Jobs numbers are tricky things. Politicians will always tell you what you want to hear and leave out what they don’t want you to hear. So it is no surprise that we are getting the same old song and dance, that "the economy created private sector jobs again." That’s a nice thing to hear, but is it an improvement or are we still arranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
Deck chair anyone?
Unemployment is still at 9.6 percent and despite claims of job growth for ten months, unemployment has been at or above 9.6% for 20 months.
The numbers do not add up.
We have 14.8 million people unemployed according to the Bureau of Labor(ing) Statistics. Forty-two percent of the unemployed have been jobless for more than 27 weeks.
The number of people underemployed dropped by 318,000 but the number of people marginally attached to the work force (not counted in the unemployment number) rose from 2.4 to 2.6 million. Is it safe to suggest where most of those 318,000 underemployed workers ended up?
The number of people who stopped looking (discouraged workers) is up 411,000 from October of 2009 with the total rising from 1.2 to 1.4 million.
These are not the numbers you find when you have a pro-growth economic environment. They are the product of stagnation with slow bleeding. They are entirely responsible for the historical shift in power in the US congress. And until such time as the uncertainty of tax increases, the threat of inflation, the anchor of massive debt and the over regulation and cost increasing and job killing power of ObamaCare are releived, this will continue.
Progressive policy is entirely to blame for the current stasis in the job market, two years of destruction that could take a decade to undo.
