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

First off - I think GWB was a terrible POTUS.

Oil prices falling.
on Jan. 23, 2009 (just after Obama was inaugerated), oil was at $46.47.

A week ago it closed at $93...over double the price.

Crude Oil Price History

Unemployment falling.
actually, the U-6 ( the 'real' unemployment rate) was up last month, from 13.8% to 13.9%.

And even the U-3 the day Obama took over was 7.8%. Today it is 7.5%.

It took him 52 months and a 50+% increase in the national debt to lower the rate 0.3%.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

Stock market at record highs.
sure it is...and that is almost entirely due to the Fed's 'artificially' low interest rates AND especially their QE policies that are pumping trillions indirectly into the markets. Over a trillion this year alone.
And who benefits from that? Very few middle class and lower Americans own substantial amounts of stock and since the unemployment rate is still well above 7% - clearly, it's only really benefitting the rich/major stock holders.

Bush's vanity wars winding down.
They are?

Yes, Obama mostly pulled out of Iraq. But then he ramped up U.S. presence in Afghanistan hugely. Now he is doing drone strikes, assassinating U.S. citizens without trial, Gitmo is STILL open and there is talk of arming Syrian rebels.

Bush's idiotic foreign policies are now Obama's idiotic foreign policies.


Plus...since Obama took over, food stamp usage is up over 40%, average housing prices are lower and (once again) the national debt is over 50% higher.


Looks like Obama is a terrible POTUS as well.
 
About 9 million people left the labor force since Obama took office. Sure some died/retired but doesn't the increase in potential new employees ie students/immigrants balance that out? Whatever the number works out to it still a lot of people gave up trying to get one of Obama's "good paying jobs".
Hard for anyone to 'spin' that to make Obama's Socialist/Marxist 'wet-dream' viable in a country founded on economic principles 180 degrees opposite.
 
About 9 million people left the labor force since Obama took office.
A claim made by quite a few individuals in this thread that has absolutely no validity whatsoever.

LNS11000000_57902_1367675104789.gif
 
Just wondering if there is any correlation between the number of illegal immigrants here and the number of unemployed high school dropouts?
 
A claim made by quite a few individuals in this thread that has absolutely no validity whatsoever.

LNS11000000_57902_1367675104789.gif

Did you notice the 9 million increase from 2003 to 2009 and then a leveling out. Did the population stop growing during the Obama term? Over 1.3 million net joined the labor force each year of the Bush Administration and since Obama has taken office that number has been 1.2 million in over 4 plus years?

You call yourself an independent yet you look at nothing like an independent. Guess it is hard for you to admit who you really are.
 
Did you notice the 9 million increase from 2003 to 2009 and then a leveling out.Did the population stop growing during the Obama term?

Over 1.3 million net joined the labor force each year of the Bush Administration and since Obama has taken office that number has been 1.2 million in over 4 plus years?

You call yourself an independent yet you look at nothing like an independent. Guess it is hard for you to admit who you really are.
Irrelevant. The claim does not center around the LFPR but the cumulative labor force. There has not been a decline of 9 million in the civilian labor force as illustrated to you earlier and now yet again.

Math problems again. Even if you chalked up the potential gains over the last four years using the average number in the previous eight as losses your figures are off by a mile. Hang it up while you're behind.

I'm indeed a registered Independent and have voted for both Republicans and Democrats at the local, state and national level in nearly equal proportion.
 
Irrelevant. The claim does not center around the LFPR but the cumulative labor force. There has not been a decline of 9 million in the civilian labor force as illustrated to you earlier and now yet again.

Math problems again. Even if you chalked up the potential gains over the last four years using the average number in the previous eight as losses your figures are off by a mile. Hang it up while you're behind.

I'm indeed a registered Independent and have voted for both Republicans and Democrats at the local, state and national level in nearly equal proportion.

Sorry but any attempt to point to positive Obama results are a failure and simply someone who wants to believe news contrary to reality. The labor force participation rate is at a record low and continues to be there. Population continues to grow and if you looked at the BLS data you would see that most of the loss is due to younger people who have dropped out of the labor force because of a poor job market and economy not retirees many of whom have had to put off retirement because of the poor economy.

So yes there has been a significant decline in the labor force because of discouraged workers dropping out and younger workers unable to find a job. That is reality that you and others want to ignore. Sorry but a labor force growing 1.2 million in 4 plus years is a disaster and you know it but cannot admit it. What is it about liberalism that creates this kind of loyalty?
 
