Record low unemployment rate my fat ass!!!
Don’t believe the BLS bullshit. Scanning the Household data proves it is bullshit. If the economy was booming the number of people not in the labor force would be declining, as discouraged people came back into the work force. From May 2017 through September 2017 that was actually happening. The number of people not in the labor force declined by 558,000. The participation rate increased to 63%. This was definitely positive economic news.
Since September 2017 the unemployment rate has supposedly fallen from 4.2% to 3.8%. Sounds awesome. But it’s bullshit. Just the facts ma’am:
New jobs added since September 2017 – 1.15 million
Number of people who have left the labor force since September 2017 – 1.435 million
The participation rate has dropped back to 62.7%. The average number of new jobs added over the last eight months is a pitiful 144,000 per month, while 179,000 per month have left the labor force.
The reported unemployment rate of 3.8% is pure propaganda, not supported by the reality on the ground. Millions of Americans don’t leave the labor force when jobs are plentiful and the economy is humming along. So it goes.
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In what was otherwise a solid jobs report – one which Donald Trump may or may not have leaked in advance – in which the establishment survey reported that a higher than expected 223K jobs were added at a time when numbers below 200K are expected for an economy that is allegedly without slack, the biggest surprise was not in the Establishment survey, but the household, where the unemployment rate tumbled once more, sliding to a new 18 year low of 3.8%, even as the participation rate declined once again, as a result of a stagnant labor force, which was virtually unchanged (161.527MM in April to 161.539MM in May, even as the total civilian non-inst population rose by 182K to 257.454LMM).
What was perhaps more interesting, however, is that for all the talk that the slack in the labor force is set to decline, precisely the opposite is taking place, because in May, the number of people not in the labor force increased by another 170K, rising to 95.915 million, a new all time high.
Adding to this the 6.1 million currently unemployed Americans, there are 102 million Americans who are either unemployed or out of the labor force (and it is also worth noting that of those employed 26.9 million are part-time workers).
In other words, contrary to prevailing economist groupthink, there is a lot of slack in the economy, and if as the latest Beige Book revealed, employers are now hiring drug addicts and felons to make up for the shortage of qualified candidates, a long time will be pass before wages see significant gains.
This is Bill, “The Fat pant-load” Clinton’s doing, as the BLS numbers were altered during his reign to put a better shine on the spin. Anything coming out of the” gubbermint ” has always involved some amount of subterfuge and three-card Monty, grifter data. I learned 30 years ago that I was being lied to by my government, and then again by the media that regurgitated the tripe. In fact, a good rule of thumb as to whether to trust any media source is if they quote government pronouncements with reverence, “It must be true, the government says so…” Unfortunately, there aren’t any true journalistic outfits anymore, or they’re silenced, right quick.
The participation rate will climb quickly when we stop giving the bums free shit.
overthecliff
Sorry no, the riot numbers and thefts will climb along with the crime rates.
@BigDick – Well, yes, that too, but then we can’t have prosperity without outrage now, can we? It’s not jealousy that makes’em angry, it’s envy, and there’s a difference; jealousy is when you want what another has. Envy is when you resent what another has, often driven by the recognition you’re incapable of acquiring due to inability or lack of intelligence. Envy fuels hatred because it is often centered in self-loathing. It’s what leads to riots and the resulting destruction of anything symbolizing what you can’t attain. Tocqueville had it right when he noted, “Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror.”
So, what’s the answer? Hard work isn’t enough anymore. Everyone can work hard but not everyone has the mental ability for a more complex economy like we have now. Once hard work isn’t enough, what do you expect to happen?
Fake employment, fake inflation, fake GDP, fake recovery, fake stock markets, fake media, fake news … everything’s just so wonderfully fake, I can hardly stand it.
…Like going to Disneyland… Get robbed at the gate, and spend the day standing in line…
Trust the Plan….. Sure Q has a very good answer as to why 95 million able bodied people are not working. Its only about 25% of the population.
According to the 2010 US Census (Senseless) Bureau, 47% of the population was either under 18 or over 65, so assuming 350 million Americans, this means roughly 50% are of working age. One half of 350 million is 175 million, of which 95 million would equate to 54%. In other words, 1 out of every 2 working age persons, isn’t.
That was some damn fine simple-and-to-the-point math, nicely done. Amazing how that doesn’t make it to the nightly news or talking head shows.
