May jobs data euphoria over floundering ship of state, Recapturing jobs lost boast hides real problems with economy and employment, Citizen Wells warship analogy
“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.
Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″
The low information and/or biased media has been reporting the following:
“U.S. has finally regained the jobs lost to the Great Recession”
The low information voters and many investors appear to be buying it.
A simple analogy:
A warship is struck by a torpedo.
Believing the ship to be in imminent danger of sinking, the captain orders most of the crew to abandon ship.
They are picked up.
Much to his amazement he discovers that a sand bar is preventing the ship from sinking.
The remaining crew members repair the hole and pump out the water.
The captain reports to the admiral, we have pumped out all of the water. We are ship shape.
Sounds good except that most of the crew is missing, the ship is still stuck and enemy submarines are lurking nearby.
The same with our ship of state.
We have patched the original problem but we are dead in the water.
The employment situation in this country is reaching critical mass.
We have record numbers dropping out of the labor force and record numbers relying on government assistance paid for by the remaining workers. Many of whom are working part time jobs.
Here is one small example of data not being reported by the mainstream media.
In just one month, from April to May, almost 300,000 more people wanted jobs who were not in the labor force.
May jobs report June 6, 2014, Jobs added replace jobs lost in recession?, US Labor Dept BLS orwellian data, Low information voters and reporters, CNN Market Watch reports
“According to shocking new numbers that were just released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of American families do not have a single person that is working. So when someone tries to tell you that the unemployment rate in the United States is about 7 percent, you should just laugh. One-fifth of the families in the entire country do not have a single member with a job. That is absolutely astonishing. How can a family survive if nobody is making any money? Well, the answer to that question is actually quite easy. There is a reason why government dependence has reached epidemic levels in the United States. Without enough jobs, tens of millions of additional Americans have been forced to reach out to the government for help. At this point, if you can believe it, the number of Americans getting money or benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.”…Zero Hedge April 29, 2014
“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.
Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
We not only have low information voters in this country we have low information reporters.
Yesterday the big jobs news was the alleged recovery of jobs lost during the recession.
From CNN June 4, 2014.
“U.S. soon to recover all jobs lost in crisis
”
Set your sights on this number: 113,000.
“That’s how many jobs the U.S. economy needs to hit its break-even point, to finally recover all the jobs lost in the financial crisis.
Get ready, because we’re about to get there this Friday.
That’s when the U.S. Department of Labor will release its May jobs report, and the outlook is rosy. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney expect the U.S. economy added 200,000 jobs in May.”
“When the Labor Department releases the data on jobs created in May, the figures are expected to show that, for the first time, the total number of jobs has surpassed the level when the U.S. entered recession in December 2007. The U.S. is just 113,000 jobs away from the previous peak reached in January 2008. Economists polled by MarketWatch expect a 210,000 gain.”
“And it’s important to note the U.S. population has grown by about 12.5 million people since 2008. Not all of them will be in the work force, but if the numbers on labor-force participation of that group are similar to what’s seen nationally, that’s another 6 million positions to fill.”
And thank God some of the public is paying attention.
From the Market Watch article comments.
“Wayne H1 hour ago
Government fuzzy math.
US Population:
7/8 304.09M
11/13 316.99M
Growth of 12.9M during Obama presidency
US Labor force participation:
01/08 66.2M
04/14 62.8M
Jobs shrunk 3.4M during Obama presidency
US household income:
12/7 $55,500
6/13 $52,100
Down $3,400
The reality is that fewer people are making less money to support even more people.
Seamus Brown2 hours ago
Hey MW, you missed this chart:
It tells the whole story, factoring in the falling participation rate.
Of course, we all know the truth is not your goal, is it?
Will O’My2 hours ago
@Seamus Brown
This is a good one also – http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EMRATIO
This data center has all the data for economics research, it is the Fed’s central data center.”
“Bill Johnson2 hours ago
Quick get the memo to all those extra people on food stamps that they need to cancel their benefit. They are employed again and didn’t even know it.
In the year 2000 we had 17,194,000 people on food stamps with a population of 282,162,411. In 2008 we had 28,223,000 people on food stamps. As of February of 2014 we have 46,177,144 people on food stamps. Our current population is 318,176,220 million.
