Posted on 12/02/2016 7:10:41 PM PST by aquila48
The November jobs report looked pretty good on the surface except for one number that popped off the page: 95 million.
That's the number of Americans now counted as not in the labor force, a historic high that has confounded economists and policymakers. The total — 95.06 million to be more exact — has been rising consistently but surged by a gaudy 446,000 last month.
The jump occurred as the U.S. economy added 178,000 jobs and the headline unemployment rate dropped sharply.
Explaining the consistent increase in those leaving the labor force is complicated, with factors divided between an aging and rapidly retiring workforce, a skills gap that leaves job openings unfilled, and the nettlesome problem of too many people who find it's just easier to collect welfare and other transfer payments rather than go back to work.
"WTF are so many of them doing?" Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, said in a note after the nonfarm payrolls report. Boockvar used a crude online expression that nicely sums up the continued frustration with America's shrinking labor force. In a subsequent interview, he acknowledged the issue is many pronged and poses a long-term obstacle for economic growth.
"It's a combination. There's no question a lot of them are retirees," Boockvar said. "No one wants to say, 'I want to get fired and sit on my butt.' But when people do lose their jobs, they're not being incentivized enough to go back to work compared to the benefits they get by not being at work."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Some of them are panhandling at every major intersection of my small city now; we didn’t see that at all until a few years ago.
But those are maybe the ambitious ones.
Voting for Trump.
Based on observations in Colorado, they are spending their days begging for money to buy pot.
many of us would dearly like to work
There are no jobs under Obama. He’s taken full-time jobs and turned them into a smaller number of part-time jobs.
I know several single moms working 2 and 3 jobs that get paid less then their old job that they lost when Obama was elected.
Obama destroyed 40% of public companies listed on American stock exchanges and destroyed $10 trillion of equity.
Not everyone is basking in the glow of the government heat lamp. I have a PhD and decades of recognize experience as a technical manager and technology development scientist. Of course this means that I am expensive, or, well, was expensive. I am looking at positions at less than 1/2 my former salary since it is obvious that the market is not my perfect match. Pretty sparse out there. Hiring agents are demanding perfect fits for all facets of the posted position.
You don’t have to be a genius to realize that the majority of the “178,000” jobs are seasonal/temps .... every year this time, between Thanksgiving and New Years, retailers hire a bunch of part time seasonal/temps and the idiots in the MSM and Administration pat each other on the butt and exclaim how the economy has recovered.
“wtf are so many of them doing?”
getting older, getting poorer, getting tired of sending resumes into the internet job market void, getting tired of being given false job leads, getting tired of being told they are overqualified, getting tired of being told “i can’t believe you can’t find a job in your field any more,” getting tired of H1B’s moving into the neighborhood while older laid off workers cannot make payments and are forced to move to boondocks flyover country, getting tired of being told that there is no such thing as age discrimination, getting tired of the diversity/grievance gravy train racket that corporate HR departments have become that block rehiring, getting tired of being laughed at, getting tired of being told they are “too lazy to work.” Too much home equity and retirement funds to be collecting food stamps, and too young to be collecting Social Security.
“... Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, said...”
well, there’s the problem— out of touch economists being paid by the same corporate goons who are doing the layoffs, retraining, mergers and aquisitions, pension fund raids, foreign tax havens, shady corporate re-organizations designed to renderr stock options worthless, moving facilities overseas, hiring H1Bs, and paying lobbyists and 501(c)(3) money to tell neocons to do it some more, but harder and faster.
“Disability” is the new welfare... Gang-bangers start getting it in their late twenties and stay on it for the next 60 years. Inner cities are filled with ‘We will Fight For Your Disability Rights’ billboards.... Welfare - without pesky social workers or time limits.
“Chugging beers and using the empties for target practice?”
You saw my retirement plan!
They’re living off you, you taxpaying sap!
In my case, I took early retirement—partly because I had saved up enough to live off of my investments and partly because my occupation had degenerated into trying to stay one step ahead of the outsourcing, offshoring and H-1Bs.
One recent estimate by researchers at the Pew Hispanic Center puts the number of illegal aliens in the workforce at 8 million out of an overall population of 11.2 million illegal aliens, i.e., 71.4 percent. That estimate is generally accepted as reasonable.
Now the question is....
How many of the 95 million would work doing the jobs that the illegals do? How many legals don’t want to work, are on welfare, drugs or have other hang ups?
My last employer before I retired did that when they were replacing their work force with H-1Bs. It was their way of guaranteeing no one applied—so they could declare it a "job Americans won't do."
We really need to return to the time when the poor were taken care of by private charities and families.
The experiment of making assistance an entitlement has proven and continues to be proven a failure for the needy and for society.
As Benjamin Franklin astutely noted on how to help the poor get out of poverty - “There has to be discomfort in poverty”
You nailed it. I’m a past 99’er with a secret clearance. One of the greatest aerospace designers of my generation, I don’t want to work if you believe that, kiss my ass. Meanwhile our POS president is queering us one last time before he leaves with more h1-bs.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/29/universities-opt-jobs-for-foreign-students/
The Obama administration basically paid bounties to states to get long-term unemployed, and others, signed up for disability. Numbers went from about 7.5 million, to about 11 million as I recall.
80% of people dropping out since 2012 were retirees. I’m one of the latter.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Me too. Retiring is not dropping out.
Obama had his plan, I had mine.
And it worked for me and my family.
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