Payrolls Climb as Jobless Rate Declines

MrT said:

People are refusing to work for you at 15$/hour and would rather draw unemployment at 8.25/hour (max in my state)? Sounds like bull**** to me.

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Really? You can either spend almost all your time at work and earn $15/hour or get paid $8.25/hour for doing nothing. Why not take less pay and get more free time? People seem to forget that there is more variables in play here than just total amount earned.

tres borrachos said:

Who are "my guys"?

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Republicans.

I said, correctly, that neither you nor the OP can name a "liberal policy" that created jobs and caused payrolls to rise. You seem to have some problems comprehending posts you copy.

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This is a weak strawman. Notice the OP never even attempted to claim job growth is based on presidential policy, but he did point out that his policies (any or all) have not destroyed the economy as has been sold by the GOP.

If the positive economy means nothing more to you than a poke in the eye to some political party, I won't waste any more time responding to your partisan drivel which is just as partisan as what the posters from the right are posting. But as I said, at least they're honest about it.

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You are more than welcome to browse the archives and observe how my position is not at all based on politics, but instead on positive economic analysis. You'll have over 9 years worth of material to go by. Throughout that time, there have been dozens and dozens of self-described conservatives/republicans who swore up and down that Obama's policies were going to cause a debt crisis (Republicans even attempted to manufacture one), that hyperinflation was just around the corner, the dollar was going to collapse, etc....

The OP is speaking directly to participants in these threads throughout the years who have condescendingly predicted doom and gloom on the sole basis of an Obama Presidency. Dozens of wagers in these monthly threads regarding the future have yet to be collected... and we all know who is in the red.

Fearandloathing said:

No wonder the US is tanking.

Liberals have no left the 1980's and are still fighting over Reagan's economic policies from nearly four decades ago. It appears this "progressive" thing is stuck in the past, when confronted they whine about Bush, when that fails they bring up an issue for six decades ago.

But you forgot, Regan got people working again. Reagan re-united a divided country.

But you're probably too young to remember that stuff, and can only cite socialist propaganda.

You know, your guy had complete control of both houses and all the liberals do as walk around whining about how the Republicans "blocked him".

Obama is his own worst enemy, his ego it too big, his skin is too thin and he is far too self centered to even have been in the room with Reagan, and I hated him then.

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I was running my own business in the Reagan years and business sucked here in Florida. Reagan presided over the rise of the power of Wall Street and the "yuppie" generation. Those that idolize him do so because he is the only bright spot in a terrible economic record by Republican Presidents when the truth is he would only be considered mediocre by Democrat standards. Clinton created more private sector jobs then Reagan and BOTH Bush's combined and did so with a balanced budget.
As far as Obama having "complete control of both houses" that was for 72 days and yes he got a lot done in that short time. Since then though it has been tough to get anything thru. You should know that "making Obama a 1 term President" thing was pretty problematic and the GOP rejected even bills and ideas they had supported in the past because they did not want the credit to go to Obama.

Kushinator said:

Republicans.



This is a weak strawman. Notice the OP never even attempted to claim job growth is based on presidential policy, but he did point out that his policies (any or all) have not destroyed the economy as has been sold by the GOP.



You are more than welcome to browse the archives and observe how my position is not at all based on politics, but instead on positive economic analysis. You'll have over 9 years worth of material to go by. Throughout that time, there have been dozens and dozens of self-described conservatives/republicans who swore up and down that Obama's policies were going to cause a debt crisis (Republicans even attempted to manufacture one), that hyperinflation was just around the corner, the dollar was going to collapse, etc....

The OP is speaking directly to participants in these threads throughout the years who have condescendingly predicted doom and gloom on the sole basis of an Obama Presidency. Dozens of wagers in these monthly threads regarding the future have yet to be collected... and we all know who is in the red.

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Ah, so my guys are Republicans, and your guys are Democrats. Got it. Thanks for confirming your partisanship.

Kushinator said:

:lol:

Are you saying that if i were to post total CPS data on the aggregate full time labor market, it would not mirror that of the private FTE data?

Unfortunately, i am not aware of CPS full time private sector employment data, hence why i chose to use the private FTE data.

