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Forget the Unemployment Rate – Look at the Labor Force Participation Rate
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May 31, 2014 08:48:59   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
Have you noticed that President Obama is now touting the nation’s declining unemployment rate? For him doing so is good politics, but only because the American public is naive enough to believe politically-motivated distortions and half-truths. When liberal politicians brag about unemployment statistics, thinking people should remember what Mark Twain said about statistics: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Statistics are easily manipulated—a fact that certainly applies to the unemployment rate; hence its current popularity with liberal politicians.

The American public tends to think that a declining unemployment rate means that more people are finding jobs. This is not necessarily the case. It can also mean and does currently mean that: 1) unemployed people have become so frustrated with their fruitless job search that they have given up and are no longer counted in the statistics reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and 2) people have found jobs but these jobs are part-time or a step-down from the jobs they lost. In other words, they are under-employed. The Labor Department is aware of these two possibilities and even collects data on them. These data are used to produce what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the U6 unemployment rate. While President Obama proudly extols the nation’s 6.7 percent unemployment rate, he studiously avoids revealing that the U6 unemployment rate is more than 14 percent (I think it actually exceeds 20 percent).

The U6 unemployment rate provides a more accurate picture of the true unemployment situation—which is why liberal politicians avoid using it—but even it provides an incomplete picture. To get a complete and accurate picture of the unemployment situation, it is necessary to also consider the labor participation rate. The labor participation rate indicates the percentage of people of working age who are actually working. Unfortunately, that percentage has declined steadily since 2000 and experienced its biggest drop during the six years of the Obama administration. A declining labor participation rate is bad news for America because it means there are fewer people paying the taxes that finance an ever-growing government bureaucracy. The obvious and inevitable result of this imbalance is higher taxes for those who are working.

The current labor participation rate is at an all-time low of just 63.2 percent. In other words, of all the people in America who are of working age, only 63.2 percent are actually working. This being the case, the functional question becomes: Why is the labor participation rate so low? Liberals try to cover over the sad truth by offering up such pearls as the replacement of people in the workforce by technology. Although this accounts for a small percentage of the problem, the fact is that in spite of technological advances thousands of jobs go unfilled everyday—particularly in the technology sector—because unemployed people either lack the necessary skills or simply do not want to work.

The real reasons the labor participation rate has fallen so precipitously are these: 1) The so-called safety net provided by the government in the form of extended unemployment benefits has become not a safety net but a magic carpet that the less motivated among the unemployed have learned to ride instead of going back to work; 2) Government entitlement programs have made it convenient and easy to get by without working; 3) There is no longer any shame in being on welfare (EBT cards have taken away the inconvenience and embarrassment of handing food stamps to a cashier); 4) People are choosing to drop out of the labor pool due to discouragement; and 5) People have learned how easy it is to defraud the government and collect disability pay.

The long and short of the decline in labor force participation is this: Why work when the government will take care of you? Why indeed? This entitlement mentality has taken hold of the American psyche and created an attitude toward work that will only continue the decline in labor force participation. But this decline represents a one-way street that will eventually lead to an economic disaster. The time will come and is coming when we will have more people riding in the wagon of America’s economy than pulling it. When that happens, those who have made a career out of living off the government will be the first to drive over the cliff, and the government will not be there to hand out parachutes because it will be too broke to afford them.

Reply
May 31, 2014 09:03:47   #
rich278
 
The GOP campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs in the 2010 midterm election, just more lies, lies, lies from the right, and they will campaign on jobs again this year, and the low information, short term memory voters will vote for them.
JMHO wrote:
Have you noticed that President Obama is now touting the nation’s declining unemployment rate? For him doing so is good politics, but only because the American public is naive enough to believe politically-motivated distortions and half-truths. When liberal politicians brag about unemployment statistics, thinking people should remember what Mark Twain said about statistics: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Statistics are easily manipulated—a fact that certainly applies to the unemployment rate; hence its current popularity with liberal politicians.

The American public tends to think that a declining unemployment rate means that more people are finding jobs. This is not necessarily the case. It can also mean and does currently mean that: 1) unemployed people have become so frustrated with their fruitless job search that they have given up and are no longer counted in the statistics reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and 2) people have found jobs but these jobs are part-time or a step-down from the jobs they lost. In other words, they are under-employed. The Labor Department is aware of these two possibilities and even collects data on them. These data are used to produce what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the U6 unemployment rate. While President Obama proudly extols the nation’s 6.7 percent unemployment rate, he studiously avoids revealing that the U6 unemployment rate is more than 14 percent (I think it actually exceeds 20 percent).