So what your saying is of the 175milion working age Americans 95million are no longer in the workforce leaving 80 million. Now if you take out the Federal Government employees who push pens. politicians and the military crew both home and abroad, then remove the local government workers such as the police firemen and teachers, prison officers and local compliance officers, Then remove the insane and the totally drug fucked working aged stiffs and then remove the workers engaged in the FIRE economy who create nothing and live by removing “margin” from what you have earn’t and finally those who are out of the country on some sort of Junket that someones paying for … Well!! by my calculation that leaves only the workers who lift and do not lean on society and pay their own way. Correct – Yes?
Well my friend that leaves you and I, and I for one are sick to death of your Goldbricking at work so Get back on the shovel asshole!!
Trust in the Plan.
Trust in Sessions.
A Yuge number of indictments ready to go.
Get ready for parade in November.
Woo Hoo riding that tRump train.
For the real economic #s go to http://www.shadowstats.com John Williams does a great job. And yes the trumpster had foreknowledge and did in fact leak the false #s in a tweet before
mkt open. A criminal act. Anyone who calls themselves a trump supporter wears a big sign that says “I have shit for brains!!”
…Which is more than the average Obama/Hildebeast supporter has between his/her ears…
Macgyver..
So your point is???
Meanwhile I’m taking real estate photographs of $1 million teardowns for Realtors.
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?hl=ad&t=1527859343[/img]
…Just how many of those who left the labor force were retiring Boomers? The graph seems to bear that out…
I was going to post the same thing, boomers retiring.
The labor force participation rate is a (marginally) better metric. Once you retire, you are removed from both the numerator (not working) and denominator (not in the labor force) in this metric. This metric has been on the down trend for a long time and is currently languishing at levels not seen since 1978.
Its this chart, which for some reason is not showing up in the article posted here.
?itok=f6zZb8p8
Participation rate of over 55 at record highs and increasing.
Largest decrease in labor force is in men between 34 and 55.
That’s me, at 56 with two kids in university and another arriving in four years, I’ve resigned myself to the prospect of working for the rest of my life. With $21 trillion in national debt and an inevitable reversion to the mean on interest rates, I’m not counting on receiving much of value via Social Security. Given how the Fed exchanged the family silver for the banks’ crushed beer cans during the last bailout, next implosion I can foresee new and creative ways they’ll create to go bankrupt : “Voluntary” conversion of IRAs and qualified plans into US Treasuries (“For the public’s safety…” yadda, yadda), all manner of curtailed financial transactions, indirect but significant increases in taxation, the list goes on and on. Trump’s unwillingness to curb national spending while enacting a tax cut was my last hoorah for this economy. He inherited this mess, and it’s irrelevant how many deck chairs on the Titanic he moves around, no amount fiscal magic is going to prevent the inevitable. It may forestall it a little longer, but it won’t keep reversion to the mean on interest rates (averaging nearly 6%) from occurring. You can fight historical trends but don’t expect to do so and win, forever.
Backtable – you should have resigned yourself to working the rest of your life when you decided to have a kid at 42. It was a given from that point.
Not me.
Robert (QSLV)
Tax cuts. Millions of manufacturing jobs coming back. Tariffs on Chinks, Japs, Krauts, and Frogs. Stock market at an all time high. Booming real estate. Credit gravy train. Russkies fearing our powerful military once again. Kim giving Don a blowjob on June 12th. Car sales through the roof. Americans spending tens of billions on sporting events. We love Israel and so God will love and prosper America. More nigs and spics employed than ever before. Mantua Square soon to be fully occupied.
I could go on. But, I just wonder when Admin will wake the fuck up from his Doomy Nightmares. Smell the roses, Jimbo!!!
Someone is doppleganging Stucky.
He’d never say something as positive as that comment.
Sarcasm meter not working?
Aren’t more people retiring and therefore not in the labor force? Not that i understand this stuff.
People retire and young people enter the workforce. The working age population has gone up by 224,000 per month over the last year. Kids turning 16 and the millions of immigrants arriving on our shores add to the labor pool. They outnumber the people retiring.
One of the best years I’ve seen Great year, wish I could find more people to hire. I don’t doubt the free loaders a bit going up. Employment among the non-free loaders is definitely at an all time low everyone around here sees that or is ignorant.
