Jobless rate drops without, recovery in employment

Subject: Re: Jobless rate drops without, recovery in employment


That old adage, Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure, certainly
applies here. Over the years I have seen our government manipulate numbers,
or even change the basic rules for gathering statistics.
My measuring stick is to watch what is going on around me. Are there more
street people? Are more small business' closing their doors? Are the
Charities announcing serious shortages of food and shelter for the needy?
Are there longer lines of workers applying for the few job openings in town?
Are my neighbors and my own family cutting back on basics due to rising
costs?
All of my indicators tell me that the government can't be trusted to give us
a straight look at our economy.

Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Loran Bailey" <rogerbailey81@aol.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2014 5:13 PM
Subject: Jobless rate drops without, recovery in employment


http://www.themilitant.com/2014/7803/780301.html
The Militant (logo)

Vol. 78/No. 3 January 27, 2014

(lead article)
Jobless rate drops without
recovery in employment



Because unemployment rate doesn't count jobless workers Labor Department
says have given up, rate has declined over last four years, despite lack
of any real recovery. At same time figures mask jobs crisis, they also
point to real trend: over time discouraged workers do drop out of
workforce, which begins to shrink.

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Although the Labor Department reported a decline in the unemployment
rate in December, actual joblessness remains at the same high level it
has been for the past four-and-a-half years of the so-called recovery
from the 2007-2009 recession.
Official unemployment figures dropped to 6.7 percent last month from 7
percent in November. This was the result of nothing other than the way
government statisticians handle joblessness by not counting those whom
they consider have given up looking for work. The number of
"discouraged" workers has risen by nearly 2 million over the past year.
As this category grows, the unemployment rate is pushed down.

The government also reported that only 74,000 new jobs were created in
December, the lowest figure in three years. There are still more than 1
million fewer jobs since the onset of the recession at the end of 2007,
according to the Wall Street Journal. And if population growth is taken
into account, there are 7.8 million fewer jobs available.

"The saving grace may be that winter weather is responsible for some of
the sharp decline," stated a Jan. 11 Journal editorial, seeking to cast
these figures in the best light.

But the weather, besides resulting in a decline in construction jobs,
doesn't have much to do with the years of stagnant employment facing
working people. Bosses are not expanding investment in production and
hiring workers because under current conditions it would be less
profitable for them to do so. At the heart of the problem is a long-term
tendency toward declining rates of industrial profit, which has led to a
slowdown in capitalist production and trade on a world scale.

The percentage of the population with a job in December was 58.6 percent
— around the same level it has hovered at since it sharply declined from
63 percent in 2007.

As of December nearly 92 million adults are not counted in the labor
force, a figure that has risen by 11.2 million over the past five years.

Long-term unemployment remains at record-high levels. Nearly 38 percent
of those receiving unemployment benefits have been out of work for more
than six months. Each week that Congress debates whether to provide
federal jobless benefits, another 72,000 workers will see their benefits
end as state compensation expires. This is in addition to the 1.3
million jobless workers who stopped getting federal benefits Jan. 1.

Under these conditions, bosses have been driving against wages and
working conditions. With a 2-cent hourly increase in workers' paychecks
in December, wages rose just 1.8 percent for the year, a decline in real
wages given rising energy and food prices. During the recession, median
household income declined by $1,006, according to Sentier Research.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, it has dropped by another $2,535.


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