This means that we went from having 6% to 14.5% of the population on food assistance in 14 years. What type of jobs are exactly being created here? What type of “progress” are we experiencing here? ARE YOU SICK AND TIRED OF IT YET!!?
Oh I know the answer, we will just keep expanding the gov’t some more. That will fix it because its obviously worked so well for us so far. Before you jump down the Democrats throats the Republicans get some of this blame too.
May 2014 job cuts highest in 15 months, Challenger Gray and Christmas report, Plans to reduce payrolls 52961, Job cuts up 31 percent from April, Technology sector highest
“The unemployment rate for 18-to-29-year-olds was 9.1% in April, which rises to 15.5% if you include those who have given up looking for work,”
“For now, the absence of young adults from the housing market continues to put a dent in the homeownership rate,”
“For those younger than 35, the rate has fallen noticeably faster. It slipped to 36.2% in the first quarter, from 36.8% in the fourth. The home ownership rate for this group was as high as 43.6% in the second quarter of 2004.”…Market Watch May 12, 2014
“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.
Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″
From Challenger, Gray and Christmas June 5, 2014.
“2014 May Job Cuts: 52,961 Highest Monthly Total in 15 Months”
“Job cuts climbed to the highest level in more than a year, as US-based employers announced plans to reduce payrolls by 52,961 in May, according to the report Thursday from global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
May job cuts were up 31 percent from 40,298 announced layoffs in April. It was the second consecutive increase in monthly job cuts and the largest one-month total since February 2013, when 55,356 job cuts were recorded.
Last month’s total was 46 percent higher than the 36,398 job cuts announced in May 2013.
To date, employers have announced a total of 214,600 planned job cuts in 2014, which is 2.3 percent fewer than the 219,560 job cuts tracked in the first five months of 2013.
The heaviest downsizing in May occurred in the technology sector, where computer firms announced plans to cut payrolls by 18,799. Hewlett-Packard, which has announced several large-scale workforce reductions in recent years, revealed plans to cut as many 16,000 workers in its ongoing efforts to “reengineer the workforce to be more competitive.”
The May total for the computer industry was the largest since May 2012, when cuts reached 27,754, due primarily to another large job-cut announcement from Hewlett-Packard.”
Part time jobs jeopardized by recent high school college graduates?, More graduates than retirees, Citizen Wells poses question, NC unemployment rates echoes Washington lies
“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.
Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
“The unemployment rate for 18-to-29-year-olds was 9.1% in April, which rises to 15.5% if you include those who have given up looking for work,”
“For now, the absence of young adults from the housing market continues to put a dent in the homeownership rate,”
“For those younger than 35, the rate has fallen noticeably faster. It slipped to 36.2% in the first quarter, from 36.8% in the fourth. The home ownership rate for this group was as high as 43.6% in the second quarter of 2004.”…Market Watch May 12, 2014
It sickens me to hear ads on TV touting the lower unemployment rate in NC and praising the McCrory administration for creating jobs.
This is what Obama and the folks in Washington have been doing for years.
The same reason that the unemployment rate has dropped applies to NC that does Washington but even more so.
The labor force has plummeted in NC and nationally.
Citizen Wells has diligently tried to keep you informed as to the real unemployment situation.
The number of people entering the work force each year versus those exiting has been explained.
I have been giving this some thought and have not seen it reported.
I pose this question:
Of all the folks graduating from high school and college and ready to enter the full time labor force, how many will be forced to keep their part time jobs?
Remember that not enough jobs are being created.
Also remember that not all of those ready to retire will be able to do so.
Even if every person eligible for retirement were to do so, there are far less of these people than those entering the labor force.
If many graduates keep their part time jobs, how does this impact current students and the large number of adults who depend on one or more part time jobs?
Obama economy devastates young and housing markets, Under 35 home ownership plummets from 43.6 percent to 36.2, Unemployment rate 9.1 to 15.5 percent for 18 to 29 year olds, Student loan debt
“11.4%: What the U.S. unemployment rate would be if labor force participation were back to January 2008 levels.” …James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, June 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.
Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013
Citizen Wells recently presented the impact on blacks of the Obama economy.