The U6 unemployment rate provides a more accurate picture of the true unemployment situation—which is why liberal politicians avoid using it—but even it provides an incomplete picture. To get a complete and accurate picture of the unemployment situation, it is necessary to also consider the labor participation rate. The labor participation rate indicates the percentage of people of working age who are actually working. Unfortunately, that percentage has declined steadily since 2000 and experienced its biggest drop during the six years of the Obama administration. A declining labor participation rate is bad news for America because it means there are fewer people paying the taxes that finance an ever-growing government bureaucracy. The obvious and inevitable result of this imbalance is higher taxes for those who are working.

The current labor participation rate is at an all-time low of just 63.2 percent. In other words, of all the people in America who are of working age, only 63.2 percent are actually working. This being the case, the functional question becomes: Why is the labor participation rate so low? Liberals try to cover over the sad truth by offering up such pearls as the replacement of people in the workforce by technology. Although this accounts for a small percentage of the problem, the fact is that in spite of technological advances thousands of jobs go unfilled everyday—particularly in the technology sector—because unemployed people either lack the necessary skills or simply do not want to work.

The real reasons the labor participation rate has fallen so precipitously are these: 1) The so-called safety net provided by the government in the form of extended unemployment benefits has become not a safety net but a magic carpet that the less motivated among the unemployed have learned to ride instead of going back to work; 2) Government entitlement programs have made it convenient and easy to get by without working; 3) There is no longer any shame in being on welfare (EBT cards have taken away the inconvenience and embarrassment of handing food stamps to a cashier); 4) People are choosing to drop out of the labor pool due to discouragement; and 5) People have learned how easy it is to defraud the government and collect disability pay.

The long and short of the decline in labor force participation is this: Why work when the government will take care of you? Why indeed? This entitlement mentality has taken hold of the American psyche and created an attitude toward work that will only continue the decline in labor force participation. But this decline represents a one-way street that will eventually lead to an economic disaster. The time will come and is coming when we will have more people riding in the wagon of America’s economy than pulling it. When that happens, those who have made a career out of living off the government will be the first to drive over the cliff, and the government will not be there to hand out parachutes because it will be too broke to afford them.
Have you noticed that President Obama is now touti... (show quote)

Reply
May 31, 2014 09:18:33   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
rich278 wrote:
The GOP campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs in the 2010 midterm election, just more lies, lies, lies from the right, and they will campaign on jobs again this year, and the low information, short term memory voters will vote for them.


Okay bright boy, just how does ONE BRANCH of the government create jobs? The GOP only controls the House, and anything initiated by them is squelched in the Senate. Now, if you're of the thinking that the Democrats can create jobs, I have to ask "where are the jobs?" The Dems controlled all three branches for two years and "where are the jobs?" The dirty little secret is that the Dems are not interested in creating jobs, they're only interested in creating a permanent underclass that will keep voting for them and their handouts.

Wake up.

Reply
 
 
May 31, 2014 09:48:09   #
rich278
 
If you read what I said, I didn't say anything about the left I just mentioned the the GOP campaigned on jobs in 2010, and didn't propose one jobs bill, like infrastructure, but they did vote to repeal Obama care 50 times. But of course you low information, selective memory folks forgot that.
JMHO wrote:
Okay bright boy, just how does ONE BRANCH of the government create jobs? The GOP only controls the House, and anything initiated by them is squelched in the Senate. Now, if you're of the thinking that the Democrats can create jobs, I have to ask "where are the jobs?" The Dems controlled all three branches for two years and "where are the jobs?" The dirty little secret is that the Dems are not interested in creating jobs, they're only interested in creating a permanent underclass that will keep voting for them and their handouts.

Wake up.
Okay bright boy, just how does ONE BRANCH of the g... (show quote)

Reply
May 31, 2014 10:06:29   #
rich278
 
You say the Democrats don't want people to have jobs. Have you ever heard of the Labor Unions that donate large amounts of cash to the Democrats. You might recall when Reagan the Destroyer fired the Air Controllers, screwed the Postal Workers out a large part of their retirement.
rich278 wrote:
If you read what I said, I didn't say anything about the left I just mentioned the the GOP campaigned on jobs in 2010, and didn't propose one jobs bill, like infrastructure, but they did vote to repeal Obama care 50 times. But of course you low information, selective memory folks forgot that.

