Posted on 07/07/2015 7:31:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Is America hard at work? Or hardly working?
I ask this because Thursday's Labor Department report for June found yet another 430,000 Americans of working age (16 and older) dropped out of the workforce.
Over the last year, only 1.3 million Americans of working age have entered the workforce, even as the population of this same demographic increased by more than 2.8 million. Just over 1 million members of this group found jobs. That's right -- of the new additions to the working age population, less than four in 10 found jobs.
The newspapers touted the reduction in the unemployment rate to 5.3 percent as a cause for celebration. Yet for every three Americans added to the working age population (16 and older), only around one new job (1.07) has been created under Obama. At this pace, America will soon officially have a zero unemployment rate. But that will only be because no one will be looking for work.
Here's the story the media didn't report. There are now more than 100 million Americans over the age of 16 that are not working. Usually when the economy picks up, American workers who have been laid off stampede back into the workforce to earn a paycheck. Now we have a better job market with fewer workers.
This is partially explained by baby boomers retiring. But the largest reduction in the workforce has been among the millennials. Today the labor force participation rate for the 16 to 24 age group is 55.1 percent, down from 60.8 percent a decade ago and more than 66 percent back in the late 1990s. We're headed toward becoming Greece, where half the young people don't work.
No one knows for sure why the labor force has shrunk so much under Obama. But it's a good bet that policy mistakes have played a big role.
Minimum wage increases are pricing the young out of the workforce. Welfare programs are effectively paying people not to work. Too many Americans have high school and even college degrees that are next to worthless to employers.
Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rand Paul and other Republicans say that America could and should strive for 4 percent growth -- up from the pitiful 2 percent of the last six years. But this will certainly require a growing workforce. We need at least 10 million more Americans working to get growth up to 4 percent -- which happened under presidents Reagan and Clinton. And to get there we need national policies that reward work and discourage idleness.
Which brings us to the paradox of the American economy. We have 10 percent of the workforce unemployed, in part-time work or dropped out of the workforce at a time when businesses say they can't find willing workers. Wages were flat last month -- so higher pay isn't going to induce a stream of workers into jobs.
Some say the problem is we are such a rich nation that Americans value leisure more than work. I doubt that's the problem. If the great American work ethic is gone, it's only because dumb anti-work government policies have stolen it.
> Unemployment must be around 30% now.
Seriously, I don’t think you are far off at all.
Sounds like Greece
Wait until TPP and all of its goodies goes into effect. Americans will be essentially shut out of their own labor market, just like europe.
We have nobody to blame but ourselves for this predicament, which is being caused by selling out our country and sovereignty for short term financial gain.
If this press and this administration had been in office during the 30s, what is referred to now as the Great Depression would be known as the Great Economic Revival.
The indonesian/kenyan, commie, usurper, dictator wanna be claims it is only 5.3%, but I don’t have to tell you that he is a stupis lying bastard.
Stephen Moore is an amnesty pimp.
If we deported the illegal aliens, wages would rise and people would find jobs.
Thinking Payless shoes...........
not to be outdone by BUSH............
” Stephen Moore is an amnesty pimp.”
Please cite your proof! Do you have some/ any?
LOL
And to prove your right, we read that one of them put a firecracker on his head and blew himself up......
Just doing the job an American jihadist wouldn't do.
Obama would say they now work for him
Read any of his work over the years, I have. He is for “Comprehensive immigration Reform”, which is amnesty.
David Stockman Shock Blog: The Real Unemployment Rate Is 42.9%.....Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | June 30, 2015Part-Time Jobs Surge By 161,000; Full-Time Jobs Tumble By 349,000
Since 2007 The US Has Lost 1.4 Million Manufacturers, Gained 1.4 Million Waiters And Bartenders
Factory Orders Scream Recession: Annual Drop Biggest Since 2008
Why work when you get paid to do nothing? I personally work full time even though I’m in my 70s because someone has to pay for the leisure time and support the life style of the parasites. I’m just proud to be able to allow all those welfare people to buy beer cigarettes, and scratch off lotto tickets < do I really need the sarcasm tag >
Stop reading lying left=wing sites
And you are a troll
make that left-wing sites
He really wrote that?
-PJ
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Opposing amnesty and those who support it is what I do.
If that makes me a troll in your eyes, you must be in favor of the invasion.
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