Posted on 05/06/2016 7:30:05 AM PDT by xzins
The number of Americans not in the labor force last month totaled 94,044,000, 562,000 more than in March -- and the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.8 percent (near a 38-year low), following four straight months of slight improvement.
When President Obama took office in Janaury 2009, the labor force partipation rate was 65.7 percent, after hovering in the 66-67 percent range for much of the George W. Bush presidency.
The recession inherited by the Obama administration officially ended in June 2009, but the labor force participation rate continued to drop during Obama's two terms, hitting 62.4 percent in September 2015, its lowest point in 38 years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the economy added 160,000 jobs in April (compared with 215,000 in March). Over the prior 12 months, employment growth had averaged 232,000 per month.
The April unemployment rate held steady at 5.0 percent. (It was also 5.0 percent in March, up a tenth of a point from the 4.9 percent in January and February.)
In April, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 252,969,000. Of those, 158,924,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.
The 158,924,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 62.8 percent of the 252,969,000 civilian noninstitutional population.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 5,793,000 people in April as "persons who currently want a job," up from 5,712,000 in March.
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Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for Hispanics increased to 6.1 percent in April, while the rates for adult men (4.6 percent), adult women (4.5 percent), teenagers (16.0 percent), Whites (4.3 percent), Blacks (8.8 percent), and Asians (3.8 percent) showed little or no change.
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) declined by 150,000 to 2.1 million in April. These individuals accounted for 25.7 percent of the unemployed.
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was about unchanged in April at 6.0 million and has shown little movement since November. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
In April, 1.7 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 400,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
Among the marginally attached, there were 568,000 discouraged workers in April, down by 188,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.1 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in April had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.
But now people are learning that just hearing the words “jobs, jobs, jobs” om the campaign trail doesn’t make it happen. Trump has taken time to explain what has happened to American jobs and he talks about ways that we can rectify the situation.
How long after Trump wins the Presidency will it be before the MSM being to demand to know when He will do something about unemployment?
We would need to see a breakdown of the numbers to determine how many might be employed. This number includes everyone older than 16 and younger than 65 who does not have a job:
1. High school students
2. College students
3. Graduate students
4. Women at home taking care of small children
5. Early retirees
6. Rich people who don’t need to work
7. Guys who are in jail
The real question is how many people who aren’t in the labor force could reasonably be expected to be in it.
“The Labor Force Participation Rate hasn’t budged by much since the 2008 financial crisis. It’s been hovering between 62% and 63% since that time.”
That’s because they’re now counting the unemployed as labor force participants. Check it out:
“Of those, 158,924,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.”
Un-frickin-real.
Exactly right. Another thing that really hurts participation in the more technical fields (e.g. computer science) is the employee's work being considered "intellectual property" of the company. It's so bad that in a surprisingly high number of cases, according to the contracts, if an employee were to write a book on their own free time the company could claim that as their intellectual property.
FTFY.
Hey Ryan! You “conservatives” need to bring in more foreign workers, quick. There are still some Americans with jobs and we can’t have that.
The numbers are being inflated w/ various tricks, like excluding those who have been out of work for a length of time, or counting "participation" as either holding a job or actively seeking one
. I expect that the honest numbers would tell a vastly different story.
Bush’s Fault!
Why work when milk is free!
There are a lot of retirees muttering unkind things about you right now.
But, but they may be working two or three jobs thereby creating jobs! /s
Amen. If you have been unemployed one day or 1 year, you are still unemployed. Maybe count PT work for some HS student different than PT work of a college educated person working PT out of necessity due to the lack of FT work.
That's what we call the baby boom working it's way through the workforce.
>Some people choose not to work because the government provides for them. You won’t get them back to work unless they want a better standard of living, and can get a job that pays well enough. However, that’s a difficult proposition when the combination of state and federal benefits requires a $60,000/year job to replace them.
Correction: You won’t get them back to work...until the govt adheres to the Constitution. Legalized theft is still theft, slavery, economically...slavery.
Yes, a return to a Republic is all but impossible for the reason(s) you stated.
Depression II for a lot of folks.
Just about. I pinged Laz to add me to the countdown.
But I guess I wasn’t worthy, LOL.
Could be, and especially with females also entering labor force as their main occupation that could double the numbers.
1. Thanks for posting the whole article.
2. I suspect the “no foolin’ around” unemployment rate is a lot closer to 15% than it is to 5%.
3. Vote Trump. Let’s get some believable numbers for a change.
I call B.S. Susan Jones. Obama inherited nothing, he wanted it, he campaigned for it, he told the American people that only he could fix it. Then he proceeded to make it worse.
That is not inheriting a problem, that Susan, is breach of contract.
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