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US Economy Added 178,000 Jobs in November; Unemployment Rate Drops To 4.6 Percent (washingtonpost.com)
The U.S. economy added 178,000 jobs in November, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent from 4.9 percent the previous month, according to new government data released (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source) Friday morning. From a report on the Washington Post: Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected U.S. employers to create 180,000 new jobs last month -- roughly in line with the average number added in the first 11 months of the year. The first release after a contentious election in which the candidates disputed the health and direction of the economy, the data showed a job market that is continuing to steadily strengthen from the recession. The unemployment rate fell to levels not seen since August 2007, before a bubble in the U.S. housing market began to burst. The fall was driven partly by the creation of new jobs, and partly by people retiring and otherwise leaving the labor force. The labor force participation rate ticked down to 62.7 percent. Average hourly earnings declined by 3 cents to $25.89. The decrease pared back large gains seen in October, but over the year average hourly earnings are still up 2.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
That can't be right, my parents said we've lost millions of jobs under Obama. Surely I should listen to them and not facts, right?
Didn't take long, now he's been mentioned.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
the GOP saved us from the Anti-Christ Obama, who was sure to appoint himself President-for-Life, and who, unchecked, would have stripped religion, freedom, free enterprise, free speech, free beer, whiteness, and fast food from our great land. Obviously this good news has to do with our optimism about President Trump, who has vowed to preserve our most sacred traditions and Make America Great Again, Like It Used To Be, Before Obama Took All The Jobs, you know?
is finally over.
Dear America,
Brace yourself, this might be the last story before "Despite Trump" begins to be added to every positive story by the bitter left wing.
Sincerely,
The UK, despite Brexit.
The unemployment rate fell to levels not seen since August 2007, before a bubble in the U.S. housing market began to burst. The fall was driven partly by the creation of new jobs, and partly by people retiring and otherwise leaving the labor force. The labor force participation rate ticked down to 62.7 percent.
So uh, inflation is still a thing (at a fairly steady rate) and retirement plans have imploded and people have less savings than ever, so they should be having to work longer, right? Unless those people are actually dropping dead, a reduction in the labor force participation rate at this time equals an increase in the actual unemployment rate, as defined by the number of people seeking employment. People who are partially employed and either going farther into debt or neglecting their health because they can't afford deductibles and/or time off (or both) are not only a growing segment of the population but also not represented in the unemployment rate.
Last I checked, a million new jobs hadn't made any improvement in the number of people seeking work. This is really the only relevant statistic of this bunch, and it's not presented here. Hmmmmmm.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
These are not the hallmarks of a thriving economy. The US economy is in a sickly state, with too many part time jobs with no benefits. We need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. The fact that the numbers look like an improvement is a bit like a doctor telling a patient wife that he's not sick any more. He's dead. The US needs to get healthy before it dies.
Let's not forget my favorite: "Three or more years in each of the last three positions."
A recruiter contacted me for a desktop support job at a law firm in 2014. My resume was one of 20 that got submitted. The hiring manager rejected all of them for "lacking tenure," as none had the required three or more years in each of the last three positions. The recruiter was stunned and explained to the hiring manager that everyone worked short-term contracts after the Great Recession. I've worked 20+ different contracts in the three years after I was out of work for two years (2009-10), underemployed for six months (working 20 hours per month), and filed for chapter seven bankruptcy in 2011. AFAIK, the law firm never filled that position.
People who stop looking are in UE4, which includes discouraged workers. U4 is 5.0.
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Well, Labor Participation Rate vs Unemployment is not just about people who stopped looking for a job, it is also about people who don't need a job, so it is not a particularly better metric.
Unemployment rate has always been "underreporting" by a margin that is open to debate. If this margin is relatively stable throughout the years, then unemployment rate is a good *comparative* tool. Do you have any sources that say that the current unemployment rate is more severely underreporting unemployment and thus not comparable to historic rates? If yes, then you have a point, otherwise.. no.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
When Bush was president 200,000 new jobs was considered anemic as it didn't cover the rise in working age adults.
