Posted on 04/03/2011 11:56:57 PM PDT by RobinMasters
OK, the unemployment is now down to 8.8 percent, and the economy added 216,000 jobs last month. Here is the political economy of the situation, which is not as good for Team Obama as you might think:
1) Let’s not overstate the strength of the report: a) based on last two nasty downturns, 1974-75 and 1981-82, jobs should be growing roughly 400K a month; b) nominal wage growth over both the last quarter and year have both been 1.7% vs. 2.1% inflation; c) the number of people who have been unemployed less than five weeks rose by 59K, first increase since November; d) the share of the unemployed who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks also hit a record high of 45.5 percent. (Numbers compilation courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute.)
2) Political scientists have found only so-so correlation between unemployment and presidential election results. It’s really income growth that counts. And over the past year — and past two months — that has been negative. Shorter: jobs are being created, but they are not so high paying as before. Note that WH economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said today that he does not expect strong income growth unless the unemployment rate moves lower.
3) So let’s say it is Election Day 2012 and the unemployment rate is 8 percent — but housing is still frozen, wages are flat and broader unemployment rate is 15 percent. Then I think it is a 51-49 situation, with the winner depending on what kind of political athlete the GOP nominates.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
I think we double dip anyway, so even the fake unemployment stays at 8.5.
“I think we double dip anyway,”
“Double dip”..the most overused term in the history of economics. I want to puke every time someone uses it.
There is NO “DOUBLE DIP”.
It is just one big dip.
“51-49”
This guy thinks that if the economy is still in bad shape that Obama can still get at least 49% of the vote and maybe 51%??? If true we are really screwed!!!!!
It’s come out that to get to that 8.8% unemployment figure Obama has had to arbitrarily shrink the national labor pool by 2.5 million since he took office. See, you can solve any troublesome issue by just massaging the numbers and defining the problem away.
That’s because you are in the overflow lineup, waiting to join the primary lineup
We are and have been in a depression... EVERYTHING the government does assures that it will deepen. This is a fact that no lie can cover up. Smear crap on a wall in patterns and some call it art... but it is still stinky crap smeared on a wall.
LLS
Hang on here comes the WH economic fuzzy fake rubber numbers should last for a year.
Actually, the Labor Force has INCREASED the last couple of months, with employment gaining more than unemployment dropping.
And you can’t “arbitrarily” lower the Labor Force, anyway....the Labor Force is just the sum of Employed and Unemployed and is based on survey responses. The previous drop in the Labor Force was due to fewer people working or looking for work.
0bama has been playing with the unemployment numbers. During 0bama’s administration, our population has grown by 6,324,000 and we have lost 3,460,000 jobs!
At the end of 2008, the labor force level was reported to be 154,669,000 or 50.7% of the population. Therefore, (154,669,000 - 143,324,000) / 154,669,000 = 7.3% unemployment.
To calculate the current unemployment rate in comparison, first get the current labor force, (0.507 X 311,122,000) = 157,878,000. Unemployment rate = (157,878,000 - 139,864,000) / 157,878,000 = 11.4% unemployment!
Dec 2008: 143,324,000 (population 304,798,000)
2009
Jan: 142,201,000
Feb: 141,687,000
Mar: 140,822,000
APr: 140,720,000
May: 140,292,000
Jun: 139,978,000
Jul: 139,794,000
Aug: 139,409,000
Sep: 138,791,000
Oct: 138,393,000
Nov: 138,590,000
Dec: 137,960,000 (population 307,439,000)
2010
Jan: 138,511,000
Feb: 138,698,000
Mar: 138,952,000
Apr: 139,382,000
May: 139,353,000
Jun: 139,092,000
Jul: 138,991,000
Aug: 139,267,000
Sep: 139,378,000
Oct: 139,084,000
Nov: 138,909,000
Dec: 139,206,000 (population 308,745,538)
2011
Jan: 139,323,000
Feb: 139,573,000
Mar: 139,864,000 (population 311,122,000)
sources:
http://data.bls.gov
http://www.census.gov
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