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Only 115,000 jobs added in April; unemployment rate dips to 8.1 percent

Dittohead not! said:
Amazing, just amazing all of the right wingers who expect government to be the solution to the problem. Change the president, and unemployment will drop, and we'll all live happily ever after.

The country is in deep doo doo, no question. Unemployment is much higher than advertised. Fewer than half of recent college grads have jobs that reflect their level of education. The rest are either unemployed or flipping burgers (or similar). The high school dropouts, and there are a lot of them, are pretty much unemployable. What are they doing? Meanwhile, since fewer are paying taxes, being unemployed and all, and since the feds have been on a spending spree for decades now, we seem to be acquiring something of a debt.

The Congress is dysfunctional, totally tied up in knots with hyperpartisan lack of willingness to do anything that makes the dreaded other side look good, regardless of what is needed for the country.

and we're looking for a superman to ride his white horse into the White House and set it all right. It ain't gonna happen, folks. No one person is going to get us out of the doldrums we're in now.
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Agreed.

No one person, or even a handful, left or right, will lift us out of this mess. That's quite evident.

It will take a major political action by the great majority at or near the center of the political spectrum to ever create the reparative political action America's citizens need.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
I agree with that. But what were the republicans solutions to unemployment? The extreme called for letting the auto industry die and anti stimulus then unemployment very well could be A LOT higher right now.... And guess whose fault it would be if Obama didnt pass the stimulus and the unemployment was a lot higher???? Obama's....
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The Republican solution for everything is cutting regulations (yeah! Let's go back to the same crap that caused the recession!) and trickle down economics (larger budget deficits here we come!).
 
AdamT said:
There is no question that the unemployment rate has fallen. To deny it is simply to deny reality.
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To believe the unemployment rate has fallen is the denial of reality...and the proof of a need for a head examination.
 
Grim17 said:
Maybe Obama will get lucky and everyone who's unemployed will drop out of the labor market, that way the unemployment rate will plummet and he won't have to create any jobs to look like a hero. I know the main stream media will play along with it, because it's an election year and they will do anything to make sure their Messiah retains his throne.
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Grim I could understand the attacks on Obama (because the economy is floundering) if not for the fact that the alternative is just old hat trickle down theory which has obviously not worked well for the past couple of decades.

If Conservatives are going to criticize what Obama you'd better offer an alternative. I think when the debates happen the fact they have no real alternative is going to become apparent to most Americans.
 
Ontologuy said:
When will someone actually do something about the mess we're in?
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Yep, where is the President been during this mess and other messes that we're in? He rarely speaks to the nation because he's too busy trying to campaign to save his failed presidency.

I hear of more and more people losing their jobs each week and somehow our economy is getting better?!?! Remember when Obama said he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term? Obama will cut deficit in half FEB 2009 - YouTube

Wake up people! This President has failed us and it's time to take our nation back!
 
iliveonramen said:
Grim I could understand the attacks on Obama (because the economy is floundering) if not for the fact that the alternative is just old hat trickle down theory which has obviously not worked well for the past couple of decades.

If Conservatives are going to criticize what Obama you'd better offer an alternative. I think when the debates happen the fact they have no real alternative is going to become apparent to most Americans.
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I think a real debate is what the country deserves in the coming campaign. Not the glib, "tax and spend" or "we need fairness" slogans. Perhaps we should have a Lincoln Douglas type of debate on the economy. Wonder if the public would actually listen to a couple of hours of real thinking without slogans and gotya questions by moderators.
 
washunut said:
I think a real debate is what the country deserves in the coming campaign. Not the glib, "tax and spend" or "we need fairness" slogans. Perhaps we should have a Lincoln Douglas type of debate on the economy. Wonder if the public would actually listen to a couple of hours of real thinking without slogans and gotya questions by moderators.
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I think they would...I think people are turned off by negative campaigns and simple slogans.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
Currently U-6 unemployment is at 14.5%. (Portal Seven | U6 Unemployment Rate) U-6 stayed at 14.5% last month and was at 14.9% in February. So, really there is no actual recovery. The WSJ does a great job of explaining how the unemployment rate dropped (Why Did the Unemployment Rate Drop? - Real Time Economics - WSJ). I think we also need to realize that the government does game the numbers (No Jobs For Americans |) (The January Jobs Are Statistical Artifacts |).
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Yep.

