Jobs report not looking too shabby...

Employment Situation Summary

About a quarter million more jobs, fewer discouraged and marginally attached workers, unemployment rate under 5%, lfpr ticked back up a bit despite baby boomers retiring.

Now it's DAs turn to tell us how a particular demographic group has lost jobs and then to explain that because of that, our economy is going all to hell.

Looking decent. We still have millions stuck in part time work and unemployed individuals looking for work. Plenty of work to be done. Still need to tackle the stagnation of wages.

Russia's unemployment rate is 5.8% so I guess they are doing great to.
Everybody working for slave wages doesn't mean everybody is happy or that it is a rallying point.
Don't get me wrong. Both sides of the Bipartisan Empire use the unemployment rate as a talking point it just isn't as important as how many Americans are living (as opposed to surviving).

This is from 2013 but I will wager the state of this has not changed drastically in 3 years:
76% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Ntharotep said:

Russia's unemployment rate is 5.8% so I guess they are doing great to.
Everybody working for slave wages doesn't mean everybody is happy or that it is a rallying point.
Don't get me wrong. Both sides of the Bipartisan Empire use the unemployment rate as a talking point it just isn't as important as how many Americans are living (as opposed to surviving).

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Here in america, we have a somewhat generous safety net, although it has been decimated since the clinton welfare reform which caused extreme poverty to boom. Russia? Not so sure.

David_N said:

Here in america, we have a somewhat generous safety net, although it has been decimated since the clinton welfare reform which caused extreme poverty to boom. Russia? Not so sure.

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A safety net is made to "get people by" temporarily. It is not a good day to day metric to measure happiness to.
Also notice my edit. Sorry I didn't get in there before our replies.

Ntharotep said:

A safety net is made to "get people by" temporarily. It is not a good day to day metric to measure happiness to.
Also notice my edit. Sorry I didn't get in there before our replies.

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You need to understand, I do agree with you that americans have been suffering from stagnant wages for decades, right around the time the republicans/democrats started to fall to neoliberal ideology.

David_N said:

Looking decent. We still have millions stuck in part time work and unemployed individuals looking for work. Plenty of work to be done. Still need to tackle the stagnation of wages.

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If standard economic theory is correct, now that we at or close to the full employment rate, employers should have to start competing harder for employees, causing compensation to increase.

If that doesn't start happening soon, like by the end of the year, then it's an indication that the wage stagnation problem has been caused by something other than a weak economy.

Upfront and honest, what we have been calling "wage stagnation" on and off over the last 40 years is really "income disparity" (or the increase of income disparity), because the incomes of those at the top have been increasing nicely. If the median income fails to increase faster, maybe both parties will finally be honest and admit that income disparity is a problem, and seek the least invasive remedy for it.

Ntharotep said:

Russia's unemployment rate is 5.8% so I guess they are doing great to.
Everybody working for slave wages doesn't mean everybody is happy or that it is a rallying point.
Don't get me wrong. Both sides of the Bipartisan Empire use the unemployment rate as a talking point it just isn't as important as how many Americans are living (as opposed to surviving).

Click to expand...

Sure, I totally agree, but this has been an issue since the 1970's. When the median wages first started stagnating while the top percent or two saw their income continue to increase. It's nothing new.

This is from 2013 but I will wager the state of this has not changed drastically in 3 years:
76% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck

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Again, I assume that most Americans have always lived paycheck to paycheck. It's all I've ever known.

And now there's no debate because we pretty much agree
I also can't argue that the jobs increasing is better than people being out of work. As much as I loathe the paycheck to paycheck scene, I loathe unemployment more.

Ntharotep said:

Russia's unemployment rate is 5.8% so I guess they are doing great to.
Everybody working for slave wages doesn't mean everybody is happy or that it is a rallying point.
Don't get me wrong. Both sides of the Bipartisan Empire use the unemployment rate as a talking point it just isn't as important as how many Americans are living (as opposed to surviving).

This is from 2013 but I will wager the state of this has not changed drastically in 3 years:
76% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Click to expand...

The Russians always lie about their unemployment rate. Their productivity is the lowest in Europe too.

Russia masks unemployment with Soviet-era tactics - Telegraph

I don't think stagnant wages have anything to do with the economic theory other than globalization. The manufacturing sector left this country because we did not have the intelligence to prevent the importation of goods from countries with near slavery, no regulation preventing pollution, and manipulated currency. We let these countries sell their souls so we could have cheap goods.

Slateriesling said:

I don't think stagnant wages have anything to do with the economic theory other than globalization. The manufacturing sector left this country because we did not have the intelligence to prevent the importation of goods from countries with near slavery, no regulation preventing pollution, and manipulated currency. We let these countries sell their souls so we could have cheap goods.

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If that's not 100% of the reason, it's at least most of the reason, I agree.

now is about the time for goldenboy to tell me that I am stupid and give his lecture on how international trade benefits everyone.

What international trade supporters don't seem to understand is that international trade is only net beneficial for both sides if it is also fair trade. The Chinese aren't really better at making stuff than we in the US are, like you said - they just don't have the environmental and worker protections that we do.

I love free trade, but it also has to be fair, if it ain't fair, the damage due because of job losses in the US will exceed any benefits gained by having cheap stuff.

imagep said:

I love free trade, but it also has to be fair,

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obviously if it was not fair nobody would participate freely!!