Pride in yourself

 

Sadly in society today, there is less of this and more of the entitlement mentality.

First of all, thanks to Habib for his input above. Saved me a lot of work making the same points. Habib, as usual, is spot in in his posts.

 

 

I'm familiar with the U6 rate but it understates what has happened and what is still happening.

 

You can look at the official unemployment rate at any time from 1988 and 2008 and you're getting pretty close to an apples-to-apples comparison.

 

You can't do that now.

 

Those people are no longer employed. Some may want to chalk it up to 8 million people just deciding they no longer need to work. But that's dubious. Clearly.

 

If I lost my job tomorrow and needed a job by the end of the week, I guarantee you I would have one. There are jobs available for those who really want to work.

 

It is all much more complicated than that, but the point is the vast majority of those who are unemployed are choosing to be unemployed.

You really need to go to your local Judicial Center and sit through court several days. The number of healthy looking 25-35 y.o. that are on disability is staggering. Just in the small town I live in it's ridiculous. What are most of them on disability for? Secondary emotional problems caused by alcoholism or drug addiction. Those that aren't on for that it's a "back problem".

 

I have had two back surgeries, two knee surgeries, had to retire from one job due to those injuries but still work part time.

 

I'm sure these "disabled" people could do the same. The abuse of the system is more widespread than you think.

 

I agree. There is plenty of abuse and it drives me crazy. I've lived and worked in inner city environments, so I've seen it first hand. And it needs to be addressed. However, how many of those folks you see in the justice center do you see at your polling place come election time?? Those guys aren't voting in numbers enough to swing elections. And yes, when you gather them all together and put them in one place, it does look like a staggering number. But for everyone of those folks there are a bunch more able bodied people that work hard, and still need help just to survive, that you don't see.

More from ZH:

 

The Funniest BLS Report Ever | Zero Hedge

 

Image of charts in article above:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]56320[/ATTACH]

 

While Obama's presidency hasn't been a whirlwind of success those graphs are hilarious. :lol2:

 

Donald Trump tweeted out 9 graphs proving that Obama failed. We fact-checked them. - The Washington Post

Putting the word "fact" in front of a statement doesn't make it a "fact"..

I agree. There is plenty of abuse and it drives me crazy. I've lived and worked in inner city environments, so I've seen it first hand. And it needs to be addressed. However, how many of those folks you see in the justice center do you see at your polling place come election time?? Those guys aren't voting in numbers enough to swing elections. And yes, when you gather them all together and put them in one place, it does look like a staggering number. But for everyone of those folks there are a bunch more able bodied people that work hard, and still need help just to survive, that you don't see.

 

There are jobs out there as Voice of Reason mentioned, but our safety net systems have bred a totally different breed of American. This group has no desire to enter the workforce.

 

As a society we are failing this group by continuing to feed them free government benefits, without any effort to become employed.

 

These folks do vote locally, but its usually to the highest bidder.

I agree. There is plenty of abuse and it drives me crazy. I've lived and worked in inner city environments, so I've seen it first hand. And it needs to be addressed. However, how many of those folks you see in the justice center do you see at your polling place come election time?? Those guys aren't voting in numbers enough to swing elections. And yes, when you gather them all together and put them in one place, it does look like a staggering number. But for everyone of those folks there are a bunch more able bodied people that work hard, and still need help just to survive, that you don't see.

 

They don't have to show up in large numbers to swing the vote. There are enough like minded that do vote and keep the broken system chugging on down the track.

While Obama's presidency hasn't been a whirlwind of success those graphs are hilarious. :lol2:

 

Donald Trump tweeted out 9 graphs proving that Obama failed. We fact-checked them. - The Washington Post

 

Response to Response:

 

These Are The 9 Zero Hedge Charts Showing "Obama's Recovery" That Angered The Washington Post | Zero Hedge

 

Wapo:

"....has lots of data on money in circulation, including this chart of print orders by year since 1995. It doesn't match the graph Trump tweeted."

 

ZH:

"And there you have it: a WaPo fact-checker who is unable to immediately grasp that the "4 million figures on the vertical axis" have nothing to do with volume or value of notes printed, and everything to do with the size Fed's balance sheet."

 

Actual chart used by ZH.

 

All Federal Reserve Banks - Total Assets - FRED - St. Louis Fed

 

BTW = the axis in question is 4 Trillion, not 4 Million. A bit of a difference.

 

Remember - to a bank 'assets' comes in the form of debt instruments - such as bonds issued to the Federal government. Also remember the 2008 banking crisis plan name - TARP - Toxic Asset Recovery Plan. Printed money from the Fed is also a form of debt and is an 'asset'.

 

Of the TBTF banks there is the ultimate TBTF bank - the Federal Reserve. And the only way their assets do no go 'toxic' is to get interest and principle paid back from us - the US taxpayers.

 

 

Toward end of the response:

 

"What you ignored to say is that what you did is not actual "fact-checking" - because numbers are always and only numbers - but an attempt to manipulate your audience into deriving a specific set of conclusions precleared by the WaPo editorial board. This is why when we first created the chart, we let it speak for itself without any clarification - as none is needed - instead of having to "explain" it in a 1,000 word essay."