And what the government won't also tell us about the U6 figure is that it's indeed understated, because they simply don't know nor have an accurate estimate of how many people simply fell off their reporting grid since these people gave up looking for jobs that just aren't there.

I once spoke to a BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) agent that said that number they report for these people who've given up is likely only 60% of the total actual figure.

When it comes to the total number of lives of those tremendously adversely affected, the number is much, much higher than government, media, and business marketers want to tell us. And they don't want to tell us how bad it is because they all know that the normal reaction to receiving such news is that we'd then close our wallets to unnecessary spending.

But with last month's report of over 45 million people in America now on food stamps and thus unable to spend much at all, period, no, the sad reality of it all simply cannot be hidden.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Amazing, just amazing all of the right wingers who expect government to be the solution to the problem. Change the president, and unemployment will drop, and we'll all live happily ever after.

The country is in deep doo doo, no question. Unemployment is much higher than advertised. Fewer than half of recent college grads have jobs that reflect their level of education. The rest are either unemployed or flipping burgers (or similar). The high school dropouts, and there are a lot of them, are pretty much unemployable. What are they doing? Meanwhile, since fewer are paying taxes, being unemployed and all, and since the feds have been on a spending spree for decades now, we seem to be acquiring something of a debt.

The Congress is dysfunctional, totally tied up in knots with hyperpartisan lack of willingness to do anything that makes the dreaded other side look good, regardless of what is needed for the country.

and we're looking for a superman to ride his white horse into the White House and set it all right. It ain't gonna happen, folks. No one person is going to get us out of the doldrums we're in now.
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It's funny how "Government doesn't create jobs" was the mantra of the right, now it's "Why hasn't the President created any jobs?" It's almost like they hate him for being a Democrat or something...
 
It's funny how "Government doesn't create jobs" was the mantra of the right, now it's "Why hasn't the President created any jobs?" It's almost like they hate him for being a Democrat or something...
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On that same line of thought...this idea we need to cut government and the private sector will pick up the slack. Since Obama took over government jobs (local/state/fed) are down a net 500ishk+. The private sector has added about 60k net since he's taken over.
 
Ontologuy said:
(Can't believe this late in the day I'm the first to post this, but I couldn't find any other new thread talkin' about it ..)

"Only 115,000 jobs added in April; unemployment rate to 8.1 percent" Only 115,000 jobs added in April; unemployment rate to 8.1 percent | The Lookout - Yahoo! News.



Recovery? What recovery???

So more than 300,000 had been looking for some time but couldn't find work, and thus depressed, they stopped looking for at least the past four weeks for jobs that just aren't there, and they get removed from the unemployment rate calculation. This happens all the time. Thus the ubiquitous basic unemployment rate we're fed in the news is a contrivance that is much, much higher in reality than fictitiously presented to the public.

Where are all the promised new jobs?

Where are "happy days are here again", I mean the non-sarcastic happy days?

When will someone actually do something about the mess we're in?

Left and right, the answer is never!!!
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When Obama and the democrats cite improvements in the workforce and the economy overall, they should be charged with criminal assault on intelligence.
 
Blue_State said:
If you read it, it says we will not fix our economy problems by just electing a new leader or keeping the old one this fall.
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Bingo! Someone gets it. When I read posts like this one (not picking on a particular, just a representative one)

Maybe Obama will get lucky and everyone who's unemployed will drop out of the labor market, that way the unemployment rate will plummet and he won't have to create any jobs to look like a hero. I know the main stream media will play along with it, because it's an election year and they will do anything to make sure their Messiah retains his throne.
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It leads me to believe that the right wingers, the ones who say they're for limited government, seem to think that changing the president is going to change things in this country, maybe pare back the size and power of the federal bureaucracy and get some real economic growth going.

Just how much power do they think resides in the White House, anyway?

It ain't gonna happen that way, folks. We can elect Romney, and I hope we do. He has some experience getting financially failing institutions back in the black, which just might help a little bit.

