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A record 92,594,000 Americans were not in the labor force in April as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In March, according to BLS's non-seasonally adjusted data, there were 91,630,000 Americans not in the labor force. In April, that increased by 964,000 people to an all-time record of 92,594,000. The previous record was 92,534,000, set in January of this year. The BLS's seasonally-adjusted number for people not in the labor force--which was 92,018,00 for April--was also an all-time record. This was up 988,000...

Despite the unemployment rate plummeting, more than 92 million Americans remain out of the labor force. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent in April from 6.7 percent in March, the lowest it has been since September 2008 when it was 6.1 percent. The sharp drop, though, occurred because the number of people working or seeking work fell. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not count people not looking for a job as unemployed. The bureau noted that the civilian labor force dropped by 806,000 last month, ... The amount (not seasonally adjusted) of Americans not in the labor force...

Mainstream financial pundits are falling over themselves today following a report from the Labor Department indicating that the national unemployment rate has fallen yet again, this time to just 6.3%. The Associated Press, whose report on the new rate is being distributed to news services around the country, says this is “the strongest evidence to date that the economy is picking up.” They cite numerous economic experts, claiming that the U.S. economy is now experiencing vigorous job growth, which they say is confirmation that the economic health of our nation is bouncing back from a rough winter. In fact, they...

California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee expressed support for a $26 minimum wage in her state — a move Republican congressman Andy Harris encouraged, assuming jobs would rapidly flee California to his state of Maryland. Lee and Harris appeared Friday on CNN’s “Crossfire,” hosted by former Obama advisor Van Jones and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The panel discussed the proposed increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. “Let me ask you this question, you’re a good advocate for this,” Gingrich asked Lee. “The mayor of Seattle is proposing that the minimum wage...

Funky job reports are not unusual, and the employment data for April certainly fits the bill. How else to explain the biggest gain in hiring in more than two years – at the same time the labor force shrank by the second largest amount in 32 years. --snip-- What’s also odd about the decline in the labor force is how it happened. The number of so-called re-entrants – unemployed workers who have started looking for jobs again – fell by a whopping 417,000. That’s the biggest drop since the government began keeping records in 1967. Another factor could be the...

Here’s yet another thing your teenager doesn’t want to do this summer: get a job. The number of teens with summer jobs has fallen roughly 30 percentage points since the late ‘70s. In 1978, nearly three in four teenagers (71.8%) ages 16 to 19 held a summer job, but as of last year, only about four in 10 teens did, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the month of July analyzed by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas . It’s been a steady decline, seen even during good times: During the dot-com boom in the late...

In 20 percent of American families in 2013, according to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), not one member of the family worked. A family, as defined by the BLS, is a group of two or more people who live together and who are related by birth, adoption or marriage. In 2013, there were 80,445,000 families in the United States and in 16,127,000—or 20 percent--no one had a job. The BLS designates a person as “employed” if “during the survey reference week” they “(a) did any work at all as paid employees; (b) worked in their...

The Department of Energy is looking to regulate two types of household lamps. The Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announced Monday in the Federal Register it is considering new energy conservation standards for general service fluorescent lamps (GSFLs) and incandescent reflector lamps (IRLs). The Energy Department estimates the rules will save the public billions in energy bills over the next three decades and have substantial environmental benefits. But the agency also expects the rules will cost manufacturers more than $90 million, which could lead some to close up shop and cut jobs. It is weighing the...

Employment Minister Jason Kenny has announced an immediate moratorium on the fast-food industry's access to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The suspension, announced late Thursday afternoon, came shortly after the CBC told Kenney the CEO of McDonald's Canada had branded recent criticism of its use of temporary foreign workers "bullshit" in a conference call to franchisees. A recording of that call was given to the CBC. In a written statement announcing the suspension, Kenney says "serious concerns" remain following a government investigation of the allegations raised about the program. The CBC's Go Public has produced a series of stories reporting...

".......... Lily, just like better-off men and women, believes that marriage means an unqualified commitment to the other spouse. When you marry someone, you support him in hard times. You stick with him when he disappoints you. You visit him if he ends up in jail. And you encourage him to become an important part of your children’s lives. It’s just that Lily doesn’t believe that Carl is worth that commitment. Nor does she believe that she will meet someone who will meet her standards anytime soon, and the statistics back her up.The economy has changed. A higher percentage of...

