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U.S. unemployment falls to 7.5% in April [W: 348, 360]

LOL !! Our "ideology is the only thing keeping this administration from going double barrell stupid on whats left of our economy.

Hey, one things certain as your President and your politicians hide like rats from the growing Bengazzi scandal, and that is unemployment numbers will fall the closer we get to 2014, as people like you celebrate and arbitrarilly grasp at any shred of positive evidence.

Of-course you'll ignore our shrinking middle class, our 30 year low on consumer confidence, the shrinking job pool, the growing entitlments, Debt and deficit.

The FEDs Kamikaze Qe and just about every piece of economic data that counters a .1 "rise" in unemployment when 9 million jobs have dissapeared.

Thats not OUR ideology thats to blame for that, its all on you guys.

Hey, when ObamaCare kicks in 100% in 2014, when people are forced to buy insurance with money they don't have or money they would of shoved back into the economy purchasing other goods, is that going to be the fault of our ideology too ?

Saying No to everything is not an "ideology". It's a travesty and a symptom of a dying party with no ideas left.
Oh and I have some more bad news for you.
The employment numbers for Feb. and March have been revised upward by another 114,000 jobs and the Dow broke 15,000 today. Sorry
 
And yet you used the word "disgruntled" instead of "discouraged" and got the defintion wrong, especially in claiming that they were "clearly" still looking for work.

What makes your definition "true?" What do you think you're trying to measure? Someone not looking for work tells us nothing at all about the true state of the labor market because they're not actually participating in it. Tracking discouraged, all other marginally attached and other groups is important because it gives a broader picture of the overall labor situation, but it's not more accurate.

Why? Why is someone who hasn't done anything about getting a job in over a year helpful in judging the current labor market? And do you really think it's reliable?

9.1% by my math...close enough. But think about it. All you're saying is that if more people were unemployed then the unemployment rate would be higher. Which is "duh." And how are you justifying adding in people who don't want to work or who aren't available for work? And you're switching goalposts again because your half the difference is still 3.5 times the number of Discouraged workers. Do you need me to show the math?

Oh great - a lover of multi-quotes...oh well.


1) Yes, I meant ''discouraged', not 'disgruntled'. Like you did not know EXACTLY what I meant. :rolleyes:


2) People who are unemployed (for ANY length of time) but still wish to work but have been forced to stop looking (because - for example - they had to start working under the table or went back to school, etc.) should be counted as unemployed.
I realize you disagree and I hope you realize that I don't care very much that you do because I don't have very much respect for your (apparent) 'understanding' of macroeconomics...no offense.


and 3) I will say again:

And if the participation rate today was the same as it was when Obama took over, and only half of the difference was counted, then the unemployment rate today would be 9.2/9.3%.

What this means and says should be ridiculously obvious.

I am not going to debate with an (apparently) closed minded person like you on the merits of it or what you think it really means...life is WAY too short for that.

If you don't agree - take a WILD guess how much I care?


Have a splendid day.
 
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Hi Polgara :2wave:

I think you're on to something...

You know, I'd love to see how the BLS is calculating the number of people who are retiring from the work force. It seems quite convenient to remove babyboomers like me, when all the evidence I have seen suggests we are not retiring at the rate they seem to be applying.

It sure makes the UE rate look good when they do it though.

In addition what makes the UE look better and I don't feel 7.5% is good by any standards is the people actually dropping out of the labor force meaning that they are dropping off the unemployment roles as well. That decrease in unemployment even on a declining labor force is what is making the rate look better. The Unemployment rate is calculated by taking the number of Unemployed and dividing it by the labor force which in this case is 11659/155.2 million and that is what gives you the 7.5% UE. The total U-6 which is the 11659 unemployed + Discouraged workers + under employed workers is 13.9% and that seems to be the new liberal norm which to anyone with any drive, pride, or initiative would be unacceptable and a disaster.
 
In addition what makes the UE look better and I don't feel 7.5% is good by any standards is the people actually dropping out of the labor force meaning that they are dropping off the unemployment roles as well. That decrease in unemployment even on a declining labor force is what is making the rate look better. The Unemployment rate is calculated by taking the number of Unemployed and dividing it by the labor force which in this case is 11659/155.2 million and that is what gives you the 7.5% UE. The total U-6 which is the 11659 unemployed + Discouraged workers + under employed workers is 13.9% and that seems to be the new liberal norm which to anyone with any drive, pride, or initiative would be unacceptable and a disaster.

In California, IMO, ground zero for liberal/progressive actions and agendas, the U-6 is 18.8%, and in Los Angeles County, it's 20.5%

Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization for States

Ponder the population, and how many people those numbers represent.
 
