s been falling since January 2007, when it stood at 66.4%. It slid to 65.5% in July 2009, as the recession was officially ending, and currently sits near a 30-year low at 63.8%.
If you applied the July 2009 number to today’s pool of potential workers, unemployment would be somewhere north of 10%. If you applied the 2007 number, unemployment would be 11.8%.
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbe...
if you want to deny things are getting better and cling to some imagined downfall of America.. then you go right ahead...
meanwhile the rest of us will move on without you.
what did the daddy tomato say to the baby tomato who was lagging behind?
catchup.
anyways, yes, unemployment numbers can be fudged, played with, all depend on how you are counting etc. Canada just recently had a 'good' unemployment 'rise'. Which sounds bizarre to say that. But basically Canada had 2 more months of growth and x-amount of new jobs. Concurrently, X-number of people who were 'not looking' (hence not counted as unemployed) STARTED (restarted) active employment seeking in the job market.
So, weirdly, their 'unemployment rate' actually went UP - even though, in non-stat reality more were actually getting employed than before... uh.. which sounds weird but true lol
*Its possible I just confused myself here.. ..hopefully you get the idea derrr.
If you take the LOWEST unemployment for each calendar monthof Obama's 1 term you get an average of 8.7%.
So getting better or not it is not good enough he has done a terrible job of managing the econmy and unemployment. He promised his stimulus bill would keep unemployment below 8% and it has not seen 8% since the month after he was inaugurated.