The new unemployment numbers have been released and the White House must be somewhat happy. The joblessness rate is down to 8.2 percent, which means the number that gets the most publicity continues to move in the right direction.
I’ve been predicting that Obama will win reelection if the unemployment rate falls to 8.0 percent or below, so my prognostication ability will be put to the test if this trend continues.
But let’s set aside the politics and take a dispassionate look at the U.S. job market. How are we doing?
Well, total employment is estimated to be a bit above 142 million.
The good news is that we have about 4.1 million more jobs than we had in December of 2009.
The bad news is that we still have fewer jobs than when Obama took office, and about 4.5 million fewer jobs than we had in November 2007.
Last September, I put together four charts to assess Obama’s performance on jobs.
Let’s update those charts to get a more complete look at the labor market.
First, let’s begin by comparing where we are now to where the White House said we would be if Congress enacted the President’s so-called stimulus. As you can see, the actual joblessness rate is about 2-percentage points higher. That’s not a good performance.
If Republicans want to highlight a number that favors them, they could point out that the unemployment rate began to fall once they took control of the House. It was near its peak, at 9.8 percent, in November of 2010, and now it’s dropped by more than 1.5 percentage points.
Of course, they really shouldn’t brag since a lot of the bad news is a lingering consequence of the statist policies of the Bush Administration.
Nonetheless, I think the economy has reacted positively to the 2010 elections since gridlock makes it harder for politicians of either party to impose new burdens.
Let’s look at another chart that was in my September post. As you can see, the unemployment rate for African Americans is especially dismal.
I’ve already made the point that Obama’s policies are bad news for Black Americans, particularly policies such as higher minimum wage requirements that cut off the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.
Another bit of bad news can be found in the data on long-term unemployment. This chart shows the share of the unemployed that have been without a job for at least six months. Very damning.
Part of the problem, as even Democrat economists have admitted, is that Obama’s policy of extended unemployment insurance benefits has been subsidizing joblessness.
Last but not least, we have the chart that should be the most troubling of all. It shows a sustained drop in the labor force.
Economic growth and output are the result of labor and capital being mixed together by entrepreneurs and investors. If there is a permanent reduction in the availability of one of the ingredients, that obviously doesn’t bode well for American prosperity.
And this is why Obama deserves a poor grade. Not because his policies caused the weak job market. Those problems existed before he took office. Instead, he gets a bad grade because he continued the statist policies of his predecessor.
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[…] that the so-called stimulus became a festering pile of manure. About three years have passed, and the joblessness rate hasn’t dropped below 8 percent. But the White House has been sprinkling perfume on that pile of you-know-what and claiming that […]
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[…] What about jobs? A miserable failure. […]
[…] that the so-called stimulus became a festering pile of manure. About three years have passed, and the joblessness rate hasn’t dropped below 8 percent. But the White House has been sprinkling perfume on that pile of you-know-what and claiming that […]
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[…] the so-called stimulus became a festering pile of manure. About three years have passed, and the joblessness rate hasn’t dropped below 8 percent. But the White House has beensprinkling perfume on that pile of you-know-what and claiming that the […]
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Reblogged this on Talon's Point and commented:
ZeroHedge has possibly the best stat for braking down unemployment and participation rates. Here’s an example http://www.zerohedge.com/news/implied-unemployment-rate-rises-115-spread-propaganda-number-surges-30-year-high
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“Fewer people in the labor force”
And imagine, you havent’ seen anything yet. Wait until the “make sure you make less than 80-90k a year and someone else will pay your health insurance” ObamaCare subsidies kick in.
Of course, soon that “someone else” will be you, the middle class. Just remember that even in Europe — where both politicians and citizens have been much better versed in pitchforks economics since long ago –“the people” have not been able to extract more money from “the rich”. Thus marginal tax rates for the rich in Europe are about the same as they are in the US, if one accounts for federal, state and local taxes. Even Europeans have hit upon the long term Laffer curve at high incomes, even if empirically so. The main difference in Europe is when it comes to the middle class, where the middle class is also heavily taxed, and that is why Europe collects a much larger percentage of GDP from taxation. It does so by taxing the middle class (VAT is a major component in that), unlike America, where about half the people pay no income tax.
Thus the current “soak the rich” environment is the natural preamble for the eventual real soaking. The soaking of the middle class. The only source from where American politicians can realistically extract more money. But few American naives have seen the European movie, so the lemmings keep marching on…
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
It isn’t just that Obama continued Bush’s policies, but that he also accelerated the Statist curve exponentially.