In California, IMO, ground zero for liberal/progressive actions and agendas, the U-6 is 18.8%, and in Los Angeles County, it's 20.5%

Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization for States

Ponder the population, and how many people those numbers represent.

That is what makes politicians drool as they see that high rate as an opportunity to provide all that govt "help" that liberalism is so famous for. The more "help" liberals can provide the more need their is to keep those liberals employed in govt. jobs
 
That is what makes politicians drool as they see that high rate as an opportunity to provide all that govt "help" that liberalism is so famous for. The more "help" liberals can provide the more need their is to keep those liberals employed in govt. jobs

Your statement is backed up by the fact California is home to more than 30% of the nations welfare cases while only containing @ 13% of the nations population.
 
Would a snapshot of the employment picture as it relates to the nations economic health, be more accurate if it included underemployed and discouraged workers?
That entirely depends on what specifically you're looking for. "Economic Health" is a nebulous term. Personally, I think that the most important measure to look at now is the U1: % of the Labor Force Unemployed 15 or more weeks. That's at 4.1% and has been going down a lot more slowly than the overall rate.
All the measures tend to move in the same direction, so as far as trends go, none is that much better than the others.

Why do you think adjustments are made to numbers?
Seasonal Adjustments? Every year when school ends, more people are looking for work and more people are getting hired for summer employment. And the reverse every Fall. And then there's Christmas. So if the unemployment rate drops in November, how much of that was because of Christmas and how much was real improvement? Seasonal adjustment smooths out the curve to show the underlying trend. It's like measuring the change in the shoreline...you have to account for the tides.
 
What is quite telling is the new normal that liberals willingly accept. today there are 155.2 million in the labor force. Does anyone find that disturbing since in December 2007 when the recession began there were 154 million in the labor force so in over four years the labor force increased by 1.2 million? Does it bother anyone that in December 2007 there were 146 million working Americans and today that is 143 million? Does it bother anyone that the labor participation rate is 63% and that the U-6 rate is still 13.9%
Of course it does. Have you heard anyone claim we've completely recovered from the Recession? I haven't. But what direction are things going now? And note that the Labor Force Participation Rate has been declining since 2000.
 
Saying No to everything is not an "ideology". It's a travesty and a
symptom of a dying party with no ideas left.
Oh and I have some more bad news for you.
The employment numbers for Feb. and March have been revised upward by another 114,000 jobs and the Dow broke 15,000 today. Sorry


You should apologize if your celebrating " the rich getting richer" thanks to Bernakes perpetual QE, while the middle class sector shrinks and average Americans continue to suffer.

Your'e joking right ? About the DOW ? LOL ! Ah man tell me your'e not seriously celebrating a Stock Market thats being propped up with the Feds printing and monetizing of nearly 70% of our Treasuries.

As far as his jobs numbers are concerned the Labor force has now shrunk to 9,500,000 as you libs brag about your Presidents abillity to manipulate numbers......he can only manipulate those who either want to be manipulated or are chronically impaired.

It's easy to shrink unemployment numbers. Just drive the US economy into a ditch and reduce the pool and then count on the afflicted and terminal ideologues to cheer and brag and spread the word.
 
You need not look much further than this thread to see that the job market stinks. We have the Obama administration (inc their media pals) crowing about a ho-hum jobs number, for the umpteenth time in the past five years, as if we've just turned the corner to prosperity. I'm getting dizzy from all the corner's we've turned according to these guys.

This thread is choc full of excuses as to why we should believe that things are great. Hey, don't believe that the economy stinks and Obama is doing a sucky job because of what you see around you, I have this index, that index, these adjusted numbers, those numbers, this chart, that chart, etc... All proving that things are great.

We will know when things are going great, and it sure isn't now or any time since Obama's been in office.
 
Saying No to everything is not an "ideology". It's a travesty and a
symptom of a dying party with no ideas left.
Oh and I have some more bad news for you.
The employment numbers for Feb. and March have been revised upward by another 114,000 jobs and the Dow broke 15,000 today. Sorry


You should apologize if your celebrating " the rich getting richer" thanks to Bernakes perpetual QE, while the middle class sector shrinks and average Americans continue to suffer.

Your'e joking right ? About the DOW ? LOL ! Ah man tell me your'e not seriously celebrating a Stock Market thats being propped up with the Feds printing and monetizing of nearly 70% of our Treasuries.

Tell me your not celebrating the massive subsidies that have been passed out to banks since 2008 so they can sit on nearly 2 trillion in reserves. Unbelievable. Another " BRILLIANT " rebut from Iggy.

As far as his jobs numbers are concerned the Labor force has now shrunk to 9,500,000 as you libs brag about your Presidents abillity to manipulate numbers......he can only manipulate those who either want to be manipulated or are chronically impaired.