And here you'll see a glimps of Bush's failed policies 3/4 through his term
Bureau of Labor Statistics Data Total Nonfarm 2001 -2008

So you concur that Bush's UE rate was lower that Obama's throughout his administration. I suppose this as you have shifted my point to quantity of jobs created. Would you further concur that during the majority of Bush's terms the UE rate was low enough to prohibit significant job creation? I will concede that during the last few Bush years and the economy slowed, UE rose and he was unable to address (as you link shows). But the FACT remains that Obama UE rate HAS been higher that Bush's for the entirety of his office.
 
So you concur that Bush's UE rate was lower that Obama's throughout his administration. I suppose this as you have shifted my point to quantity of jobs created. Would you further concur that during the majority of Bush's terms the UE rate was low enough to prohibit significant job creation? I will concede that during the last few Bush years and the economy slowed, UE rose and he was unable to address (as you link shows). But the FACT remains that Obama UE rate HAS been higher that Bush's for the entirety of his office.


In addition here is what Pb and other liberals want to ignore, the discouraged worker numbers. Note 2010-2012 numbers which Obama supporters still want to blame on Bush. I keep wondering how Bush created those numbers dropping out of the labor force from his home in Dallas?

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Original Data Value

Series Id: LNU05026645
Not Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Unadj) Not in Labor Force, Searched For Work and Available, Discouraged Reasons For Not Currently Looking
Labor force status: Not in labor force
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over
Job desires/not in labor force: Want a job now
Reasons not in labor force: Discouragement over job prospects (Persons who believe no job is available.)
Years: 2002 to 2012

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2002 328 375 330 320 414 342 405 378 392 359 385 403
2003 449 450 474 437 482 478 470 503 388 462 457 433
2004 432 484 514 492 476 478 504 534 412 429 392 442
2005 515 485 480 393 392 476 499 384 362 392 404 451
2006 396 386 451 381 323 481 428 448 325 331 349 274
2007 442 375 381 399 368 401 367 392 276 320 349 363
2008 467 396 401 412 400 420 461 381 467 484 608 642
2009 734 731 685 740 792 793 796 758 706 808 861 929
2010 1065 1204 994 1197 1083 1207 1185 1110 1209 1219 1282 1318
2011 993 1020 921 989 822 982 1119 977 1037 967 1096 945
2012 1059 1006 865 968 830 821 852 844 802 813 979 1068
2013 804 885 803 835
 
9.5 million Americans have left the workforce during the presidency of Barack Obama, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In April, the total number of Americans counted as "not in the labor force" declined for the first time since December, but that number was still near a record high at 89,936,000.

Those not in the labor force declined by 31,000, from a record high of 89,967,000 in March. That broke the recent record of 89,304,000 not in the labor force in February of this year.

Since February 2009, the first full month of Obama’s presidency, 9,549,000 people have left the labor force. There were 80,387,000 Americans not working that month, compared with 89,936,000 not working or looking today, according to the latest economic release from BLS.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) labels people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as “not in the labor force,”and that includes people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement, or simply given up looking for work.

In the 50 months since Obama has been in office, the number of people counted as not in the labor force has declined 16 times.

link above
 
While the unemployment rate fell to 7.5 percent in April, a five-year low, unemployment among 18-29 year olds remained at 11.1 percent. Adjusting for labor participation and those who have given up looking for work, the effective rate is 16.1 percent.

The number calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t include 1.7 million young Americans because these individuals have given up looking for work due to lack of jobs and therefore don’t qualify as “unemployed.” With nearly 2 million new college graduates entering the job market this spring, concern for the millennial generation’s standard of living abounds.

Unemployment remains high among young Americans | The Daily Caller

and they voted for the redistributor of ever diminishing resources

go figure
 
Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest.

America's gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — grew 6.8 percent from the April-June quarter of 2009 through the same quarter this year, the slowest in the first three years of a postwar recovery. GDP grew an average of 15.5 percent in the first three years of the eight other comebacks analyzed.

Consumer spending has grown just 6.5 percent since the recession ended, feeblest in a postwar recovery. In the first three years of previous recoveries, spending rose an average of nearly 14 percent.

The economy shed a staggering 8.8 million jobs during and shortly after the recession. Since employment hit bottom, the economy has created just over 4 million jobs. So the new hiring has replaced 46 percent of the lost jobs, by far the worst performance since World War II. In the previous eight recoveries, the economy had regained more than 350 percent of the jobs lost, on average.