Now, with a greater population 187k is considered great. A sign that the economy is truly booming.
Wait a year, when Trump is president, and anything under 200,000k will be considered anemic again.
Remember we've always been at war with Eastasia.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I notice you produce not even a link to your 'strong evidence'. Apparently you don't think it is all that strong?
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I wonder what this''ll do for Trump's expectations. We have a bit of a paradox at the moment - he gets away with the a lot of stuff we would never let any other person say, and we accept his lack of policy, on the basis that he's inexperienced, or not a normal politician. However, at the very same time, people seem to have rather unreal standards for him - not only is he supposed to be everything that a normal president is supposed to be, classy and in tune with what's happening, but he's supposed to exceed on every metric - bring outstanding improvements to the economy, make the United States a world power (without diplomacy), and construct vast infrastructure improvements while curb stomping taxes for everyone. I honestly wonder what'll happen with his supporters when these two collide - many of them do seem to genuinely expect him to pull this off, and if he fails, they don't have anybody else to blame. 2020 might be a rather interesting election year...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Freaking Obama hoarding the jobs until the end just so he can make the GOP look bad. SEE SEE!!!!! His Alien brain control device from Area 51 is unfair!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"What about all of those people who have been out of work for over a year, and stopped looking?"
A bunch of them are retired, or decided to be homemakers?
Also, there's a limit to how much you can say "the job market is bad" because some people have stopped looking for work. Even just talking about those who stopped looking for work because the economy is bad, the job market could improve, and if they're still not looking for work, they're still not going to find a job.
As usual, the number doesn't count the 'statistically employed' - people who've been out of work for long and have given up looking for work as a result
As it never has. So you're interested in comparing apples to oranges now?
"They don't exist. Shut up."
There is more than one measure of "unemployment". The number printed in the headlines is U3. The people you are talking about are counted in U6. Here's a graph.
If it is a liberal shithole, why do so many Libertarians and Conservatives frequent it, and make so much noise?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
[...goes on to provide anecdotes.]
You are welcome on my lawn.
The labor force participation rate ticked down to 62.7 percent.
Come on man, it's right in the summary. But "statistically employed" isn't the term you are looking for, you are thinking of "Labor Underutilization"
If you don't care to actually google something, read this, it seems like a pretty reasonable explanation of what that number means and gives a whole bunch of other numbers and trends that are actually a more useful gauge of unemployment. link I have no idea if the source is reputable, but the charts are sourced from CBO numbers, so I assume it's accurate.
Well, if you want data, according the social security adminsitration the average wage has gone up by about $8000 since 2010; however the median wage has gone up by something more like $3000.
This pretty much tells you what you'd expect under trade liberalization: it helps higher wage workers with specialized skills more than it does commodity labor.
The key to understanding data like this, as a sociology professor once told me, is to disaggregate it. If you do you'll see that while the averages and even median that looks fairly rosy over the last thirty years, the picture for median and below has been almost flat for a generation.
That doesn't sound too bad. Sure the wealthy and the well-to-do are getting richer, but nobody (at least no economic slice -- geography tells a different story) is doing worse. But even that result has to be disaggregated. On one hand you have only a modest increase in the overall cost of consumer goods (thanks free trade!); this modest increase along with modest compensation increases produces no growth or loss of purchasing power below median income.
On the other hand if you break out just health incurance, medical care and college tuition, median purchasing power has collapsed in the last thirty years or so.
What this means is that median income people can buy a lot more TVs and home entertainment crap than they could in the 70s, but as that stuff has become cheaper paths to upward mobility have been closing and paths to downward mobility have been opening.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You mean like how he gave Carrier $7M in tax breaks and now they're building a factory for the 1300 jobs they shipped south of the border?
That kind of great?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Gee, jobs/salaries/cost of living has NEVER been discussed on here before.