It's easy to shrink unemployment numbers. Just drive the US economy into a ditch and reduce the pool and then count on the afflicted and terminal ideologues to cheer and brag and spread the word.
 
........
Leaving the labor force can happen in many ways. To leave the population altogether (which of course is a minus to the labor force as well), you can die, go to jail, join the military, get institutionalized, or leave the country. To leave the labor force and stay in the population you can retire or otherwise lose/leave your job and not (yet) start looking for work. Until you start looking, you're not unemployed. If Unemployed, you stop looking for work. Most of that is for personal reasons: school, family obligations, illness/injury etc.

....you forgot you start a business, maybe its simply putting a shingle out and being a consultant, which is what a lot of people do, or starting another type of business. I would be in this group, having been downsized in 2008... I did not ever spend time "looking for work"... by labor statistics, I am a discouraged worker.

I started a company and now have 60 employees (mostly part-time)... and curiously, I am a survey point for the BLS... they call every month and want my headcount, payroll and hours.....

A large part of the "leaving the work force" is the retired and semi-retired population. The baby boomers are turning 65. The over 50 population was particularly hard hit in the 2008 retrenchment. Many of them are hanging it up or semi-retired.
 
....you forgot you start a business, maybe its simply putting a shingle out and
being a consultant, which is what a lot of people do, or starting another type of business. I would be in this group, having been downsized in 2008... I did not ever spend time "looking for work"... I started a company and now have 60 employees (mostly part-time)... and curiously, I am a survey point for the BLS... they call every month and want my headcount, payroll and hours..... so, by labor statistics, I am a discouraged worker.

Why part time ? Trying to out run Obama-Care ?

Let me guess, the majoroty of your part time employees work under 30 hours each.
 
Hi Polgara :2wave:

I think you're on to something...

You know, I'd love to see how the BLS is calculating the number of people who are retiring from the work force.
It doesn't. "Retired" is a response offered in the survey as a reason for not looking for work, but status as "retired" plays no role in any of the calculations.

It seems quite convenient to remove babyboomers like me, when all the evidence I have seen suggests we are not retiring at the rate they seem to be applying.
They're not applying any rate. I don't know how you think the numbers are calculated. How do you think they're applying any kind of rate???

And BLS data clearly shows that labor force participation by those 55+ and 65+ have been increasing. But even so, there are still a lot more older folks as a percent of the population and therefore a lot more in the Not in the Labor Force category
 
....you forgot you start a business, maybe its simply putting a shingle out and being a consultant, which is what a lot of people do, or starting another type of business.
Which would make them Employed and part of the Labor Force.
I would be in this group, having been downsized in 2008... I did not ever spend time "looking for work"... by labor statistics, I am a discouraged worker.
No, Discouraged worker would be you did not work in the previous week, you could have accepted a job in the previous week, and you've looked for work in the last year but not last month.

If you're working, why do you think BLS would classify you as Not in the Labor Force????

I started a company and now have 60 employees (mostly part-time)...
Then you're EMPLOYED.

and curiously, I am a survey point for the BLS... they call every month and want my headcount, payroll and hours.....
That's the Current Employment Statistics Survey...it's where the official jobs numbers come from.

A large part of the "leaving the work force" is the retired and semi-retired population.
Semi retired is still employed. There is an entry in the tables for those working part time so they don't go over Social Security income limits.
The baby boomers are turning 65. The over 50 population was particularly hard hit in the 2008 retrenchment. Many of them are hanging it up or semi-retired.
Classification is entirely based on ACTIVITY. If you're working, you're employed, regardless of whether or not you retired from some other job. If you're retired but looking for a part time job for extra cash then you're unemployed. Retired, disabled, doesn't matter.
 
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I'm glad some people are finding some work, others are losing jobs. IMO, this "improvement" is so small it's probably part of a normal economic cycle that would improve eventually anyway. I don't think the administration really added any value. Besides, he been thinking about other things since the election anyhow.
 
You should apologize if your celebrating " the rich getting richer" thanks to Bernakes perpetual QE, while the middle class sector shrinks and average Americans continue to suffer.

Your'e joking right ? About the DOW ? LOL ! Ah man tell me your'e not seriously celebrating a Stock Market thats being propped up with the Feds printing and monetizing of nearly 70% of our Treasuries.

Tell me your not celebrating the massive subsidies that have been passed out to banks since 2008 so they can sit on nearly 2 trillion in reserves. Unbelievable. Another " BRILLIANT " rebut from Iggy.

As far as his jobs numbers are concerned the Labor force has now shrunk to 9,500,000 as you libs brag about your Presidents abillity to manipulate numbers......he can only manipulate those who either want to be manipulated or are chronically impaired.