Adjusted for inflation, wages have fallen 0.8 percent. In the previous five recoveries —the records go back only to 1964 — real wages had gone up an average 1.5 percent at this point.

AP: Economic recovery is weakest since World War II
 
wsj yesterday: "the us needs to average around 250,000 jobs a month for an extended period to tug the jobless rate back down to precession levels of under 6%, the pace of hiring in april is far too slow to accomplish that task"

nyt yesterday: "the us economy is not getting any closer to recreating the jobs lost during the recession"

links above

you can keep talking...

but who's spinning?

the ny times?

and don't forget: 58% (according to the la times) of these pitifully, paltry few jobs the keynesian extremist created pay a pathetic 8 to 12 dollars per hour

which is good work if you can get it, anyone whoever got anywhere on his or her own certainly started there and stayed there for some time, there are ways up

but not if you're 55

way too many of these obama jobs are service and retail, they're entry level and near minimum wage, they're temps and part timers

and you know it

it always all comes down to character
 
wsj yesterday: "the us needs to average around 250,000 jobs a month for an extended period to tug the jobless rate back down to precession levels of under 6%, the pace of hiring in april is far too slow to accomplish that task"

nyt yesterday: "the us economy is not getting any closer to recreating the jobs lost during the recession"

links above

you can keep talking...

but who's spinning?

the ny times?

and don't forget: 58% (according to the la times) of these pitifully, paltry few jobs the keynesian extremist created pay a pathetic 8 to 12 dollars per hour

which is good work if you can get it, anyone whoever got anywhere on his or her own certainly started there and stayed there for some time, there are ways up

but not if you're 55

way too many of these obama jobs are service and retail, they're entry level and near minimum wage, they're temps and part timers

and you know it

it always all comes down to character

Just shows that facts and data have no place in an Obamabots's world as they buy the rhetoric, spin negative information positively, and then run when challenged. Wonder what it is about liberalism that creates this kind of loyalty?

There is a reason the U.S. is doing better than the rest of the world and that reason is capitalism although Obama is trying to change that. Europe as a massive govt. spending program that Obama is trying to duplicate here and his Obamabots are buying that effort. Govt. spending used to be 20% of GDP and now it is approaching 40% so the new normal is high unemployment, low economic growth, and massive govt. spending creating dependence. Liberals keep their jobs by creating dependence.
 
it could explain it, i spose

but it doesn't

Keeping Up, Not Getting Ahead - NYTimes.com

your forbes is more than a year old

So much for Obama taking care of the middle class, in fact under Obama the middle class has moved further down making the middle class gap wider. Obama for real prosperity for the middle class, yeah right, when will they wake up?

Yep, I wish Obama would have given us a heads up in 2008 that this was his economic plan .

" I will push policies that will force privare investors and corporations into a perpetual state of stasis "

* the sychophantic low information crowd roars *

" My Central Bank Appointee will monetize nearly 70% of our short term Treasuries. He will allow the banks to hold record amounts of reserves, and then he will pay them interest on those reserves, to hold short term interest rates at record low levels so " the rich can get richer" and I can point to "record gains " on Wall Street as evidence of a growing economy"

* Crowd roars, people faint, Chris Mathews giggles *
 

You would think after Obama has thrown nearly 7 trillion of borrowed money at the problem we would have something better than the weakest recovery since world war II. But when he put some of the borrowed money on failed green companies that went bankrupt, I can understand his ignorance. Further we now have discovered we have more natural gas and crud oil than we ever thought of.
 
two weeks ago, associated press

AP: Obama administration had advance warning on Fisker

he was warned, he knew, good money after bad, a quarter billion dollars

ener1, abound, evergreen, a123, brightsource, sunpower, first solar, beacon, solyndra... many more

he knew, his aggressive political agenda overrode all business sense around him, good money after bad, lots of donors and cronies, board members and advisers...

and as for jobs---pfft

as you well know

at this point it becomes a question of character---yours

best wishes
 
Last edited:
ibd yesterday:

Wall Street is cheering while Main Street stays mired in a listless recovery. Maybe this makes sense to Barack Obama and the Fed, but try explaining it to the unemployed.

Friday was another one of those alternate-universe days on Wall Street. The Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with April job numbers that are only so-so, but the stock market greeted the news with another big rally.

