Posted on 09/22/2013 3:55:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
The jobs report looks good. The jobs report wasn’t as bad as anticipated. There are fewer people working, but that’s okay - the unemployment rate still dropped last month.
Are you fed up with the U.S. federal government’s “spin” and constant efforts to convince you that the labor market isn’t as bad as it seems?
At the beginning of each month, the U.S. Department of Labor tabulates the number of employment positions that were created the month before. Journalists and pundits are always eager to publicize what has come to be loosely known as the “jobs report,” with headlines that pounce on the latest unemployment rate, and a raw number of “new jobs.”
But after the initial monthly buzz about the headlines, media professionals’ interest in the labor market mostly disappears. And that’s a shame; because neither the initial jobs data or the “revised data” that gets released later in the month actually tells the full story of what is really happening.
The labor force participation rate -the percentage of the population that is either employed or actually trying to secure employment (and a figure that is at about a thirty year low right now) - largely gets ignored. So also are the under-employment rate, the rate at which full time jobs are being “converted” to part time jobs, the decline in wages, and the increase in the number of multi-job working individuals mostly all ignored as well.
And here’s another reality that gets overlooked by both our government, and the media: we are in the midst of a veritable explosion of opportunity in another sector of the labor market, but it has nothing to do with “employment” or “jobs.” It is technically referred to as “independent contract labor,” but is more frequently called, simply, “freelancing.”
Working as a “freelancer” is very different from being an employee, and nobody should attempt to enter into the freelance marketplace without first discussing it with their tax consultant and legal counsel. City, county, state and federal government agencies are hunting-down people young and old, who work as freelancers without the having proper business permits and tax collection mechanisms in place ( search “tax collector goes after 12 year old boy” online and see the pathetic news from the “conservative” state of Idaho). Don’t take this warning lightly.
But to illustrate the practical differences between employment and freelancing, imagine for the moment that you’re an accountant. If you’re employed full time in somebody else’s organization, you’ll probably be expected to report to a regular workplace on a regular schedule, and you’ll be kept busy reconciling bank statements to the organization’s records, preparing tax returns, issuing financial statements, perhaps handling billing for the group, and preparing financial performance records for the organization’s management. In return for your work, you’ll probably receive an agreed-upon salary paid incrementally every couple of weeks, paid time-off for health or personal reasons, health insurance benefits and paid vacation time.
On the other hand, if you’re an accountant who works as a freelancer, you might perform many of those same tasks for an outside organization, yet your work will happen differently. You’ll probably work on your schedule, not necessarily on the organization’s required “8-5” schedule; you may do most if not all of the work in your own office (maybe your home); and you’ll provide all your own equipment and office supplies (computers, software, telephones, etc..). Oh, and here’s another big difference: you’ll pay all your own income taxes, including an additional “self employment tax;” and you’ll have to fend for yourself when it comes to insurance benefits. In short, a freelance accountant is a business owner, not an employee, and the individuals and organizations for whom they provide accounting services are clients, not their employer.
If being a freelancer sounds challenging to you, rest assured that your hunch is correct. But here’s another little-known fact that escapes politicians and media professional alike: at a fairly rapid pace, Americans are learning to make a living as freelancers even when they can’t find “jobs.” The monthly “jobs” report for the most part completely ignores this trend. Yet according to the private non-profit “Freelancers Union” organization, the number of freelancers has expanded by about 400% over the past five years alone.
The current lackluster state of job creation is a direct result of bad government, namely the federal Obamacare law. It’s unclear how much higher the unemployment rate will need to rise and how many more full time jobs will need to be “converted” to part time jobs, before Americans wake up and realize that we have empowered some very destructive public policy that is creating far more problems than solutions.
But business is still happening despite all the roadblocks that government creates. Individuals and organizations are finding ways to legally form partnerships wherein they can be helpful and productive with one-another, even though politicians have been allowed to run amuck and poison employer-employee relationships.
Don’t expect Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner to understand the real dynamics of the labor markets any time soon. They are too busy posturing, blaming, and blabbering about “jobs,” and their behavior won’t change until sufficient numbers of us demand a change. In mean time, there is opportunity at hand – for those who are willing to search for it.
Because it doesn’t affect them (the self-selected ruling elite that always come to power during Communism). They aren’t suffering the same way we are. There’s one thing Obama didn’t lie about though.. We got lots of change alright.