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No, nothing to do with CPS. Recognizing that FTE doesn't tell us anything about the ratio of part to full time employment (it would count a person working four, 9-hour part time jobs to make ends meet as a full time equivalent employee), I don't see how slapping up a chart that shows growth in FTE tells us much of anything about the proportion of those people "having to take part time work" due to a lack of full time positions.

All that aside, surely you agree that the current ratio of full to part time employment still has a long way to recover to get back to pre-recession levels?

iguanaman said:

I was running my own business in the Reagan years and business sucked here in Florida. Reagan presided over the rise of the power of Wall Street and the "yuppie" generation. Those that idolize him do so because he is the only bright spot in a terrible economic record by Republican Presidents when the truth is he would only be considered mediocre by Democrat standards. Clinton created more private sector jobs then Reagan and BOTH Bush's combined and did so with a balanced budget.
As far as Obama having "complete control of both houses" that was for 72 days and yes he got a lot done in that short time. Since then though it has been tough to get anything thru. You should know that "making Obama a 1 term President" thing was pretty problematic and the GOP rejected even bills and ideas they had supported in the past because they did not want the credit to go to Obama.

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Yea he and the Democrats did allot of damage in those 72 days.

Almost everything they accomplished isn't mentioned, bragged about or even alluded to by any Democrat who's run in any election since 2010.

MrT said:

Your post would be more effective if it didn't take place after 12 pages worth of conservatives arguing that the economic news should not be attributed to Obama.

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Your response would be more effective if all those other posters spoke for me. :2wave:

Taylor said:

No, nothing to do with CPS. Recognizing that FTE doesn't tell us anything about the ratio of part to full time employment (it would count a person working four, 9-hour part time jobs to make ends meet as a full time equivalent employee), I don't see how slapping up a chart that shows growth in FTE tells us much of anything about the proportion of those people "having to take part time work" due to a lack of full time positions.

All that aside, surely you agree that the current ratio of full to part time employment still has a long way to recover to get back to pre-recession levels?

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It has a ways to go...don't know if I'd say long time

Fenton said:

Yea he and the Democrats did allot of damage in those 72 days.

Almost everything they accomplished isn't mentioned, bragged about or even alluded to by any Democrat who's run in any election since 2010.

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Don't remind me of all the lost seats because the Dems ran away from the ACA. That was not what Dem voters wanted and they stayed home. Hillary will not make that mistake.

tres borrachos said:

Ah, so my guys are Republicans

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Yes

your guys are Democrats

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No.

My guys are apolitical, e.g. Zandi or Gundlach.

Got it. Thanks for confirming your partisanship.

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Your strawman was created purely on a partisan basis. Again... the economy didn't collapse, the dollar didn't crash. Instead, we get the largest stretch of job growth in the country's history.

pinqy said:

It has a ways to go...don't know if I'd say long time

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If you observe a longer time horizon, how important is it to get back to pre-recession levels?

Conservative said:

Yes, I did do exactly that because for the skill level I was hiring for I had to over pay because of competition. I could only do that so long if the revenue didn't justify it. Had to close locations that couldn't handle the costs and that hurt employees.

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Actually you probably did your employees a favor and they found better paying jobs in less greedy or better run companies.

Real unemployment is still at 9.9%.

The reported rate is whatever the administration and media want it to be.

pinqy said:

It has a ways to go...don't know if I'd say long time

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Yes, I suppose it very much depends on what one considers to be a "long time." The trend suggests another 3 years (maybe 4), just eyeballing it. [Though not unlikely that we'll hit another recession before or about the time it reaches that point.]

faithful_servant said:

Just as in 2006, the market is anticipating a more conservative Congress. Then, the market saw that a more liberal Congress was coming and reacted by contracting, now they are seeing a more conservative Congress coming and are expanding. The market doesn't look back and respond, it looks forward and tries to anticipate.

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:lol: So cringeworthy.

Erod said:

You can make money in any conditions, so Wall Street is never really in danger. But job numbers can be WILDLY manipulated, and they are. Some people are doing just fine, but unemployment in certain sectors, particularly among black Americans, is worse than it's been since the Great Depression.

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A demonstrably false claim.

RetiredUSN said:

Real unemployment still at 9.9%.