Another demographic that supported Obama, young people, has also been devastated by the Obama economy and the subsequent impact on the housing market has affected everyone.
From Market Watch May 13, 2014.
“There was an 8% drop in existing home sales in Greensboro-High Point, N.C., after a 2% rise in the fourth quarter, RealtyTrac found. “There’s still a lot of uncertainty about the economy,” says Tommy Camp, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Yost & Little Realty. “Some buyers say, ‘We’ve got a job, but we don’t know how secure that is.’” A slowdown in household formation has also had a negative impact on the housing market, he says; 18- to 34-year-olds account for more than half of missing households — that is, Americans who would be owning or renting a home now if prerecession economic trends had continued.”
“For now, the absence of young adults from the housing market continues to put a dent in the homeownership rate, which dropped to 64.8% in the first quarter, compared with 65.2% in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to U.S. Census statistics. The rate was as high as 69.2% in the fourth quarter of 2004. For those younger than 35, the rate has fallen noticeably faster. It slipped to 36.2% in the first quarter, from 36.8% in the fourth. The homeownership rate for this group was as high as 43.6% in the second quarter of 2004.
“The [25 to 35] age cohort…probably has had the hardest time recovering from the Great Recession,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Auction.com, an online real estate marketplace. “For the time being, we’re likely to see a higher percentage of households formed being rental households,” and overall homeownership rates are likely to continue to drop somewhat—perhaps even down to 62%—before bottoming out and climbing back up, he added.
While some industry watchers have suggested a shift in attitudes away from Homeownership, Sharga and others say it’s too soon to know whether people truly have a waning interest in owning homes. But one thing’s for sure: Young people have plenty of hurdles to becoming homeowners.”
“The unemployment rate for 18-to-29-year-olds was 9.1% in April, which rises to 15.5% if you include those who have given up looking for work, according to Generation Opportunity, a national, nonpartisan youth advocacy organization. The unemployment rate was 6.3% in April for all ages.
Forget that without a job it’s just about impossible to get a mortgage. (It’s also hard to rent: Twenty-nine percent of adults younger than 35 live with their parents, according to Gallup poll results released earlier this year.) A slow start to earnings also means a slow start to saving.
“The majority of younger renters report having insufficient assets to cover a 5% down payment plus closing costs on a typical starter home,” Shahdad wrote.”
“In 2012, 1.3 million students who graduated from four-year colleges (or 71%) had student loan debt, up from 1.1 million in 2008 and 900,000 in 2004, according to the Institute for College Access & Success, a nonprofit independent research and policy organization. Graduating seniors with student loans had average debt levels of $29,400 in 2012, up 25% from $23,450 in 2008.
And new mortgage regulations, set into motion by the Dodd-Frank Act, require that borrowers have no more than a 43% debt-to-income ratio (with debt encompassing monthly housing costs and debt payments, including those on student loans). That ceiling may also restrict first-time buyers, some say.”
Obamacare triggers millions of healthcare policy cancellations, Rep Cory Gardner questioned insurance company executives, Businesses facing increased healthcare costs will drop employee coverage
“Your employer’s known about it for the longest time, just like everybody else has. We had a call. The guy couldn’t go on the air. He was afraid to go on the air. He was afraid he would be recognized. He told Snerdley his name. He’s a health care consultant. What did he say, 15 companies that he’s consulting? (interruption) Yeah. (interruption) Oh, okay. He’s a health care consultant.
In other words, he advises companies on how to best do health care, the most affordable pricing with the least expense involved and so forth. He said that so far he’s consulting 15 different companies/corporations who are gonna offload all their employees. He’s also advising them on the 30-hour workweek and what that will mean for them (i.e., part-timers don’t have to get covered at all). “…Rush Limbaugh May 8, 2014
“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.
Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″
From WND May 7, 2014.
“Insurance execs: Millions of health plans to be canceled”
“Millions of American families still must face the catastrophic loss of their health insurance policies because of Obamacare, members of Congress learned at a hearing with insurance company executives this week.
They will join the millions of families who lost their policies over the last six months, also because of Obamacare, the company executives confirmed.
It was at a hearing of the Energy & Commerce Committee that Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., grilled a half-dozen insurance company executives appearing before the committee on who was responsible for the previous round of policy cancellations, and who should face blame for the next round.