But, yes, Obama cut unemployment in half, while the working population increased by 20 million people.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I can speak to any story on AGW, where every pseudo-skeptic poster shows up en masse to attack climatologists, so yes, the Libertarians and Conservatives here are a significant fraction of the posters. Perhaps the next time a story like that comes out, I'll do a hand count after a day or so and we'll see if this is indeed a "liberal shithole", or as I suspect, a pretty evenly divided shithole.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Good point; but I didn't know that Walmart needed that many greeters with optional engineering backgrounds for the War on Christmas Season.
Yeah, because I'm absolutely positive that the companies who reject you for being useless are also in the habit of keeping you in the loop on their hiring activity.
I get contacted by 20+ recruiters per day. That particular position pops up every six months. Probably because I work around the corner from that particular law firm.
"Hey creimer, I know we rejected you because you're an unemployable, lazy sack of shit, but we thought you'd want to know that we filled that position, so you don't have to sit up nights worrying about how we're faring."
When I got my security clearance for my current government IT job, the two-hour investigative background interview lasted four hours. I had to list every contract job that I've worked in the previous seven years. It was considered odd that I've worked two or three jobs for seven days a week for three years after being unemployed for two years, underemployed for six months, and filing for chapter seven bankruptcy. Most people on average only work one job at a time.
Seriously, do you even believe your own bullshit? It stinks from miles away.
From where I sit, I smell nothing but roses.
What about the 1300 souls that are now looking for work? Hay you guys, how's that Trumpiness working for you?
http://portalseven.com/employm...
What is U6 unemployment rate ?
The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts "marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons." Note that some of these part-time workers counted as employed by U-3 could be working as little as an hour a week. And the "marginally attached workers" include those who have gotten discouraged and stopped looking, but still want to work. The age considered for this calculation is 16 years and over
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
That's sometime immediately after January 20th.
But the reality is total number of workers no longer in the work force, which is 95,055,000. Really, 50% unemployment?But the reality is total number of workers no longer in the work force, which is 95,055,000. Really, 50% unemployment?
Give me a fucking break. How many of those are retired or disabled or voluntarily not working (taking care of the kids, etc)?
Well, I have no great love for CNN, but I liked the look of this article. Let's see, there's a Forbes link on millenial underemployment, let's skip that one just in case. Hmm, there's an article on Monster with... no date? hmm, can't cite that. Here's one from time which says 46% of Americans Say They Are Underemployed, that's a fun idea. The federal reserve's estimate is "fairly close to the trend derived from CPS data, but at a much higher level".
IOW, the direction of trend is accurate, but the numbers are bullshit. Like always
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The US baby boom occurred between 1946 and 1964.
Add 18-25 years, and a baby boom becomes a 'employee boom'.
Add 60-65 years, and a baby boom becomes a 'retiree boom'.
The workforce participation graph is just a chart of the lifecycle of 'baby boomers'. It really has fuck all to do with who's siting in the oval office.
Furthermore, it's a good sign for the economy that labor participation is falling. It means that 'boomers' are choosing to retire and leave jobs for younger workers to fill, as demonstrated by the falling U3 unemployment rate. The downside is that those retirees are putting more burden on the Social Security and Medicare programs, but we've known that would happen for the past fifty years.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
That's true. It's actually a 2,600 job net change. -1300 for US, +1300 for Mexico. +$7m for carrier in tax breaks, -$2m for Carrier to build factory in MX.
USA! USA! USA!
Lock her up! Wait, what?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
On, come on, let's get a serious economics discussion started.
Labor Underutilization.
Opportunity costs.
The difference between more people working and fewer people working.
The impact of government assistance v. government subsidies.
Bring it on! Since I read The Wealth of Nations I've been spoiling to be schooled on modern economics and why Truman disdained them so. We are often disappointed when we learn how things actually work.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Better than my saving $2500 a year on health insurance that instead doubled and made my deductible $6000.
