Thanks DJ MacWoW for posting this:
Posted on 01/09/2015 8:03:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON -- The United States capped its best year for hiring in 15 years with a healthy gain in December, and the unemployment rate hit a six-year low. The numbers support expectations that the United States will strengthen further this year even as overseas economies stumble.
The Labor Department said today that employers added 252,000 jobs last month and 50,000 more in October and November combined than it had previously estimated. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent from 5.8 percent in November. The rate is at its lowest point since 2008.
Yet wage growth remains weak. Average hourly pay slipped 5 cents in December. And the unemployment rate fell partly because many of the jobless gave up looking for work and so were no longer counted as unemployed.
Nearly 3 million more people are earning paychecks than at the start of 2014. That's the largest annual job gain since 1999. Gas prices have also fallen sharply, which will give consumers a further boost in the coming months.
Most economists forecast the U.S. economy will expand more than 3 percent this year, which would mark the first time in a decade for growth to reach that level.
(Excerpt) Read more at dispatch.com ...
Unemployment rate fell only 93,000,000 people out of work more great Obama change.
Just wait until the oil field workers are added to those numbers.
I can’t imagine why people feel insecure about the economy with unemployment at only 5.6% - except for the little detail that so many millions have lost their jobs and been unemployed so long that they no longer count, and the bonus detail that all added jobs in the past five years have gone to illegal immigrants (fewer employed Americans than before the communist seized power on January 20, 2009).
It’s like reading the old Pravda. You know it’s nothing but BS.
Correct. And these days Pravda is more reliable than anything coming out of the 0bama propaganda ministry.
Yes, from the Zero Hedge link you provided, Here’s the right way to look at the unemployment rate (if we are realistic ):
In December, the civilian non-institutional population was 249,027,000 according to BLS. Of that 249,027,000, 156,129,000—or 62.7 percent—participated in the labor force, meaning they either had or job or had actively sought one in the last four weeks.
Of the 156,129,000 who did participate in the labor force, 147,442,000 had a job and 8,688,000 did not have a job but actively sought one. Those 8,688,000 are the unemployed. They equaled 5.6 percent of the labor force—or an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent (which was down from the 5.8 percent unemployment rate in November).
However, a record 92,898,000 Americans 16 and older DID NOT participate in the labor force in December 2014, as the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent.
That’s 456,000 more than the 92,442,000 Americans who did not participate in November 2014.
Also, we can get a glimpse of the NATURE of the job market from this -— the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.6 hours in December.
The manufacturing workweek edged down by 0.1 hour to 41.0 hours, and factory overtime edged up by 0.1 hour to 3.6 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.9 hours.
In December, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls decreased by 5 cents to $24.57, following an increase of 6 cents in November. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 1.7 percent. In December, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees decreased by 6 cents to $20.68.
That’s a bit of a puzzle, and not a good one. Either the competition for jobs is still far too sharp to push wages up, or businesses are having to compensate for higher costs by delaying compensation increases.
According to the Household data, the US economy added an average of 231,000 jobs in 2014, well above the level needed to keep up with population growth but not exactly sufficient to make significant inroads into the ranks of the chronically unemployed. Those idled workers may be suppressing wage growth and making it difficult for workers to turn the market to their advantage. We will need higher levels of job creation to overcome that handicap, and so far we still are waiting for the real expansion in jobs to begin.
In a nutshell, here’s how the BLS is counting the unemployed:
QUESTION: Are you employed?
Answer: No
QUESTION: Are you actively looking for a job?
Answer Yes.
Questioner counts the interviewee as among the unemployed.
Next....
QUESTION: Are you employed?
Answer: No
QUESTION: Are you actively looking for a job?
Answer No.
Questioner puts the interviewee in a different category and BLS DOES NOT include him in the official unemployment rate.
Regardless of what it is, if you don’t have a job, you don’t have a job, whether the BLS counts you or not.
This is all such a big lie.
We have nearly 100 million able bodied people out of work.
5.8%?
Here they tout 250,000 new jobs. I guess they aren’t aware that it takes something like 300,000 to barely keep up with the increasing numbers of workers that become available each month due to their age.
Another-words, we’re creating 50,000 new unemployed able bodied people each month. Now there’s something to crow about. /s
People who read the news and take it at face value have no idea what is really taking place in this nation.
We are in a depression. All the happy talk won’t change that.
Our economy limps along. It could be exploding. Obama, Congress, they’re clueless wonders.
Thanks DJ MacWoW for posting this:
Oh Happy Days are here again!!! /sarc
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