It's easy to shrink unemployment numbers. Just drive the US economy into a ditch and reduce the pool and then count on the afflicted and terminal ideologues to cheer and brag and spread the word.

Driving economies into a ditch, now that's something your side knows all about. Every Republican President has had a recession in his 1st term since WWII. Why do you think that is?


The Republican Presidential Recession Record
Here's the count. You decide.

Dwight Eisenhower: 2 recessions
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford: 2 recessions
Ronald Reagan: 1 recession
George H.W. Bush: 1 recession
George W. Bush: 2 recessions

Here are the Democrats:

John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson: no recessions
Jimmy Carter: one recession, the briefest of the era
Bill Clinton: no recessions


Eight to one: As I say, you decide.
Jeff Madrick: The Republican Presidential Recession Record
 
Driving economies into a ditch, now that's something your side knows all about. Every Republican President has had a recession in his 1st term for 100 years. Why do you think that is?

Wow, reviving History is one of your traits. What economic policy did Reagan have in place that caused a recession in July 1981? That was a double dip charged to Carter. What economic policies did Bush have in place in March 2001 that caused that recession or was it due to the dot.com bubble bursting under Clinton?

You have a bad case of BDS as well as the inability to objectively review actual results but would rather blame everything on someone other than a Democrat. The actual facts destroy your credibility
 
Let's set the record straight, here is the definition of the U-6 number which doesn't include retired individuals

U-6 Unemployment Rate - What Does It Mean?

Now the labor force would indicate retired individuals but those retirees are offset by population growth with individuals entering the work force.
 
I'm glad some people are finding some work, others are losing jobs. IMO, this "improvement" is so small it's probably part of a normal economic cycle that would improve eventually anyway. I don't think the administration really added any value. Besides, he been thinking about other things since the election anyhow.

Right and we all know a President can only do one thing at a time. Perhaps you have another Western country in mind that has a better economy today? One who's leaders did a better job than Obama at getting out of the Bush Recession?
 
Right and we all know a President can only do one thing at a time. Perhaps you have another Western country in mind that has a better economy today? One who's leaders did a better job than Obama at getting out of the Bush Recession?

What economic policy did Obama fully implement that got us out of the recession in June 2009?
 
A large part of the "leaving the work force" is the retired and semi-retired population. The baby boomers are turning 65. The over 50 population was particularly hard hit in the 2008 retrenchment. Many of them are hanging it up or semi-retired.

nyt today

Baby boomers are aging into retirement. Even before the recession, the government projected in 2007 that participation would decline to 65.5 percent by 2016, from 66 percent. But the April rate of 63.3 percent means the labor force has lost roughly five million additional workers.

Furthermore, the projections were wrong. Participation has actually risen among people older than 55. The decline is entirely driven by younger dropouts.

Keeping Up, Not Getting Ahead - NYTimes.com
 
Let's set the record straight, here is the definition of the U-6 number which doesn't include retired individuals

U-6 Unemployment Rate - What Does It Mean?

Now the labor force would indicate retired individuals but those retirees are offset by population growth with individuals entering the work force.

The mass retirement of the baby boomers has been in the news for years. Another bout of amnesia?
 
Let's set the record straight, here is the definition of the U-6 number which doesn't include retired individuals

U-6 Unemployment Rate - What Does It Mean?

Now the labor force would indicate retired individuals but those retirees are offset by population growth with individuals entering the work force.

Well, some of them might be retired but looking for a job or discouraged that they want a job but think they're too old to be hired so stopped trying, or had been looking, fell ill, are able to work now but haven't started looking yet. There's no way to tell.

One nitpick with your link:
People who are looking for full-time work but have to settle on a part-time job due to economic reasons. This means that they want full-time work, but can't find it.
About 22% of Part time for ecomic reasons usually work full time, but are working reduced hours due to slow business. And another 44% also are working part time due to slow business but are classified as (usually part time) because for the last few months they've been working part time.
 
'WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The U.S. economy created 165,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate fell to 7.5% from 7.6% even though the size of the labor force increased, the government said Friday. What's more, hiring in March and February were revised up by a combined 124,000. The increase in hiring in April beat Wall Street's forecast. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected a 135,000 gain, with unemployment remaining at 7.6%. The decline to 7.5% puts the jobless rate at the lowest level since December 2008. Meanwhile, the number of new jobs created in March was revised up to 138,000 from 88,000, the Labor Department said, while February's figure was revised up to 332,000 from 268,000.'


U.S. adds 165,000 jobs; unemployment 7.5% - MarketWatch

Thank you, President Obama.
 
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