The reported rate is whatever the administration and media want it to be.

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:lol: Yeah, that real unemployment rate that lumps in millions of people who are employed always tends to be higher doesn't it?

it's pretty much undeniable that the economy has improved. the credit certainly can't be given completely to a president or to a do nothing congress, though. the credit goes to the wall street gamblers who haven't re-****ed up the economy, to global economic factors that no one could have controlled, and to people spending money again. basically, if you hire people and pay them money, they spend it, and then more people get hired. i'm not arguing that demand side is the only solution to every economic climate, but it's the better choice right now.

RetiredUSN said:

Real unemployment is still at 9.9%.

The reported rate is whatever the administration and media want it to be.

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what makes the "real rate" the real rate, and who calculates it? And at what point in the half day the President has the report and the half hour the media has it do they change things?

pinqy said:

what makes the "real rate" the real rate, and who calculates it? And at what point in the half day the President has the report and the half hour the media has it do they change things?

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the "real rate" is for when the other side controls an important branch of government and the economy is doing well. the government's measure of unemployment is for when your side controls an important branch of government and the economy is doing well. what i can't understand is why Republicans aren't claiming credit for the improvement themselves. after all, they've controlled congress for some time now, which, IMO, is more important than one guy who can't do anything now except issue executive orders because congress thinks he's some sort of evil interloper. i noticed that at least one Republican early in this thread employed something similar to this strategy, theorizing that the economy is doing well because of anticipation of more Republicans. almost pulled it off there, i have to say. maybe next month someone will get it right.

iguanaman said:

Actually you probably did your employees a favor and they found better paying jobs in less greedy or better run companies.

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How about sticking to the issue vs. the personal attack

iguanaman said:

Don't remind me of all the lost seats because the Dems ran away from the ACA. That was not what Dem voters wanted and they stayed home. Hillary will not make that mistake.

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Lol !!! She's running from it now

Please, show me where she's bragged about the " success " of that abortion of a law

Erod said:

Dropping out of the job market or taking part time work is only progress in a liberal's mind.

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The number of Americans who are not in the labor force but want a job, measured as percentage of the civilian labor force, is now lower than it was when Obummer was inaugurated.

Conservative said:

I will be happy to give Obama credit when you give us the specific legislation he authored or the Democrats in Congress authored that created these numbers.

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I'd say the Democrats put the economy on life support so that the natural forces of capitalism could allow it to recover. The most important act may have been passage of the ARRA, which, among other things, cut taxes, extended unemployment benefits, and put money into infrastructure projects. CBO reports that this provided five million jobs. I'd also point to the auto bailout that began in Apr 2009.

Real GDP grew by 2.5% in 2010, after having fallen by 2.8% in 2009. The only other really bad year we've had since the end of the Great Depression was 1982, when it fell by 1.9% in the Reagan Recession.

Then there's the $858 tax cut package enacted in Dec 2010. Obama proposed the so-called American Jobs Act in Sept 2011, and although elements of it did become law, much of it didn't get through Congress.

Erod said:

unemployment in certain sectors, particularly among black Americans, is worse than it's been since the Great Depression.

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Why do you keep repeating this stupid lie? Black unemployment is 8.8%, down from 16.8% in Mar 2010. BLS started measuring this in 1972, and the all-time high is 21.2% in Jan 1983 during the Reagan Recession.

Conservative said:

Why don't you post the relative statistics for discouraged workers, part time employees for economic reasons

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Why do you keep pretending that the numbers haven't been shown to you many, many times?

Conservative said:

People want to forget that we were coming out of recession when Obama took office and his policies led to the worst recovery in history.

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You ignore the fact that the labor market continued to suffer the effects of the GOP SSE Great Recession throughout 2009. You also ignore the fact that the reason the recovery was slow was that the sharp decline was not a business cycle downturn, but rather the result of a near-collapse of the financial sector.

Conservative said:

Do you realize the number of part time employees in those numbers? How about the number of discouraged workers who stopped looking for work in this booming Obama economy?

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Part-time employment, in millions

Feb 2009 — 26.7
Jan 2016 — 27.4

Discouraged workers, in thousands

Feb 2009 — 731
Jan 2016 — 623

Erod said:

If the economy is doing so much better, why are Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton running campaigns based on the poor economy and financial destruction of middle America?