First of all, thanks to Habib for his input above. Saved me a lot of work making the same points. Habib, as usual, is spot in in his posts.

 

 

 

 

If I lost my job tomorrow and needed a job by the end of the week, I guarantee you I would have one. There are jobs available for those who really want to work.

 

It is all much more complicated than that, but the point is the vast majority of those who are unemployed are choosing to be unemployed.

 

Sorry I've been away a few days and I'm getting caught up on a few threads.

 

The U6 rate that Habib linked includes some employed people and some unemployed people. The unemployed group in that number is referred to as "marginally attached" by BLS.

 

From May 2016 monthly BLS report:

 

“In May, 1.7 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.”

 

From the January 2009 monthly BLS report:

 

“About 2.1 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in January…”

 

So we have roughly the same number of unemployed people in the U6 number as we did at the start of 2009. Actually we have approx. 400k fewer.

 

As I noted in the original post, the participation rate decline has eliminated 8 million people from unemployment calculation, presumably because they have been unemployed for more than the 12 months that would put them in the marginally attached category. Those people have largely given up (or are presumed to have given up) looking for work.

 

So if U6 captured all of those folks it would be around 8 million not 2 million included in the U6 number. So though it’s an interesting statistic, it’s not really relevant to the original point.

 

You can blame those 8 million people for not having jobs which is very Republican of you, or perhaps realize that the job market isn’t as good as you’re selling it to be.

 

There have been recessions and economic struggles at various times over the last 30 years but this is the only time that so many people have simply given up.

 

It’s just my opinion, but I’d rather know that 16 million people are actively looking for work vs. 8 million looking for work and 8 million having given up. And the 8 million who have given up don’t get counted as unemployed any more.

 

Here’s another hilarious stat…the unemployment rate dropped from 5.0% in April to 4.7% in May. Isn’t that great news?

 

We must have added a ton of new jobs over the last 30 days. To move the needle from 5% to 4.7%, we would have to have added 480,000 jobs. Yet the BLS report for May has only a 26k gain in employed persons which is awful. What happened?

 

The participation rate dropped from 62.8% to 62.6%.

 

Another victory for the administration. They can start saying ‘sub 5% unemployment’ in the sound bites now…as another group of unemployed folks are moved out of the official unemployment rate.

 

Too bad those folks are so lazy. There are plenty of jobs for them. Wait, aren’t the Dems supposed to be helping those folks?

While Obama's presidency hasn't been a whirlwind of success those graphs are hilarious. :lol2:

 

Donald Trump tweeted out 9 graphs proving that Obama failed. We fact-checked them. - The Washington Post

 

I would call them more sobering than hilarious. Lots of effort in that article to excuse the numbers.

More from ZH:

 

The Funniest BLS Report Ever | Zero Hedge

 

 

Image of charts in article above:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]56320[/ATTACH]

 

I've zoomed my screen to 200% and can't read anything on any of the charts.

I was able to spend some more time on the May unemployment report from BLS.

 

It’s a microcosm of what has happened over the last several years. So let’s dive into the numbers.

 

Here’s the relevant snip from the report (highlights are mine):

 

 

First note the “Unemployed” line which is the last highlighted line near the bottom. In April there were 7,920,000 officially unemployed (5.0%). In May that dropped to 7,436,000 (4.7%). You can see the net change was -484,000.

 

That’s great news right? +484,000 new jobs. But, no that didn’t happen.

 

Look just above that line to the “employed” line which is also highlighted. There was an increase of 26,000 employed persons from April to May.

 

So what happened to the other 458,000? They were swept under the rug, no longer to be worried about I guess. Check out the other highlighted line “Civilian Labor Force” which shows a decrease of -458,000 people in the workforce. That is the effect of the drop in the participation rate.

 

So the drop in participation rate has a direct correlation to the number of people shown as unemployed in the official U3 unemployment rate (7.9MM were ‘unemployed’ and now only 7.4mm are ‘unemployed’).

 

This is a big part of how the unemployment rate has dropped so much since 2009. We’ve had some job creation and a lot of people unemployed that aren’t counted as unemployed. That number of unemployed people now excluded from the labor force totals over 8.5 million by my calculation.

 

What of the previous posts that said we can ignore participation and focus on the U6 unemployment rate that captures the ‘real’ unemployment rate? Well with nearly 500k people drop kicked from the labor force, we should see some movement in the ‘marginally attached’ labor group previously discussed. U6 is made up of U3 officially unemployed, part-time employed and the marginally attached.

 

A review of the May BLS report shows that the U6 moved from 9.3% in April to 9.4% in May, which is ironic since that number should have changed with the 484k people excluded from the civilian work force. Turns out the 484k drop in participation was offset by 468k increase in part-time employment for people looking for full-time work. So other than the fact that the U6 rate includes any changes in the U3 rate, there’s nothing else to see there that’s relevant.

 

 

The marginally attached folks who are the unemployed part of the U6 went from 1.715 million to 1.713 million.