Reply
May 31, 2014 10:29:42   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
rich278 wrote:
If you read what I said, I didn't say anything about the left I just mentioned the the GOP campaigned on jobs in 2010, and didn't propose one jobs bill, like infrastructure, but they did vote to repeal Obama care 50 times. But of course you low information, selective memory folks forgot that.


Repealing Obamacare IS A JOBS BILL moron!

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May 31, 2014 10:30:31   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
rich278 wrote:
You say the Democrats don't want people to have jobs. Have you ever heard of the Labor Unions that donate large amounts of cash to the Democrats. You might recall when Reagan the Destroyer fired the Air Controllers, screwed the Postal Workers out a large part of their retirement.


Yep, Reagan is a hero! He should have fired more!

Reply
 
 
May 31, 2014 10:41:19   #
rich278
 
It sure was it kept congress working for a long time. They have no leadership or platform for governing.
JMHO wrote:
Repealing Obamacare IS A JOBS BILL moron!

Reply
May 31, 2014 10:45:45   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
rich278 wrote:
It sure was it kept congress working for a long time. They have no leadership or platform for governing.


Are you on something? You don't sound coherent.

Reply
May 31, 2014 11:01:54   #
rich278
 
Once again your short term memory is still in tact, Reagan had a 10% unemployment number, then his policies crashed the stock market in 86. Reagan was a good speaker and had good writers, a Hollywood skill, but he was a piss poor administrator for the working man. He also raised taxes 6 or 7 times always on the middle class.
JMHO wrote:
Yep, Reagan is a hero! He should have fired more!

Reply
May 31, 2014 11:07:12   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
rich278 wrote:
Once again your short term memory is still in tact, Reagan had a 10% unemployment number, then his policies crashed the stock market in 86. Reagan was a good speaker and had good writers, a Hollywood skill, but he was a piss poor administrator for the working man. He also raised taxes 6 or 7 times always on the middle class.


Only in your feeble mind! Do some honest research for a change, and try laying off the drugs in the process.

Reply
 
 
May 31, 2014 19:22:29   #
rich278
 
You are a typical Rethugliclan all rhetoric and name calling but no facts. Name one bill the GOP has ever put up to make life better for the middle class. And don't say tax cuts, because they all go to the rich.
JMHO wrote:
Only in your feeble mind! Do some honest research for a change, and try laying off the drugs in the process.

Reply
Jun 1, 2014 07:53:22   #
jasfourth401
 
JMHO wrote:
Okay bright boy, just how does ONE BRANCH of the government create jobs? The GOP only controls the House, and anything initiated by them is squelched in the Senate. Now, if you're of the thinking that the Democrats can create jobs, I have to ask "where are the jobs?" The Dems controlled all three branches for two years and "where are the jobs?" The dirty little secret is that the Dems are not interested in creating jobs, they're only interested in creating a permanent underclass that will keep voting for them and their handouts.

Wake up.
Okay bright boy, just how does ONE BRANCH of the g... (show quote)


Neither side creates jobs. The private sector creates jobs. That's where the focus should be.

Reply
Jun 1, 2014 08:25:36   #
rich278
 
You are so right, the private sector does create most jobs, but it is the government that pays for the bridges, roads, schools, fire halls, municipal swimming pools, and many other projects, non of which the GOP has proposed since their big campaign in 2010 that used the slogan jobs,jobs,jobs. Remember Congress (House of Representatives.) pays the bills. But we all know that most of these jobs (at least where I come from) are union jobs and all Republicans are anti union.
jasfourth401 wrote:
Neither side creates jobs. The private sector creates jobs. That's where the focus should be.

Reply
Jun 1, 2014 08:39:11   #
JMHO Loc: Utah
 
rich278 wrote:
You are a typical Rethugliclan all rhetoric and name calling but no facts. Name one bill the GOP has ever put up to make life better for the middle class. And don't say tax cuts, because they all go to the rich.


And, you are the typical uneducated narrow-minded Dimowit, who is all rhetoric and without facts. Of course you took one of the largest new jobs producer off the table by removing tax cuts. Reduce taxes and you get more disposable income in the consumers pocket, but more importantly you free up more money for capital investment, which creates new business and leads to hiring more workers.

As for the list of bills you asked for, try this list for a start.

http://kelly.house.gov/sites/kelly.house.gov/files/documents/Jobs.PDF

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