Free Republic

The biggest threat to a corrupt regime is when truth moves away from the "conspiracy theory" fringes and into the mainstream. Which is why we thank Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, for daring to tell the truth to those who care to listen.Posted first on LinkedInThe Big Lie: 5.6% UnemploymentHere’s something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street...

<p>Nearly half of U.S. workers consider themselves underemployed, according to a survey of more than 960,000 people by PayScale, an online provider of salary information.</p> <p>Three-quarters of those who label themselves as such say they're not working in a job that uses their education and training. One quarter say they are working part time but want full-time work.</p>

The Canadian Labour Congress is asking Statistics Canada to change the way it reports on unemployment, saying a more fulsome analysis of the data it collects would paint a very different picture of the country’s labour market. ... The biggest omission, says the CLC, is the category economists call “underemployment,” which captures part-time workers who want to be full time, along with the involuntary self-employed and other underutilized workers. ... The most telling number is that the employment rate — the number working as a percentage of the total in the age group — is down to 54.5% from about...

College graduates claimed the bulk of last month’s job gains, while high-school grads with no college lost jobs, highlighting a persistent divide in the recovery.

34.3%: Share of Americans over age 16 who say they don’t want a job, up from about 30% two decades ago. Americans aren’t just leaving the labor force — those who have left it are drifting further away. Economists studying the labor market have traditionally focused on two types of people: those who have jobs (the employed) and those who are trying to find them (the unemployed). Together, those groups make up what is known as the “labor force.” As close observers of the economy already know, the labor force has been shrinking as a share of the population, a...

The Obama administration continues to discount the huge impact its health overhaul law is having in turning America into a part-time nation, calling reports anecdotal and not based on complete data. To paraphrase Groucho Marx: Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own eyes? An avalanche of “anecdotes” continues to pile up as workers across the country are having their hours cut and their health benefits slashed across a broad range of industries. Loren Goodridge, the owner of 21 Subway franchises, says he has no choice but to cut the hours of his employees to 29 a week...

Source: Thinkstock As the nation continues to recover from the recession, not only is the unemployment rate down, but the underemployment rate — an important measure of the health of the job market — has been slowly declining as well.In 2012, 14.7% of all people in the workforce either had no job, were too discouraged to go looking, or were not working as much as they wanted. Through the 12 months ending mid-2013, this figure had fallen slightly to 14.3%. But in many states, underemployment remains persistently high. These are the states where it is hardest to find full-time work.Click...

Applying our labor supply estimates directly to this population, we predict a decline in employment of between 530,000 and 940,000 in response to this group of individuals being made newly eligible for free or heavily subsidized health insurance. This would represent a decline in the aggregate employment rate of between 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points from this single component of the ACA. The researchers arrive at these numbers by examining the labor market impact of Tennessee’s 2005 decision to discontinue its expansion of TennCare, the state’s Medicaid system. They found that the TennCare disenrollment caused “a large and immediate labor...

Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open. But it wasn't always like this. When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonalds because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger. But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonalds resulted in a million job...

only 47% of Americans have a full-time job and those who don't are finding it increasingly out of reach. Of the 144 million Americans employed last month, only 116 million were working full-time. Friday's report showed that 58.7% of the civilian adult population of 245 million was working last month. Only 47% of Americans, however, had a full-time job. ... In June, the number of Americans who wanted to work full-time, but were forced into part-time jobs because of the economy, jumped 352,000 to over eight million.

As the world waits breathless for some Goldilocks print in tomorrow's non-farm payroll data, Gallup's most recent survey of employment trends does not paint a pretty picture for the real economy. Though, by the 'adjustment bureau' and their Arima-X goal-seeking, nothing is ever clear, not only is the payroll-to-population (the number of people working) worse than a year ago but the unemployment rate is also rising with under-employment - at 18.0% - near 15 month highs. If the NFP print plays out in line with this, the estimate of 165k will be woefully over-optimistic, leaving the question of whether...

