The Real Job Numbers

Getting tired of the propaganda bull crap coming out of the White House about the “jobs saved?” Tired of garbage being feed to the ignorant masses gobbling it up like the press corps as if it was something more than hot air? Well this blog is for you.
The first one is a look at the productive sector of the economy or “total non-farm payrolls.” Currently it shows the Obama Administration has lost 3,961,000 private sector productive jobs since January of 2009. The numbers bottomed out at 129,588 (thousands) in December of 2009 and increased to 130,595 as of May 2010, a modest increase of 1.9% annually, but have resumed a downward decline to 130,470 indicating the strong possibility of a “double dip” recession in the future.

Civilian Participation Rate at a 26 year low of 64.7%

A double dip recession would be most likely when that capital gains tax returns to 20% and all capital sales are exhausted at the old rate of 15% at the end of 2010. In other words corporations and companies are artificially inflating GDP numbers in 2010 at the expense of GDP numbers in 2011. Much like the cash for clunkers and real estate tax credit artificially inflated sales numbers for a short periods of time so to is the looming capital gains tax hike scheduled to go up to 20% just a few short months from now. Everybody including Democrats knows this which is why you see the sudden activity by some to extend the Bush tax cuts from the few remaining rational congressmen and women.
The second bull crap eliminator that you need to look at is the “civilian participation rate” in the labor market. This closely follows true economic activity and is pretty self explanatory. As the private sector economy heats up more people find it lucrative to find a job and participate in the economy. This number peaked at 66.4% in January of 2007 and was 65.7% in January of 2009. Recently it has hit a 26 year low at 64.4%. Anyone reading about the press reporting this statistic? Just a 1.8% drop represents 5.5 million people no longer participating in the labor force. 5.5 million people out of work who in 2007 were employed. That’s a staggering number few people realize or can relate to.
The next one is the one the White House likes to point to as “we are reducing the jobs losses because of our economic programs. Job losses were xyz and now they are abc” spiel using the “4-Week Moving Average of Initial Claims (IC4WSA), Number, Weekly, Seasonally Adjusted.” What they hope is that you are dumb enough and misinformed enough to not look at statistics one and two above or the fact that during a strong economy the number should be around 250,000.
The White House trumpets reports of “only” 454,000 job losses celebrating because it’s below the peak of 643,000 in April of 2009. This is an incredibly delusional way of looking at economic growth and policy. I guess if one were a progressive and shrinking the economy to 50% civilian participation rate was the short term goal, eventually as more and more unemployed were not counted as economic participants the unemployment rate could be reduced to 5% and weekly jobless claims reduced to 200,000 as the economic sector shrunk. Millions would be out of work and discouraged but not counted in the official statistics. The Obama Administration would be touting “only 200,000 initial unemployment claims for the week of February 13, 2013, unemployment plunges to 5%!” Something out of George Orwell. Something that fits in with the goals of Obama and his communist friends.
There are other measurements, 67 at least listed but the total non-farm payrolls and civilian participation rate give a good snapshot of productive employment and total participants in the economy. This allows a more accurate look at the employment picture.