Less is more ... evil is good ... wrong is right ...
I wonder what percentage of the gross national product has gone underground and turned to cash without records or taxes.
Joseph Goebbels would love these DC liars, ya think?
The whole Obama regime has been one big lie.
The real dynamics of this economy isn’t that it is being transformed into a workforce of freelancers, per se. The real impact is that the work force, at least a majority of it (THE goal), is being transformed into a complacent mass of entitlement ‘employees.’ Their ‘job’ being to vote, vote Democrat.
Forty Seven percent of ‘americans’ on food stamps, Eleven Million on Social Security Disability (SSI and SSDI account for 25% of all SSA and govt outlays for SSI - SSI managed by SSA). Ninety Million ‘americans’ NOT WORKING. OVER ONE TRILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR spent on ‘welfare’ etc. spread over 126 different federal ‘assistance’ programs.
Couple this with the extraordinary expenditures this administration is making in other useless crony initiatives, quantitative easing (Federal Reserve spending $85 billion/month on T-bills and stock equities), green programs, political paybacks, foreign assistance to Muslim extremist countries, sustainment of government agencies whose mission is brainwashing, conditioning and punishment - you have a recipe for complete disaster if the media were ever to tell the truth.
It is no wonder that Democrats are unwilling to put forth a budget that will delineate their desired expenditures. It is no wonder that the Federal Reserve has not be audited by an impartial outside agency. It is no wonder that the stock market reacts with glee at the prospect of continuance of their $85 billion/month ‘hush’ money.
One day, even when the media and government can’t hide it any more, and the world finally realizes there is no ‘there’ there, it will all crash down. Urban entitlement employees will quickly realize their little world is only 4 or 5 days deep in terms of lifestyle when their EBTs don’t work and their storefronts are empty. And that is when all hell will break loose.
I think you meant 47 million on food stamps.
SPOT ON
Do gooder democrats.
They are the cause of the 2008 bump in the road. Their main slum media carried every story back then to beat the current administration over the head. Bush’s fault vote for change?¿.The economic system was purposely poisoned for their political gain. Five years latter and things are worse. The only difference is the polarity of their lies..
Black markets thrive under dictatorships.
Yes, you are correct and it was a typo...but if you look at it from a percentage of ‘working’ americans, then that 47 million would approach or exceed 47% in my opinion.....
It is very difficult to try and find out a total number of Americans that actually work. The BLS hides it in something called the “Labor Force Participation Rate,” currently at 62% -lowest since 1978.
This supposed to be the percentage of some unidentified number of Americans who are working but they do not publish that number. Very difficult to get a straight answer, but you can see from their own percentages, 47% food stamps would not be out of line.
The point is that there really isn’t a requirement to prove a sustained need for most any government entitlement any more. A ticket on one free ride, say TANF, gets you many of the others (SNAP, WICs if you have a child under 5, Section 8, etc.).
There are so many people on welfare now, the government cannot possibly keep up with and ferret out the cheaters and abusers. Just more and more tax money of that indeterminate number of working Americans
Rest assured that the federal government possesses both the staff and the hubris to calculate this. It is currently performed by the "Department of Calculating Exactly What We Don't Know, to 3 Decimal Places and Beyond".
This secret agency was originally named the Ministry of Silly Walks, but after an unfortunate release of details of operations to the public, the agency was moved to this country and became what it is today.
I'm in my 50s, and I've never seen anything like it. The Carter years seem great in comparison. Prior to the Obama regime, I don't remember anyone I knew being unemployed for over six months, and that was usually because of a career change.
Probably massive...
I manage a wholesale warehouse for a segment of the market that is cash intensive
Before the crash almost all of my customers had active accounts and my "house account" (meaning no paper trail for transactions for the state) for people who walk in without a customer account was really small...
Today the "house account" is my # 1 account besides customer who have terms...
We do collect the sales tax on taxable items, but these customers now have no paper trail to report to the state...hence they pay little or almost no income tax when they file
Most are doing it just to survive
See #12
Today, freelance jobs are as scarce as full-time jobs.
I remember back in the '80s, when the evil Ronald Reagan ruled the land, I could get a freelance job any time I wanted one. Agencies used to call me with work. Now, there is nothing. Believe it or not, Indeed now lists 2-3 day-long contract gigs with ridiculously low hourly rates.
I wish I couold figure out how to get into that underground economy.
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