NEW YORK - More than 40 percent of recent U.S. college graduates are underemployed or need more training to get on a career track, a poll released Tuesday showed. The online survey of 1,050 workers who finished school in the past two years and 1,010 who will receive their degree in 2013 also found that many graduates, some heavily in debt because of the cost of their education, say they are in jobs that do not require a college degree. Thirty-four percent said they had student loans of $30,000 or less, while 17 percent owed between $30,000 to $50,000. "For...

A new study finds that 48% of recent college graduates are now in jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree, and 37% hold jobs that require just a high school diploma. The study, titled “Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed? University Enrollments and Labor Market Realities," was conducted by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity using employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Student-loan programs and federal assistance programs are based on some sort of implicit assumption that we're training people for the jobs of the future," says Richar Vedder, director of the center and a...

Employers may be hiring, but there's another big problem with the job market that isn't being tracked as closely: the hopelessly unemployed. An often overlooked number calculated by the Labor Department shows millions of Americans want a job but haven't searched for one in at least a year. They've simply given up hope. They're not counted as part of the labor force, the official unemployment rate, or the category the Labor Department refers to as "discouraged workers" -- those who haven't bothered to look for work in the last four weeks. These hopelessly unemployed workers have just been jobless so...

Tight budgets, bargain hunting change consumer habits... It's Christmas 2012, and economic conditions have ushered in big changes in shopping habits. The problem, one retail expert said, is consumers' recent loss of income, personal wealth and jobs. "Eighty percent of Americans have lost 40 percent of their net worth since Obama has been president," said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a national retail consulting and investment banking firm headquartered in New York City. "Median family income is down 10 percent. Unemployment and underemployment is at 14 percent. And if we grow at 2 percent, we can't gain...

At least one Fed governor understands the Bernanke Fed's hyper-accommodative monetary policy has no exit. Today on CNBC "Squawk Box", Dallas Fed governor Richard Fisher complained Fed Risks 'Hotel California' Monetary Policy. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told CNBC that he's worried the U.S. central bank is in a "Hotel California" type of monetary policy because of its "engorged balance sheet." Evoking lyrics from the famous song by The Eagles, he said he feared the Fed would be able to "check out anytime you like, but never leave." Fisher said on "Squawk Box" that he argued against revealing the new...

Bonnie Gray knows there are people out there who are worse off than she is. After all, at least she has a job. It’s just not a full-time gig. Like many other Americans, she works part time and it’s barely enough to pay for food, fuel and shelter. Millions of Americans were working part time in November but they would like to have been working full time. These so-called “involuntary part-time workers” are an example of some of the stubborn pockets of weakness that remain in the labor market even as the jobs picture improves very slowly. The Bureau of...

UNH seniors began registering for their spring classes on Monday, creating what for most of these students will be the final schedule of their college careers. As Thanksgiving break plunges us into winter, the new year is only weeks away. And with graduation rearing around the corner, members of the class of 2013 are beginning to ask, “What now?” For Katie Sousa, a senior English major, life after graduation means returning to a part-time cashier position at Market Basket. “I’ve been there for five years and I plan to go back there until I find something better,” she said. According...

Job seekers will soon have a harder time finding full-time work, thanks to Obamacare. As of 2014, the law will attempt to force employers to provide insurance — but in doing so, it will have the unintended effect of making part-time employees more desirable than full-timers. That’s because if a business with more than 49 full-time employees fails to offer insurance coverage, it will be required to pay a fine. And the fine will apply starting not with the 50th employee, but with the 31st. At $2,000 per employee after the first 30, these fines add up fast. A business...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Thirty-two percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. workforce were underemployed in April, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment. This is up from 30.1% in March and is slightly higher than the 30.7% of a year ago. These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews, conducted with 28,215 Americans throughout April, including 2,864 respondents aged 18 to 29. Gallup's U.S. underemployment measure combines the unemployed with those working part time but looking for full-time work. Underemployment among 18- to 29-year-olds has hovered around 30% for most of the past year, showing no real improvement....