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They both credit the president for the recovery from the GOP SSE Great Recession. Otoh, they point to the damage done by two rounds of SSE policy that have lead to massive income and wealth inequality, a very large national debt, and a critical need for public investment in education, research, and infrastructure.

tres borrachos said:

I actually asked the OP what "damn liberal policies" he believed were behind the payrolls climbing

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See above.

tres borrachos said:

The economy is cyclical and you would have to have been a moron to not know in 2008 the economy would come back, no matter which President was at the helm.

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The GOP SSE Great Recession wasn't a business cycle downturn, but rather the result of a near-collapse of the financial sector. It required extraordinary fiscal stimulus which Republicans opposed.

Conservative said:

Rising interest rates are going to do what with the fourth largest budget item, debt service?

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Debt interest as a percentage of GDP has now returned to a pre-Reagan level.

Fearandloathing said:

Regan got people working again. But you're probably too young to remember that stuff, and can only cite socialist propaganda.

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Reagan put people out of work and kept a lot of them there. Unemployment was 7.4% when he came into office in Jan 1981, and by Jul it was down to 7.2. Then his economic program was enacted, and it began to climb. It was above 8 from Nov 1981 until Jan 1984, peaking at 10.8 in Nov 1982. It remained above 7 until Jan 1986. It's now 4.9, while Reagan never got it under 5.3.

>>your guy had complete control of both houses and all the liberals do as walk around whining about how the Republicans "blocked him".

No, we point to what he was able to accomplish in his first two years, and we also note that he could have done a lot more if the GOP hadn't gained enough seats in 2011 to slow things down.

>>Obama is his own worst enemy, his ego it too big, his skin is too thin and he is far too self centered

Empty rhetoric.

Erod said:

I see it first hand at my company. We offer technicians $15 an hour, and we can't get or keep them. They want $25, and they'd rather sit at home and draw welfare than make a little bit more busting their butt on a job.

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What's this "welfare" program yer referring to?

Fearandloathing said:

There have been two actions that created jobs and raised salaries. One was Obamacare, a whole new bureaucracy was created there for civil servants

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Public-sector employment, in millions

Feb 2009 — 21.1
Jan 2016 — 20.7

Fenton said:

Why do you people work so hard to marginalize the tens of millions of Americans who've suffered over the last 7 years.

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Why do reactionaries work so hard to deny the fact that policies they support caused that suffering?

Taylor said:

surely you agree that the current ratio of full to part time employment still has a long way to recover to get back to pre-recession levels?

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Pre-recession level were bubble highs. The ratio is now where it was in Jul 2004.

Kushinator said:

i am not aware of CPS full time private sector employment data

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I see you found the interactive Fed graph. Here's the BLS page.

Obviously, don't be concerned about yer error in posting a subset of employed PT for economic reasons. Everyone makes mistakes like that. You'll agree that interpreting the data properly is a lot more important than identifying the correct dataset every time.

Conservative said:

How about sticking to the issue vs. the personal attack

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Ohhh, cut the Krugmanites some slack...their central bank-run economies have been stagnating for a couple of years now. Plus the world is finally beginning to realize that this Keynesian-based macroeconomic model of theirs is not as rosy as the ignorant economists/prof's/masses had thought/hoped.

So their followers are in defensive mode...something that they had better get more-or-less used to from here on out as major central banks fire more and more bullets at their respective economies...each time with declining relative effect.

And if you think they are defensive now...just wait a few years when this Krugmaite nonsense falls farther and farther down the well of disrespect.
You see, they cannot blame their beloved macroeconomic model...so they have to blame others for not implementing their model faster and earlier.
'It's the right's/Austrian's/Libertarian's fault for not allowing us Krugmanites to spend much more, much earlier.'; they will claim. All while Paul Krugman screams...'MORE MONEY!!!'

This WILL all end badly...nothing can stop that now. And the faster it ends, the better off we will be. Unfortunately Japan has shown that it can be dragged out for many, many years of decline. But eventually people will realize the central banks are relatively clueless and then the real nightmare will begin.