 

 

I thought the removal of the 484k from participating in the labor force would flow through the ‘marginally attached’ group then off the page altogether. It took a couple minutes but I finally had to remind myself...the 484k dropped from participation came out of the ‘active unemployed’ group in U3. It came out of the official unemployed group, the ones that are actively looking for work. So it isn’t people that gave up a long time ago. It’s people who have been actively looking that the BLS says have now given up on looking for a job. It’s worse than I thought. That big of a number in one month feels like a correction (a BLS correction).

 

So no relevant movement in the ‘marginally attached’ group. Are you getting what I’m talking about?

That is why I can’t look at u6 and see what’s really going on. The marginally attached group is 1.7M. Those removed from the calculated labor force total 8.5M.

 

This doesn’t fit the narrative for some and I don’t really care. The President’s supporters have been blowing the 5% unemployment horn but conveniently don’t explain how we got there. Is this something you can be proud of…drop to 4.7% unemployment b/c of 26k jobs added and 484k people giving up on job search?

 

Side bar: The federal government provides misleading data to us all the time. Sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally (IMO). And then sometimes they screw up and come back and revise it quietly, as it just did for the March and April jobs estimates. The BLS reduced the March and April new job estimates by 60k. Did you see that in the news? No? Well neither did I. I happened across a small blurb on the BLS site when I was digging around.

 

That’s off topic so back to the topic. I tried to calculate the effect on the unemployment rate of population growth, job creation, and decrease in labor participation (from Nov 2009 to now).

 

Here’s what I came up with:

 

New job creation = 12.6 million

Labor participation = 8.5 million

 

(12.6 million jobs is nothing to sneeze at given how weak the economy still is…gdp was 0.5% in the first quarter 2016).

 

Those have combined to drive the unemployment rate to 4.7%. If we were still at the historical norm for labor participation levels, official unemployment (U3) would be 9.5%. U6 would be around 14.5% Some apparently believe there has been some kind of cultural or socioeconomic shift that led people from the work force and therefore we can’t allocate blame to any politician/administration. That flies in the face of logic though. When the economy turns bad, we don’t see people looking to make less money or give up income all together. We see the opposite. We see more job seekers. Stay-at-home parents and teens and seniors, etc. try to get into the job market to create more income for their families.

 

I will continue to dig into the employment data and see what else I can find.

Some apparently believe there has been some kind of cultural or socioeconomic shift that led people from the work force and therefore we can’t allocate blame to any politician/administration. That flies in the face of logic though.

 

You’re arguing ~8 million people need and want a job, but because the economy is so bad they’ve given up looking for one altogether and thus fall through the cracks of the unemployment calculation. That’s fine, but my issue is you don’t present any evidence to support it. Instead, you assume this is a given, then build your conclusions on top of that assumption and scoff at anyone who questions the soundness of it.

 

All I’ve asked for is evidence and all I’ve been given is snark.

Nice work Bluetip.

 

What do you do with 8M long term unemployed - whose UI has run out and are probably only surviving by cashing in their 401K (and paying the 10% penalty if they are under 55 1/2) - you just quit counting them. Makes everyone feel better and makes the numbers better.

 

If you want to dig into historical and outlook numbers here is a great source:

 

Historical Tables | The White House

You’re arguing ~8 million people need and want a job, but because the economy is so bad they’ve given up looking for one altogether and thus fall through the cracks of the unemployment calculation. That’s fine, but my issue is you don’t present any evidence to support it. Instead, you assume this is a given, then build your conclusions on top of that assumption and scoff at anyone who questions the soundness of it.

 

All I’ve asked for is evidence and all I’ve been given is snark.

 

Sorry for being snarky. I'm just got a little frustrated.

 

Outside of interviewing 8+ million people, we can't know exactly why each is unemployed. I think most would come back to the work force if the economy started booming. But no way to quantify that exactly.

 

But you've speculated and so have I. We can't know for sure.

 

But what I do know is this...the U.S. population in the mid-80s was around 240 million and as of 2009 it was 306 million. Obviously there are births and deaths every day but overall we added 66 million people to the population...and we maintained 66-67% of them in the work force. That's about 44 million more jobs, through good economies and bad (plus many jobs moving out of the country). I read somewhere that just since 2001 we've outsourced more than 5 million jobs to foreign countries. I don't have time to dig further right now.

 

We've also seen huge advances in process/flow improvement and technological advances reducing the number of humans needed to produce the same level of work. I don't know how to quantify that other than anecdotally through my experience with more than 25 companies since 1990. But it's huge and probably has reduced jobs (or potential jobs) in the U.S. by 10-20%. I think I'm being conservative on that.

 

The point is, even with all of that history, we've maintained a labor force of 66-67% of our population. It's really staggering.

 

So I don't think it's out of line to question why we've dropped to 62% participation. I don't see it as logical to assume we've just got a bunch of people that can live without a paycheck in a marginal economy, with wages just holding steady.

 

IMO if anyone (not just Habib) is saying that those 8.5 million people leaving the work force is a sign of improving economy then the burden is on you to demonstrate how. Because it's never happened this way before. Sure, people enter and leave the work force all the time, but a net loss of 8.5 million is way beyond anything we've in the last 50 years. That's as far back as I went.