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.
Stephen Moore is an amnesty pimp.
How so?
Read his work. He is for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”.
He may not have mentioned it in this piece, but he has in many others.
If we want to get Americans back to work, the first step is freeing up the jobs held by illegal aliens. Illegally.
If we stop flooding the labor market, wages will rise.
My wife and I are among the non-workers - retired and trying to enjoy before S really HTF...
The best indicator of the economy is this one I think:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2V
Then there are the 10 Million Federal and State Government employees who strive every day to make it harder for Private Sector employers to create jobs.
Wow, that is mind-blowing. It is truly game over for America.
>>and Libs will tell you the Labor Participation Rate includes 98 year olds. Where do they come up with this carp?<<
First, I’m no liberal. I just really detest this 100 million Americans aren’t working b.s. because that number (usually it’s 90+ million, by the way) includes every retiree, college student, and non-working spouse in the country, which is inane.
The Labor Participation Rate doesn’t include the elderly retired, however, and is a decent portrayal of the abysmal labor market since 2009. The reported unemployment rate is 5.3% only because so many people have either quit looking for jobs because they can’t find one or, more likely, are being paid enough welfare that they don’t want to look for jobs anymore.
A better way to describe what’s going on would be to say that 7 million people are unemployed and looking for work, while 10 million more would be working if it made sense for them to get a job, but they either can’t find one or don’t want to give up their welfare benefits. (I made up the numbers, but they probably aren’t too far off.)
I usually hear 92-93 million. Whats another 7-8 million?
“not seeking unemployment so they don’t get counted in the U3 or U6 unemployment?”
Correct.
If you are unemployed and not looking then you are not counted. If you were looking, you are counted, if you then stop looking because you can’t find a job, and/or your benefits run out, then you are not counted as unemployed.
An official estimate is that over 40% more people from the unemployed number are unemployed but not counted.
The depression unemployment number included today’s “unemployment”, the non-employed but want work, and the underemployed.
Accurate comparisons would then put today’s unemployment at around 25% (Shadowstats), David Stockman, long time economist, just released data saying that today’s unemployment is 42%.
We are much much worse off than the Great Depression. Thanks obama, democrats, and rinos.
In the last 15 years, America has let in more than 15 million LEGAL immigrants. Most of them have limited skills and limited education. The claim that 35% of immigrants have a college education is pure crap. Most of them have degrees from Third World universities that are not accredited and are completely useless in the USA.
And who knows how many ILLEGAL immigrants are stealing jobs and crushing wages for home grown Americans.
Moore states that American businesses can't find willing workers, and then casually mentions that wages are stagnant, but he makes no connection between the two.
Hmmm - if there is a shortage of milk, milk prices go up. But when there is a “shortage” of willing labor, wages are stagnant? Get freaking real!
America's labor supply has been hugely and artificially bloated by massive immigration. Wages for low skill employment have declined for 30 years. Wages for software engineers (think H-1B visas!) have been stagnant for 15 years.
And, apparently, Stephen Moore hasn't even noticed.
“We are much much worse off than the Great Depression.”
In more ways than one, in my opinion. Give people the exact situation in which my parents and grandparents thrived during the thirties and now most would starve.
Thanks to our progressive overlords...
It’s liberal logic. < /oxymoron >
Stephen Moore is an open borders fan, FWIW.
100 million is 5.3%...
of 1.9 billion...
and I don’t think our population is that large.
WOOHOO! We’ve hit another milestone! Somebody break out the champagne!
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