You know, if I was the one who printed the money and made the “market” go up and down as I please, I might tell all the little people how rosy things are. I would say “invest MORE in stocks!” right before I sold all of mine and pulled the chain on the crapper that is our economy.
Admin is right as rain. Trump employment numbers are just as phony as Obamas. Nothing has changed in Washington.
The black unemployment rate at all-time lows narrative is simply hysterical.
Since February 5,000 more blacks are employed.
Since February 296,000 blacks left the labor force. Where’d they go?
These two factors resulted in the black unemployment rate dropping from 6.9% to 5.9%.
Our keepers have taken 1984 level propaganda to new levels.
296,000 Splivs left the labor force. Where’d they go?
To red States like Mt. through the various and sundry prison pre-release programs. To their credit, they have done a splendid job of getting all the fat, fugly, cellulite factories off the streets.
Did you mean spliffs?
ano..
No. I meant Splivs, a 60’s name for Jigs, which is a 50’s name for Jiggaboos, which is a 70’s name for Porch Monkeys.
I stopped at Starbucks to get a cup of Joe to go, I know, I know. So I ask for dark roast, the young gender diverse associate behind the counter comes back and says they do not have any dark roast, it would take five to ten minutes to brew. I don’t have 5 – 10 minutes so I say how about medium roast then, it comes back and says they are out of that too. I say you have one job to do, MAKE COFFEE! You are a coffee business! It shrugs. The other Its glare. I leave.
So still needing a cup I go across the street to Panera bread. They have pour it yourself coffee and the pots are all full. Great, going good so far. I give in to temptation whilst passing the pastry case and ask the purply blue haired it behind the cash register for a orange scone, she looks back at me blankly and says an orange what? A orange SCONE! I’m not sure we have those she says. I’m looking at a whole tray full of them I say incredulously. She walks over to the pastry case and gives it a good scan and informs me that no they do not have orange scones. In disbelief I point to the tray of orange scones and tell her they are right here. She says ‘well if you say so’.
Sometimes I wonder how these people got hired in the first place, I left shaking my head and depressed about our future. These are simply jobs with simple tasks yet these people seemed over matched for the task. Makes you wonder if some of the non participation is because employees just can’t find qualified people and just aren’t hiring at a rate that they would otherwise.
I was happy to get out of the business world.
I had to hire and manage a huge number of incompetent, unskilled, careless, worthless pieces of human debris with NO work ethic. Many, even some of those with degrees, couldn’t spell, read with comprehension, write coherently, or do simple math.
Also, NOT A CLUE about the basic rules of keeping a job:
Show up every day, and show up early.
Do your BEST.
EVERYTHING is part of your job description.
Ask intelligent questions and learn the NEXT job as well as yours.
Seek responsibility.
Well, that eliminates 98% of new hires, and 50% of current employees.
Ultimately, I quit working because we could afford it… and my wife asked me if I wanted my epitaph to read “I wish I spent more time at work”.
With everything as bad as it is, I can’t understand why I and everyone I know is doing so much better now than we were just a few years ago.
Were you unemployed a few years ago, and now you are employed?
What types of annual raises have you gotten over the last few years?
I’m curious what much better means in real factual terms.
I await the details.
I’m making more money than I was and working half as much, among other things.
The people I know that were unemployed a while back and struggling to provide for their families are now gainfully employed, have rising wages, and able to afford luxuries like vacations and expensive things they want but couldn’t afford till now.
How about you, how much less are you making if you’re not doing as well and how long since you could afford things like vacations or education for your children? And why?
How do you make more money and work half as much? I’m fascinated by your success story. How much did you make a few years ago versus what you are making today? What do you do for a living. I want to join the party. Facts are so useful in a debate with an anonymous know it all.
How many people did you know who were unemployed? How much are their wages rising per year? They went from unemployed to living the high life? Sounds awesome.
I’ve been gainfully employed for the last 30 years. I’ve always lived beneath my means so I can always afford vacations and putting my three sons through college with no debt.
It’s painfully obvious you are the anonymous douchebag who is willfully ignorant of factual information like the FACT that 102 million working age Americans aren’t working, while only 129 million have full-time jobs. You attempt to generalize your personal made up world as the whole country. You’re a boring troll.
Sounds like an Herbalife pitch.
Anono..
The people I know that were unemployed awhile back and were struggling to provide for their families are now gainfully employed, have rising wages, and able to afford luxuries like vacations and expensive things they want but couldn’t afford till now?