For Americans who can’t find jobs, the booming demand for temp workers has been a path out of unemployment, but now many fear it’s a dead-end route. With full-time work hard to find, these workers have built temping into a de facto career, minus vacation, sick days or insurance. The assignments might be temporary — a few months here, a year there — but labor economists warn that companies’ growing hunger for a workforce they can switch on and off could do permanent damage to these workers’ career trajectories and retirement plans. “It seems to be the new norm in...

Income inequality has long been one of the liberals' favorite issues. So there is nothing surprising about its being pushed hard this election year. If nothing else, it is a much-needed distraction from the disasters of ObamaCare and the various IRS, Benghazi and other Obama administration scandals. Like so many other favorite liberal issues, income inequality is seldom discussed in terms of the actual consequences of liberal policies. When you turn from eloquent rhetoric to hard facts, the hardest of those facts is that income inequality has actually increased during five years of Barack Obama's leftist policies. This is not...

CORE INFLATION UNEXPECTEDLY RISES Matthew BoeslerApril 15, 2014, 8:30 AM      Inflation unexpectedly accelerated in March due to increased costs of food and shelter, according to just-released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both the headline consumer price index and the "core" price index (which excludes food and energy prices) advanced 0.2% in March from the previous month, ahead of consensus estimates for a 0.1% rise in both series, matching February's pace. The year-over-year change in the core index rose to 1.7% from 1.6%, while the year-over-year change in the headline index was boosted...

“Hooray, hooray”! they said in print. 192,000 jobs were created last month according to the Department of Labor’s somewhat flawed mathematics that the media is eager to ignore. Because hidden inside that job gain is another disheartening sign for the workforce: the number of workers who could only find part-time jobs rose by 225,000. Leading the field in job creation, not surprisingly, was education and health services with 34,000 jobs—thank you Obamacare-- the retail trade with about 22,000 jobs—thank you Obamacare-- and temporary workers with 28,500 jobs —thank you Obamacare. So the good news is that if you’re independently...

There's a dirty little secret buried in the monthly employment data. It's a secret so dark, so exquisitely threatening to the financial media industry that those who reveal it risk being expunged from the community like magicians revealing their tricks. The National Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 192,000 jobs were added to the economy in March. The unemployment rate stayed flat at 6.7%. The participation rate rose to 63.2%. Now the dirty secret: none of that actually matters very much. 1.The number itself is simply impossible to measure with any accuracy ... 2.The unemployment rate is irrelevant. ... 3.No...

The statement “everything that could be invented has been invented” is frequently misattributed to the late-nineteenth-century American patent commissioner Charles Holland Duell. The Economist once credited him with the remark, and sites such as “kool kwotes” still reproduce it. In fact, Duell believed the opposite. “In my opinion,” he wrote at the turn of the century, “all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold.” While...

When the manager of a Michigan gas station failed to show up for work on time, her third-shift employee did what any of us would do; he left an angry note on the door, locked up and went home. Okay, most of us would never do it. But how awesome was it that he did?  The BP manager, who declined to be named, said she was running “30 minutes late” because she slept through her alarm. The tardy manager also said she was surprised that “Joe” left the note on the door instead of calling her before leaving the store.

The good news is that with a recent surge of employment, California has regained virtually all of the million-plus jobs it lost during what many call the Great Recession. The bad news is that despite regaining those lost jobs, California still has one of the nation's highest jobless rates, surpassed by only a handful of other states, and it's still well above the national average of 6.7 percent. How can that be?

Jobs: The country's biggest employment agency warns that 38% of private employers will lay off workers if Congress raises the minimum wage. Once again, wage earners are the casualties of waging class warfare. The White House website's slick presentation on the minimum wage says: "No one who works full time should have to raise their family in poverty." And it promises: "It will lift wages for 28 million Americans. It will give businesses customers with more spending money. It will grow the economy for everyone — and we can do it right now." Gee, if you don't like your wage,...

We're Starting To See Some Economic Green Shoots In The US Marc Chandler, Marc to Market Mar. 13, 2014, 11:56 AMUS retail sales rose 0.3% in February, a little more than expected. The news was blunted by sharp downward revisions to the January series, leaving the level of retail sales lower and pointing to somewhat less personal consumption to drive GDP here in Q1. The take away is that as the weather returns to a greater semblance of normalcy, the US economy should be expected to return to trend. Since mid-2009, the US has grown at an average quarterly annualized...