not in labor force – The Burning Platform

One True Measure Of Stagnation: Not In The Labor Force

Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

One True Measure of Stagnation: Not in the Labor Force

This is a stark depiction of underlying stagnation: paid work is not being created as population expands.

Heroic efforts are being made to cloak the stagnation of the U.S. economy. One of these is to shift the unemployed work force from the negative-sounding jobless category to the benign-sounding Not in the Labor Force (NILF) category.

But re-labeling stagnation does not magically transform a stagnant economy. To get a sense of long-term stagnation, let’s look at the data going back 38 years, to 1977.

NOT IN LABOR FORCE (NILF) 1976 to 2015

I’ve selected data from three representative eras:

The 20-year period from 1977 to 1997, as this encompasses a variety of macro-economic conditions: five years of stagflation and two back-to-back recessions (1977 – 1982), strong growth from 1983 to 1990, a mild recession in 1991, and growth from 1993 to 1997.
The period of broad-based expansion from 1982 to 2000
The period 2000 to 2015, an era characterized by bubbles, post-bubble crises and low-growth “recovery”

In all cases, I list the Not in Labor Force (NILF) data and the population of the U.S.

1977-01-01: 61.491 million NILF population 220 million

1997-01-01 67.968 million NILF population 272 million

Population rose 52 million 23.6%

NILF rose 6.477 million 10.5%

Continue reading “One True Measure Of Stagnation: Not In The Labor Force”

ANOTHER HYSTERICALLY FALSE BLS UNEMPLOYMENT REPORT

It’s that time of the month again, where the Bureau of Lies and Scams issues their latest manipulated, massaged, and falsified unemployment data to the willfully ignorant masses. The MSM will unquestioningly regurgitate the lies with breathless enthusiasm. The Wall Street hucksters will interpret any data as positive for the stock market.

The two headlines flashing across TV screens and websites are diametrically opposed, but none of the talking heads will reveal they can’t both be true. Here are the two headlines from Marketwatch:

U.S. economy adds 173,000 jobs in August

Unemployment rate falls to 5.1%

It is too bad that most Americans are so preoccupied with the latest App on their iGadget, frantically finalizing their fantasy football roster, or so dumbed down by our so called public education system, they have absolutely no clue that it is mathematically impossible for the REAL unemployment rate to fall when only 173,000 jobs are added. The only way this can happen is if the BLS blatantly lies and tells you that hundreds of thousands of working age Americans again decided their lives were so fulfilled and finances so solid, that they don’t want to work anymore. As we all know, this is complete and utter bullshit.

U.S. politicians and government apparatchiks are following the advice of Jean-Claude Juncker:

“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”

Let’s dig into the BLS reported bullshit and extract some facts which will obliterate the government reported lies:

Continue reading “ANOTHER HYSTERICALLY FALSE BLS UNEMPLOYMENT REPORT”

HALLELUJAH!!! – UNEMPLOYMENT PLUNGES DUE TO 354,000 AMERICANS LEAVING THE WOKFORCE

This shit is almost too funny to read. The Bureau of Lies & Scams (BLS) just issued their seasonally adjusted, excel spreadsheet enhanced, monthly propaganda data for February. They have the balls to report that an economy that is hemorrhaging energy jobs, seeing retailers close stores by the hundreds, has seen manufacturing new orders decline for six straight months, has corporate profits falling, has real median household income sitting at 1989 levels and has seen 80% of all economic reports miss to the downside is creating 295,000 new jobs in the middle of the coldest, snowiest February in years. The BLS uses classic government logic. When in doubt, lie.

Of course, the BLS is still using their excel spreadsheet Birth Death model to add 132,000 phantom jobs into the calculation for all the small business hiring going on out there. It has already been documented that there are more businesses closing than opening in the US. This adjustment is a farce. It is untrue. It is more likely to be negative 132,000, which would eliminate virtually all the new jobs just reported. As usual the household survey reports an entirely different result than the blaring positive headlines in the corporate mainstream media.

A critical thinking person might wonder how the labor participation rate could go even lower (37 year lows) if the unemployment rate just reached a seven year low of 5.5%. The BLS counts on the faux journalists at CNBC and Marketwatch to not think critically. So you need to go elsewhere for some truth. Here it is:

Continue reading “HALLELUJAH!!! – UNEMPLOYMENT PLUNGES DUE TO 354,000 AMERICANS LEAVING THE WOKFORCE”

ANOTHER BULLSHIT BLS REPORT

This never grows old. The BLS and the MSM are touting the phenomenal job gains over the last two months. They love to shout the figures from their one survey, while ignoring the data from the more comprehensive household survey. So here is what they are screaming from the mountaintops:

November New Jobs – 353,000

December New Jobs – 252,000

Two Month Total – 605,000

Sounds awesome until you try to confirm the numbers with their other survey, which is not shouted by the MSM. Here is the link for your perusal.

http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea03.htm

Number of employed Americans in October – 147,260

Number of employed Americans in December – 147,442

Two Month Increase – 182,000

Wow. That tells a different story. How about a few more inconvenient facts? How about the 484,000 working age Americans that decided the jobs market was so fucking good, they decided to leave it all together since October. So we had almost three times as many people leave the workforce as get a job over the last two months. Sounds like a dynamic recovery.

In the last year the number of working age Americans increased by 2.3 million and the number of employed increased by 2.8 million. This should have had a minor impact on the unemployment rate. But instead it plunged from 6.7% to 5.6% because in the midst of a supposed jobs recovery, 1.2 million people just left the workforce. To give you some real perspective on the Obama economic recovery, here are the facts:

Number of jobs added since 2009 – 7,565,000

Number of people who have left the labor force since 2009 – 11,239,000

Number of people who have been added to the food stamp program since 2009 – 13,046,000

The labor participation rate plunged to a 38 year low in December. There are now 101,585,000 working age Americans not working. That’s a lot of free shit for us 147 million working Americans to pay for.

If the jobs market is so fantastic, how could average hourly wages DECLINE? How could they only be up by 1.7% in the last year? How could they be NEGATIVE when inflation is taken into account?

And now for the best part. This is as good as it gets. Unemployment claims are already at lows seen in 2007 before the last recession. Obamacare mandates are going to result in hundreds of thousands of layoffs and full time workers being made into part-time workers. Retailers are closing thousands of stores and firing tens of thousands. The oil industry is imploding and will be laying off thousands.

The BLS bullshit cannot hide the reality we can all see with our own eyes.

Our debt based consumption society summed up in two charts. This will surely end well. Amurika #1