A statement on Gardner’s website said, “The witnesses confirmed that these [previous] cancellation notices were sent out due to the president’s healthcare law. It was also disclosed that millions more Americans will see their plans canceled when the president’s healthcare law is fully enforced.”
The conflict arose over Barack Obama’s publicly and repeatedly stated promise: “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it.”
But estimates are that about six million policies were canceled as the new law started applying its requirements and consumers’ old policies no longer were “compliant” with Obamacare, that is, they didn’t include some demand of the new law, such as coverage for abortifacients.
The policies were canceled, and consumers were told they were required to find new insurance.”
“When Gardner asked the insurance executives the reason for the previous and coming cancellations – he asked whether it “was because of Obamacare or because of you” – they said without hesitation it was because of the requirements of Obamacare.
“The law required us to send those cancellations,” one executive said.
Asked specifically about Obama’s promise that consumers could keep their plans if they liked them,” an executive said, “That was not true for 100 percent of our customers.””
“RUSH: Yeah. Well, wait ’til you get to the non-retired employees. They’re gonna get hit with this, too. That’s what’s kind of disingenuous. Look, I don’t want to get the Kaiser people mad at me. There’s nothing to be gained by that. But, for crying out loud, here! They’ve known about this.
They’ve got this big news story from yesterday warning people (scoffs) that this is going to happen, and they’re saying that there may be something they can do to help this situation. But, I mean, for crying out loud! Everybody who supported Obamacare has got to accept a share of responsibility for this.
Everybody who supported this, everybody who knew what was in it and didn’t tell anybody this was in it, is responsible. Two years ago! Go back to RushLimbaugh.com. You can read transcripts of it being discussed on this program. Again, I want to make the point: It was supposed to have been implemented in January of this year, 2014.
Right now, all these cancellations you’ve heard about? Those are just the self-insured. Those are not people that get their health insurance at work. You’ve heard enough horror stories from those people, what the replacement costs are, what the premiums and the deductibles are — doubled and tripled — and what’s happening to the copays.
All along we reminded people, “Wait, those of you who are covered at work? This doesn’t affect you yet. Your time is coming.” It was supposed to have arrived with January. But the Regime delayed it. Can you imagine, just in this guy’s example, if hundreds of thousands of people in January had been off-loaded to HealthCare.gov with the mess that was?
Can you imagine? We wouldn’t just be talking about a wave Republican victory; we would be talking about the funeral of the Democrat Party, and the Regime knew this. That’s why this has been delayed until after the election, and there are couple of other elements of Obamacare that have moved back beyond 2016 and the presidential race.
AT&T, all along, has been saying that Obamacare was gonna cost them over $1 billion a year, and this is how they are going to get out of that, in part. So the Kaiser report here is a warning story. “Ah, ah! Heads up! Warning! Guess what? Your employer is even now thinking about doing this.” Well, of course your employer is! ”
Obama economy devastates black employment, Black unemployment rate 11.6 percent, 1.7 million more not in labor force, Employment to population ratio plummets 5.6 percent since Democrats took congress
“The share of families with an employed member was unchanged at 80.0 percent in 2013. The likelihood of having an employed family member rose in 2013 for Asian families (to 88.8 percent) and for Hispanic families (to 85.1 percent). The likelihood for white and black families showed little or no change (80.1 percent and 75.7 percent, respectively).”…BLS report, April 25, 2014
“This commentary does not oppose CHD funding of genuine, grassroots community organizations, run and supported by individual members of a parish or diocese. There is potential value and virtue in the collective voice. However, when the CHD funds Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations as in the best interest of the poor and supports organizations which advance other agendas, it divests the poor of their right to an authentic voice. This process tends to treat the poor as exploited units of human capital, rather than as human beings created in the dignity of God’s image.”…Catholic Bishops Report
“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”…Jesus, John 8:32
Obama hope and change decimates blacks.
Two of the demographic groups who were the biggest supporters of Obama have taken the hardest hits in employment. Blacks and the young.
Democrats and the left continue to use blacks and the poor as “exploited units of human capital, rather than as human beings .”