But, don't expect any major changes after the election regardless of the outcome. We'll still have high unemployment, a huge debt, and a dysfunctional Congress.
 
iliveonramen said:
I think they would...I think people are turned off by negative campaigns and simple slogans.
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Unfortunately they say they are turned off by negative campaigns, but the statistics show the ads are effective. Sad really.
 
Eighty Deuce said:
Then what it says is incorrect. While changing leaders is no guarantee of success, to not change this one is a guarantee of failure.
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Very true.

The Obama administration can claim anything they want from the Ivory Tower, however "12.5 million people are still unemployed, and a record 88.4 million people are considered "not in the labor force," according to the BLS. Those folks can see unemployment and underemployment from street level. Their view of unemployment and underemployment comes from a how can we survive, will we lose our home, can I feed my kids perspective. The Obama administrations view is from the Ivory Tower and comes from a can I fool enough people into think things are actually better perspective. In December 2008, a year after the recession officially started there were 135,253,000 million people working, that's 3,622,000 less than when the recession started in Dec 2007. Now here we are 3 years and 5 months later and there are 132,967,000 people working. That's 2,286,000 less people working than in Dec 2008. How anyone can say things are getting better I simply don't know, they just aren't getting worse as fast. However what we have is over 8% unemployment for the longest sustained time in the history of this country since the great depression. 19% underemployment (stimulus jobs), near $5 trillion dollars in new debt in less than 4 years, home foreclosures continuing unabated by any Obama plan, gasoline hovering just under $5 a gallon driving up prices of all consumer goods, food prices hitting the stratosphere and over all GDP growth below 2% which means we're losing ground.

In California the overall unemployment rate is 11.5% and well over 12% in the county I live in. I can see the unemployed from my back yard.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
Currently U-6 unemployment is at 14.5%. (Portal Seven | U6 Unemployment Rate) U-6 stayed at 14.5% last month and was at 14.9% in February. So, really there is no actual recovery. The WSJ does a great job of explaining how the unemployment rate dropped (Why Did the Unemployment Rate Drop? - Real Time Economics - WSJ). I think we also need to realize that the government does game the numbers (No Jobs For Americans |) (The January Jobs Are Statistical Artifacts |).
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U-6 has been as high as 17.2%, so it's not really accurate to say that a 14.5% rate means no recovery.

That said, there's no question but that the unemployment rate is falling in part because of baby boomer retirement and people just giving up, in addition to job growth.
 
AdamT said:
U-6 has been as high as 17.2%, so it's not really accurate to say that a 14.5% rate means no recovery.

That said, there's no question but that the unemployment rate is falling in part because of baby boomer retirement and people just giving up, in addition to job growth.
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The question about job growth brings up another question or two ..

.. Does anyone know how many jobs were added last period and how many jobs were lost last period, so that a net jobs gained/lost figure can be presented?

Also, does anyone know how many living-wage jobs were added last period and how many living-wage jobs were lost last period, so that a net living-wage jobs gained/lost figure can be presented?
 
Dittohead not! said:
Bingo! Someone gets it. When I read posts like this one (not picking on a particular, just a representative one)



It leads me to believe that the right wingers, the ones who say they're for limited government, seem to think that changing the president is going to change things in this country, maybe pare back the size and power of the federal bureaucracy and get some real economic growth going.

Just how much power do they think resides in the White House, anyway?

It ain't gonna happen that way, folks. We can elect Romney, and I hope we do. He has some experience getting financially failing institutions back in the black, which just might help a little bit.

But, don't expect any major changes after the election regardless of the outcome. We'll still have high unemployment, a huge debt, and a dysfunctional Congress.
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One can only surmise that it's the result of a fundamental ignorance of economics. No one disputes that government CAN mess up the economy, e.g. by crowding out investment, pushing interest rates too high, or fueling an asset bubble, but none of those things are happening now. What's happened under Obama is that the Fed has kept interest rates near zero, which helps business and the markets, they've kept inflation, if anything, too low, which helps consumers, they've passed a payroll tax cut to help working people, and they passed a large stimulus bill which primarily helped the states forestall layoffs.