All this over a BLS report showing payrolls rising 166,000 in April, barely enough to absorb the natural increase in the labor force. True, unemployment edged down from 7.6% to 7.5%, and the March and February job totals were revised upward (by 114,000 for the two months combined). But none of this resembles the robust growth normally seen at this point in a recovery.

The share of working-age Americans with jobs — 58.6% — has barely budged since the bottom of the recession, and we're still some 2 million jobs short of pre-recession levels. This is unique in post-World War II history. At this point in every other recovery, the job losses had long since been erased. On average, payrolls were 7.6 million above the pre-recession peak.

This is a serious problem at the grass roots, among job seekers and businesses that need a fully employed, well-paid middle class to fuel demand for their products and services. Main Street, in short.

Right now the stock market is riding a valuation wave generated by corporate earnings and monetary easing by the Federal Reserve. Profits can rise without much job creation — in fact, cutting jobs is one way to boost the bottom line when sales growth is sluggish.

And the Fed is, if anything, job-contrarian. It has announced it will stop easing once unemployment falls to 6.5%. When that happens, stocks will start losing the crutch of ultralow interest rates that are putting competing investments, such as bonds and CDs, at such a disadvantage.

From the stock market's point of view, Friday's report was just the right level of mediocrity. It showed the economy wasn't tanking, so companies can still make good money. And it showed the job market wasn't likely to cross the Fed's red line soon.

Job Report Cheers Wall Street, Shows Main Street Paint - Investors.com

where did ibd err?
 
so this is what it's come to

Now, it is true that down the road, there will be incentives in the health care law where some firms may decide they'd rather create part time jobs instead of full time jobs -- we'll have to see. But by the way, just in terms of raw job counts, that could actually boost the number of jobs higher because you'd have more part-time jobs. None of these factors are playing out in these data yet, and the health care sector is and will continue to be a strong area of growth.

Jared Bernstein: Obamacare Will "Boost Number Of Jobs Higher Because Of More Part-Time Jobs" | RealClearPolitics

embarrassed yet?

you're not familiar with mr bernstein, of course

you're probably vaguely aware of christina romer, she's kinda famous

Romer and Bernstein on stimulus - NYTimes.com

we're sposed to be at about 5.3 by now

at least, that's what the white house promised

nyt: "not getting any closer to recovering the jobs lost during the recession"

link above
 
so this is what it's come to



Jared Bernstein: Obamacare Will "Boost Number Of Jobs Higher Because Of More Part-Time Jobs" | RealClearPolitics

embarrassed yet?

you're not familiar with mr bernstein, of course

you're probably vaguely aware of christina romer, she's kinda famous

Romer and Bernstein on stimulus - NYTimes.com

we're sposed to be at about 5.3 by now

at least, that's what the white house promised

nyt: "not getting any closer to recovering the jobs lost during the recession"

link above

And just for good measure the BEA will instigate a 'modification' to how GDP is calculated for the this quarter and forward...

http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2013/03 March/0313_nipa_comprehensive_revision_preview.pdf

Many say this will virtually guarantee ~3% gdp growth in the second quarter...
 
Sorry but any attempt to point to positive Obama results are a failure and simply someone who wants to believe news contrary to reality. The labor force participation rate is at a record low and continues to be there. Population continues to grow and if you looked at the BLS data you would see that most of the loss is due to younger people who have dropped out of the labor force because of a poor job market and economy not retirees many of whom have had to put off retirement because of the poor economy.

So yes there has been a significant decline in the labor force because of discouraged workers dropping out and younger workers unable to find a job. That is reality that you and others want to ignore. Sorry but a labor force growing 1.2 million in 4 plus years is a disaster and you know it but cannot admit it. What is it about liberalism that creates this kind of loyalty?
Another impressive rant, but my point stands. Your math is simply awful.
 
Yep, I wish Obama would have given us a heads up in 2008 that this was his economic plan .

" I will push policies that will force privare investors and corporations into a perpetual state of stasis "

* the sychophantic low information crowd roars *

" My Central Bank Appointee will monetize nearly 70% of our short term Treasuries. He will allow the banks to hold record amounts of reserves, and then he will pay them interest on those reserves, to hold short term interest rates at record low levels so " the rich can get richer" and I can point to "record gains " on Wall Street as evidence of a growing economy"

* Crowd roars, people faint, Chris Mathews giggles *

Here's more.If Obama Had Told Us Before His Election by Phyllis Schlafly on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent
 
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