When will the black community in the US wake up, boot the demogogues out and embrace candidates of all ethnic and political backgrounds?
Soon I hope.
“The truth shall set you free.”
Here are some numbers, straight from the US Labor Dept. BLS.
They are from January 2007 when the Democrats took control of both houses of congress, January 2009 when Obama took the White House and April 2014.
______________________Jan 2007______Jan 2009______April 2014
Participation Rate____________64.6__________63.2__________60.9
Employment to Population______59.4__________55.2__________53.8
Unemployment Rate____________7.9__________12.7__________11.6
Not in labor force___________9,666,000___10,312,000____12,035,000
April unemployment rate, US Labor Dept., May 2, 2014, Labor force participation plummets and jobless rates still high, Part time jobs, Financial markets react to false data
“11.4%: What the U.S. unemployment rate would be if labor force participation were back to January 2008 levels.” …James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, June 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
“According to shocking new numbers that were just released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of American families do not have a single person that is working. So when someone tries to tell you that the unemployment rate in the United States is about 7 percent, you should just laugh. One-fifth of the families in the entire country do not have a single member with a job. That is absolutely astonishing. How can a family survive if nobody is making any money? Well, the answer to that question is actually quite easy. There is a reason why government dependence has reached epidemic levels in the United States. Without enough jobs, tens of millions of additional Americans have been forced to reach out to the government for help. At this point, if you can believe it, the number of Americans getting money or benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.”…Zero Hedge April 29, 2014
*** Update 9:00 AM ***
Here we go again folks. SOS, just another day.
The unemployment rate dropped .4 percent to 6.3 as did the labor force participation rate drop .4 percent to 62.8 percent.
The labor force dropped by 806,000.
*** Update 9:15AM ***
The BLS is showing a seasonally adjusted drop in labor force of 988,000.
***
The US Labor Dept. will report on the April unemployment rate this morning.
Those of us paying attention, with at least minimal math skills, understand that the stated unemployment rate has become a joke.
Yet, for years, the financial markets and market reporters have taken the drop in the unemployment rate as good news.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
To sum up the reality of the situation, record numbers have dropped out of the labor force, not because they intended to retire, but because jobs were not available, and many who did get or retain jobs found themselves working one or more part time jobs.
More part time instead of full time jobs is a direct consequence of Obamacare and the Obama economy.
When you read the US Labor Dept report and see the latest unemployment rate, consider the following facts.
Remember, the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in January 2007. This is rarely reported.
………………………..January 2007……January 2009…….March 2014
Not in labor force………..77,506,000……..80,529,000………91,030,000
Could only find part time….. 1,186,000……..1,671,000……….2,697,000
Participation Rate………………66.4………….65.7……………63.2
Unemployment Rate………………..4.6…………..7.8…………….6.7
See any problems there?
Remember also that part time jobs are counted the same as full time.
There are 10,501,000 more people not in the labor force now than when Obama took office in January 2009.
The stated unemployment rate has dropped 1.1 percent.
The labor force participation rate has dropped 2.5 percent.
There are 1,026,000 more people who could only find part time work now than when Obama took office.
We just discovered that 20 percent of American families have no one employed.
April job cuts rise 17 percent to 40298, Challenger Gray & Christmas report, Unemployment claims rose 14000, Labor force participation rate record lows, Record food stamp usage
“11.4%: What the U.S. unemployment rate would be if labor force participation were back to January 2008 levels.” …James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, June 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
“According to shocking new numbers that were just released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of American families do not have a single person that is working. So when someone tries to tell you that the unemployment rate in the United States is about 7 percent, you should just laugh. One-fifth of the families in the entire country do not have a single member with a job. That is absolutely astonishing. How can a family survive if nobody is making any money? Well, the answer to that question is actually quite easy. There is a reason why government dependence has reached epidemic levels in the United States. Without enough jobs, tens of millions of additional Americans have been forced to reach out to the government for help. At this point, if you can believe it, the number of Americans getting money or benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.”…Zero Hedge April 29, 2014
You just read that 20 percent of American Families have no one employed.
We have record food stamp usage.
We have record lows of labor force participation.
You will read below that the planned job cuts compare favorably to 1997 levels.
But that is comparing apples and oranges.