One can argue that these are bad policies in the long run, due to debt overhang, but you can't realistically argue that these policies have slowed employment growth up until now ... or even that they haven't helped bolster employment growth. If the government had not done these things the current situation would certainly be much worse.
 
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AdamT said:
One can only surmise that it's the result of a fundamental ignorance of economics. No one disputes that government CAN mess up the economy, e.g. by crowding out investment, pushing interest rates too high, or fueling an asset bubble, but none of those things are happening now. What's happened under Obama is that the Fed has kept interest rates near zero, which helps business and the markets, they've kept inflation, if anything, too low, which helps consumers, they've passed a payroll tax cut to help working people, and they passed a large stimulus bill which primarily helped the states forestall layoffs.

One can argue that these are bad policies in the long run, due to debt overhang, but you can't realistically argue that these policies have slowed employment growth up until now ... or even that they haven't helped bolster employment growth. If the government had not done these things the current situation would certainly be much worse.
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What you've pointed out is that the government can stabilize a floundering economic environment not actually change it dramatically for the better. Much of that still lies in the hands of investors and consumers who are not getting enough momentum to sustain a solid recovery. That would happen if there were a significant job recovery and reinvesting in American production.
 
grip said:
What you've pointed out is that the government can stabilize a floundering economic environment not actually change it dramatically for the better. Much of that still lies in the hands of investors and consumers who are not getting enough momentum to sustain a solid recovery. That would happen if there were a significant job recovery and reinvesting in American production.
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Wait, you mean to tell me that quadrupling our debt for a handful of failed companies to continue to exist while they continue to cut jobs and their overall growth so that their executives can keep their lifestyles is NOT the way out of this mess?? say it isn't so!
 
AdamT said:
One can only surmise that it's the result of a fundamental ignorance of economics. No one disputes that government CAN mess up the economy, e.g. by crowding out investment, pushing interest rates too high, or fueling an asset bubble, but none of those things are happening now. What's happened under Obama is that the Fed has kept interest rates near zero, which helps business and the markets, they've kept inflation, if anything, too low, which helps consumers, they've passed a payroll tax cut to help working people, and they passed a large stimulus bill which primarily helped the states forestall layoffs.
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That's NOT what it was supposed to be used for. Had Obama told the people that they were going to spend $840 Billion dollars to keep government workers employed, he would have been wearing rotten tomatoes. Here's what he said....

More than 90 percent of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector. They're not going to be make-work jobs, but jobs doing the work that America desperately needs done: jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our dangerously deficient dams and levees so that we don't face another Katrina.

Transcript: Obama takes questions on economy - CNN.com
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So did Obama lie, make a false statement or a misstatement? Either way it turned out to be patently untrue.

AdamT said:
One can argue that these are bad policies in the long run, due to debt overhang, but you can't realistically argue that these policies have slowed employment growth up until now ... or even that they haven't helped bolster employment growth. If the government had not done these things the current situation would certainly be much worse.
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Can you point to empirical data that prove that as opposed to the economy slowly recovering on it's own?
 
00timh said:
Wait, you mean to tell me that quadrupling our debt for a handful of failed companies to continue to exist while they continue to cut jobs and their overall growth so that their executives can keep their lifestyles is NOT the way out of this mess?? say it isn't so!
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I called my congressman here in CT...he can't believe it either.
 
rocket88 said:
It's funny how "Government doesn't create jobs" was the mantra of the right, now it's "Why hasn't the President created any jobs?" It's almost like they hate him for being a Democrat or something...
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I don't really think too many on the right are complaining that the President hasn't created any jobs...rather, I think they wish he would stop TRYING to create jobs. He's just making it worse.
 
iliveonramen said:
Grim I could understand the attacks on Obama (because the economy is floundering) if not for the fact that the alternative is just old hat trickle down theory which has obviously not worked well for the past couple of decades.

If Conservatives are going to criticize what Obama you'd better offer an alternative. I think when the debates happen the fact they have no real alternative is going to become apparent to most Americans.
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Republicans HAVE proposed alternatives. But Obama and his buddies won't hold any debates. Why do you think THAT is?
 
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