Those must have been some fabulous high paying jobs if they went from rags to riches that fast.
Almost sounds to me like you were blessed from on high with one of those 180.00 per hour no show jobs, whereby you in all your wonderfulness just show up now and again to bless the employees with your presence and double the productivity.
Someday I’m hoping you might bless me with an answer to how it is that you came to be an expert on every topic that has ever come up on TBP.
I’m somewhat up but rather overbusy (as I’ve mentioned on other threads). It’s nice to get the additional money, we are paying down some debt and looking to small home improvements; but as a consultant, I know that the work could dry up and leave me high and dry like January – March this year was.
Still, a chance to gain some ground is well worth the lack of sleep for six weeks and subsequent catch-up activities. I can’t do 80+ hours like I used to, and home life has been rather non-existent recently, but that will change. My wife understands why I am doing it, and though a bit lonely she says she can make it. We’ve been married nearly forty years so I believe her – in March she was wondering when I’d get real hours again, now she wonders how I stay on my feet. But we do what we must, as reality doesn’t care about my sleep schedule, feelings or attitude. It only cares about staying busy and staying employed, so that the checks and debit charges go out on schedule and the income comes in a bit faster than they go out.
One boss did gripe the other day that a certain report “wasn’t up to my usual standards”. When I told him about the 80-hour weeks he understood; he didn’t know I was working two jobs at full-time rates, and wasn’t upset when he knew why. He’s been there too, a consultant longer than I’ve been, and knows that the bills come in whether or not the income does. He’s just glad I can do what I do better, cleaner and generally faster than anyone else available, and as long as I can perform above what he needs I’ll stay employed.
Which is pretty much where everyone is; if your skills are sharper, faster and in demand you’ll be employed, and if not, not. I don’t believe Trump’s numbers (actually, any government numbers) any more than Obama’s numbers, lying is built-in now. But I believe my paychecks, and for the last month and a half they’ve been bigger than before. Time to make hay while the sun shines!
You DO realize that you can’t keep this up for very long or you’ll body will make you back off. When I was in the Radio industry I was a rare freak of nature who while being a pro air personality could also take the rejection of sales. So during the day I would go on sales calls to sell time on the station, then at night I did 7-12 plus production.
It was a great experience and I made a lot of money. My advice is, think about what happens next. I’ll bet the answer becomes obvious.
I never believe anything my government tells me , especially if “THEY” are clapping and cheering about how good it is or will be !
It truly is gold plated diamond encrusted bull shit .
When the countries population was slightly above 200 MILLON there where about 80 MILLON full time employees feeding the tax base beast . The balance of the population were children , elderly and the now rare rock of American society the homemaker !
We had steel mills humming shipyards buzzing and assyembly lines producing everything from soup to nuts !
Now over 94 MILLON not at work and half the working people are part time . Does anyone really believe the nonsense babbled about or am I just sticking to my bourbon and passing up on the “KOOL-AID”
I have to wonder how much of the labor force that is not participating is not because the can’t get a job, but because the labor force is getting old and retiring. I’m not there yet, but in a couple of years I’m quitting my job and doing part time consulting at most. And I work in a profession that’s hurting for people — I could work until I’m 90 if I wanted to.
Baby Boomers are retiring ….at record pace.
11,000 people per day are turning 65 and as the bell curve of the 1946-1961 Baby Boomers peaks in about 7 years, you can imagine what this will mean for SSI and Medicare/Medicaid distributions. Pure and simple math, when you have less than 2:1 employed versus retiring, it’s not a sustainable system. Hell, it’s not fiscally sustainable NOW. We’re running nearly trillion-dollar deficits, ($3.3 trillion in tax receipts, nearly $4 trillion in spending, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53624), with a $21 trillion dollar national debt. Ramp rates to their historical average, i.e., the norm of around 6%, and we’ll be spending $1.2 trillion just to cover the float on all our debt. Where’s that going to come from? Oh, I know. We’ll borrow even MOAR! It’s a trainwreck no matter how you cut it. Speaking of which, if we attempted to slash spending to match tax revenues, never mind paying off any of the debt, we’d have to cut gubbermint spending by 18%. Try telling anyone receiving federal benefits their monthly check is going down by nearly a fifth. That’ll be about as popular as Afro Sheen in St. Lake City…