Why?
The Labor force participation rate in 1997 was 67 percent.
It is 63.2 percent now.
More people have dropped out of the labor making the current jobs cuts more significant.
The labor force participation rate has plummeted since the Democrats took control of congress in January 2007 and Obama took the White House in January 2009.
From Challenger Gray & Christmas April 30, 2014.
“Job cut announcements by U.S.-based firms were up 17 percent in April, as employers in retail and financial services continued to shed workers in a challenging business environment.
Employers announced plans to shed 40,298 workers from their payrolls in April, according to the monthly report released Thursday by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. That was up from 34,399 in March and 6.0 percent higher than the 38,121 job cuts recorded in the same month a year ago.
So far in 2014, Challenger has tracked 161,639 announced job cuts, 12 percent fewer than the 183,162 planned layoffs in the first four months of 2013.
“Despite the April increase, the pace of downsizing remains relatively low. We just saw the lowest first-quarter total in 19 years and the year-to-date monthly average of 40,410 is the lowest since 1997,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.”
“In the week ending April 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 344,000, an increase of 14,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 329,000 to 330,000. The 4-week moving average was 320,000, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 250 from 316,750 to 317,000.”
20 percent of American families everyone unemployed, Record food stamp usage, Record labor force participation rate, Zero Hedge interprets BLS orwellian wording, 49 million dealing with food insecurity
“11.4%: What the U.S. unemployment rate would be if labor force participation were back to January 2008 levels.” …James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, June 2013
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″
Citizen Wells has extensively covered the true employment and labor force situation in this country.
Zero Hedge has interptreted the latest BLS report on family employment.
Hats off to them.
From Zero Hedge April 29, 2014.
“The Real Unemployment Rate: In 20% Of American Families, Everyone Is Unemployed”
“According to shocking new numbers that were just released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of American families do not have a single person that is working. So when someone tries to tell you that the unemployment rate in the United States is about 7 percent, you should just laugh. One-fifth of the families in the entire country do not have a single member with a job. That is absolutely astonishing. How can a family survive if nobody is making any money? Well, the answer to that question is actually quite easy. There is a reason why government dependence has reached epidemic levels in the United States. Without enough jobs, tens of millions of additional Americans have been forced to reach out to the government for help. At this point, if you can believe it, the number of Americans getting money or benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.
When I was growing up, it seemed like anyone that was willing to work hard could find a good paying job. But now that has all changed. At this point, 20 percent of all the families in the entire country do not have a single member that has a job. That includes fathers, mothers and children. The following is how CNSNews.com broke down the numbers…
A family, as defined by the BLS, is a group of two or more people who live together and who are related by birth, adoption or marriage. In 2013, there were 80,445,000 families in the United States and in 16,127,000—or 20 percent–no one had a job.
To be honest, these really are Great Depression-type numbers. But over the years “unemployment” has been redefined so many times that it doesn’t mean the same thing that it once did. The government tells us that the official unemployment rate is about 7 percent, but that number is almost meaningless at this point.
A number that I find much more useful is the employment-population ratio. According to the employment-population ratio, the percentage of working age Americans that actually have a job has been below 59 percent for more than four years in a row…”
“And what is even more frightening is that more families are falling out of the middle class every single day. As a recent CNN article explained, approximately one-third of all U.S. households are living “hand-to-mouth”. In other words, they are constantly living on the edge of financial disaster…
About one-third of American households live “hand-to-mouth,” meaning that they spend all their paychecks. But what surprised the study authors is that 66% of these families are middle class, with a median income of $41,000. While they don’t have liquid assets, such as savings accounts or mutual fund holdings, they do have homes and retirement accounts, with a median net worth of $41,000.
“We don’t expect them to be living paycheck to paycheck,” said Greg Kaplan, study co-author and assistant professor of economics at Princeton University.
The American Dream is rapidly becoming an American nightmare.”
“The share of families with an employed member was unchanged at 80.0 percent in 2013. The likelihood of having an employed family member rose in 2013 for Asian families (to 88.8 percent) and for Hispanic families (to 85.1 percent). The likelihood for white and black families showed little or no change (80.1 percent and 75.7 percent, respectively).”
Citizen WElls 