Posted on 06/08/2008 8:20:37 PM PDT by K-oneTexas
What the Media Didn’t Tell You About Friday’s Unemployment Spike By Jerry Bowyer
It wasn’t Bush, it wasn’t greedy corporations, or free trade, or history’s most over-predicted recession. It was not the oil companies, income inequality, or the excesses of cowboy capitalism. None of these things caused the unemployment rate to jump a half a percentage point in one month.
Ask yourself a few questions: Why did unemployment surge at a time when unemployment compensation claims are historically low? More to the point, how could unemployment spike this much without a coinciding spike in corporate lay-offs?
The answer to all of these questions is same: because very few people lost jobs last month. This huge jump in the size of the unemployed comes from new entrants to the economy – hundreds of thousands of them. In short, well over 600,000 people who were not job seekers in April became job seekers in May. And who starts looking for work at the end of Spring? That’s right – students. Hundreds of thousands of students are looking for work right now, and they’re not finding it.
Congress is to blame. Last year Congressional Democrats (along with some Stockholm-Syndromed Republicans) passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which started a phased hike of the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. Free market economists warned them that this would increase unemployment – that rapid increases in unemployment compensation hit teens and minorities the hardest. But the class-warriors are running the people’s house now, and they would hear none of that, so they took to the floor, let loose the dogs of demagoguery, and saddled America’s pizza parlors, municipal swimming pools, house painting businesses and lawn mowing services with a huge cost increase.
Now, we see the perfectly logical outcome of wage controls – rising unemployment among the most economically vulnerable. The chart above tells the story: Friday’s unemployment spike occurred overwhelmingly among teenagers, and secondarily among African Americans. Just like we said it would. A kid who is at entry level of job skills may be a good deal at 5 bucks an hour, but not at 7. Our anointed leaders gets to glory in their generosity (with other people’s money) and just so long as very few people in the media know that a demand curve slopes downward (a good bet, there), no one calls them on it.
This summer the left will make political lemonade out of a tough student job market. Heck, it may provide a small army of angry unemployed youth to man the campaign, hungry for hope and (loose) change, never once realizing that they’re working to entrench the leftie war on business which left them jobless this summer in the first place.
Did you even READ the article?
I lazily read just the excerpt. What did I miss in the article that negates my comment?
BINGO! I said the higher unemployment rates during late
spring are a reflection of mainly H.S. students and other graduates spilling into the work force.
Gotta love the drive-by media.
Phantom unemployed=new phantom voters in the Fall.
Students always enter the job market in May. What is different now, is that employers are required to pay these largely unskilled, unexperienced workers some 30% to 40% more than they had to in 2007 and 2006 and 2005. Apparently, many employers are balking, so these students enter the ranks of the unemployed, rather than the ranks of the employed.
Many moons ago I read an interesting book called "FDR Follies" re: the New Deal, Great Depression, etc. I can still remember being shocked at reading that when the FDR decreed the first minimum wage (50c p/hour) something like half a million workers throughout the country immediately (like w/i a week) lost their job. ***BBAAMMM *** like a guillotine.
Economists React: ‘Teen Angst’ or Playing ‘Catch-Up’ in Jobless Rate?
WSJ
The key part, about the rise in the minimum wage was included in the excerpt....didn’t even read that much did ya?
Bowyer’s statement is not supported by the data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
(http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm)
The number of teens working increased in the last year:
Teens Employed May 2007: 5.61 million
Teens Employed May 2008: 5.90 million
The percentage of teens working increased in the last year:
Percentage of Teens With Jobs May 2007: 39.5%
Percentage of Teens With Jobs May 2008: 42.6%
Unemployment went up because the number of teens searching for work surged by 560,000 compared to last year:
Teens Working Or Looking For Work May 2007: 6.70 milllion
Teens Working Or Looking For Work May 2008: 7.26 million
Strangely, Jerry Bowyers says absolutely nothing about the impact of immigration - legal and illegal - on the ability of teenagers to find low skill jobs.
Also, Bowyers says nothing about a fact that is obvious to those who are actually looking for work - almost all low skill jobs pay MORE than minimum wage.
Around here a lot of kids’ jobs are now taken by illegals.
Around here, a lot of the places with ‘help wanted’ signs up, still have them up, because if you go in and find out how much they pay, and then compute the gas to drive to work, you realize you’d be working for $2/hr, and most people won’t bother with that. They have to wait for someone to come along who can get to work w/o paying for gas. This is what one of my younger friends is telling me. I have a decent job, and he took one that he didn’t have to drive very far to get to.
You didn’t even bother to read the article did you?
“Um, I didn’t think so.”
The article specifically explains what is different about May 2008 from May 2007, 2006, 2005.
Your entire post is an example of foot in mouth syndrome.
Sheesh.
BTTT
The author makes the exact same point I made on Friday on these forums. Congressional Democrats, some Republicans, were pure blooming idiots. And the conservatives in Congress need to have the balls to point this out.
You are correct. They won’t even bother to do that little bit of research.
Let’s see... There was a load of sponsored propaganda in October and November of last year. It disseminated the message that oil would go down and big import margins continue, after the recession. Then the yearly lock against hiring was implemented about a month early, and it’s still in effect.
I said last year that oil wouldn’t go down, and Iran must be dealt with. We also need to do real work by producing real wealth right here. Factories must be built in the back yards of our superiors in order to facilitate shorter commutes and less fuel usage (more and smaller communities, return to ruralization). Marriage must also be promoted (one house and car easier to feed energy to than two of each).
In short, feminism, romanticism and laziness must go.
BTW, $200+ oil might be just what we need to remedy the anti-defense, anti-family (generally, the ancient Roman nature) trend in our Nation.
Rush will be on this tomorrow.
Sorry, you lost me. Which starting, unskilled workers straight out if high school are required to receive 40% more pay than graduates one year earlier? What are you talking about? Did they raise the minimum wage 40%. Where does it say that 2008 graduates are due for 40% more than 2007 graduates. I am completely lost and don’t believe that tripe for one second.
Congress is to blame. Last year Congressional Democrats (along with some Stockholm-Syndromed Republicans) passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which started a phased hike of the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. Free market economists warned them that this would increase unemployment – that rapid increases in unemployment compensation hit teens and minorities the hardest. But the class-warriors are running the people’s house now, and they would hear none of that, so they took to the floor, let loose the dogs of demagoguery, and saddled America’s pizza parlors, municipal swimming pools, house painting businesses and lawn mowing services with a huge cost increase.....
all of the summer jobs ~ once the domain of high school and college students ~ are now owned by ILLEGALS!!!! ~ congress NEVER considers this issue!!!
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