We always used to support 50% of the adult population who used to work at home and not be counted (housewives). Now we are only supporting 33% of the adult population. . On the other hand a lot of the caregiving which was given at home earlier is now given via take out food, day care, laundry and cleaning services. Now that these are provided by 3rd parties they count in employment whereas earlier these were invisible so they may make up a part of the 16% rise in labor participation.
Of course the supported/caregiving population now contains both housewives and househusbands but in general salaries have gone down so that it requires 2 salaries to live while earlier one was enough and children have to make do with daycare instead of a dedicated caregiver.
I dont believe its a good thing. While I support women having careers salaries shoud be high enough to raise a family so that both parents dont have to work - one either the mother or the father should be able to stay at home.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Isn't the number of people who are not working a more important number? Last I looked that number was up to 95 million people.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
The unemployment rate is just a distraction.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
"But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes."
We have been living in an Idiocracy for a while now. People live in a fantasy world. Preach false numbers and treat it like the gospel.
How is it possible to have record low unemployment and record low labor participation? (Hint: it's not possible)
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Wait, those jobs were all scheduled for Mexico. Trump negotiated about half to stay in the US. What's the problem here? 1,000 jobs times about $40,000 each employees salary is $40 million dollars that the company is spending on payroll that will be added to the economy (because those with jobs will spend that money). It "cost" the government of Indiana $7 million to keep $40 million of salary in their state. What's the problem with that? Would it be better to send all the jobs to Mexico and the state gets $0? In fact the state would get negative dollars since those people would lose their jobs and end up on welfare/unemployment/underemployment. I think its a win-win. Trump gets his credit, those 1,000 people keep their job, and the economy does have to absorb 2600 lost jobs and wages. If you ask those 1,000 people who keep their job, I bet that all say its a win. Not one of them would say "fuck it i'd rather Clinton in the WH and no job". Have to give credit where credit is due. You don't have to like Trump but you have to see this as a win. Its not a perfect arrangement, but the other option is what? ALL the jobs moved to Mexico. That's not a win.
Actually, only 800 jobs are staying.
And if Hillary did the *exact* same deal, she would have been ripped for weeks on tax breaks and 1300 jobs going to Mexico.
But Trump, who apparently likes government to pick winners (while complaining when Obama did same), crows about it all day long.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Isn't the number of people who are not working a more important number?
No. Because there are some people who are not "working" and do not want a job. The retired, independently wealthy, people caring for their children or elderly family members, etc.
When the BLS runs their survey for "unemployment", they produce several different statistics. The one that gets printed in headlines is called U3.
People who would work if they could find a job, or are working fewer hours than they would like, are included in U6. Here's U6.
You are talking about the employment/population ratio. A high employment/population ratio is not necessarily a "good" economy, and a low one is not necessarily a "bad" economy. Here's the employment/population ratio. You'll note that during the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the employment/population ratio was lower than it is today.
If you're looking for reputable statistics on economics, FRED has fantastic data and a very nice graphing system. Here's the employment/population ratio, for example.
...is lower now than at any time since Jimmy Carter was President.
"Unemployment is low!"
"What about all of those people who have been out of work for over a year, and stopped looking?"
"They don't exist. Shut up."
Don't worry - on January 21st 2017 the media is suddenly going to be interested in the facts surrounding the employment numbers. You can bet they'll be inexplicably bad next year compared to the last 8 years.
Do you have ESP?
I can speak to any story on AGW, where every pseudo-skeptic poster shows up en masse to attack climatologists, so yes, the Libertarians and Conservatives here are a significant fraction of the posters.
I'm pretty sure half the problems are:
* so many of the people on slashdot are STEM educated, and realize correlation is not causation, which damages the narrative
* the people speaking in favor of GW tend not to be accredited climatologists with PhDs
* the people speaking in favor of GW portray it as having solely AGW origins, rather than humans as a contributing factor
* presuming (as I do) that GW is real, but not solely attributable to AGW, no one is willing to give a percentage breakdown on cause
It doesn't help that there is a strong following of conspiracy theories on slashdot, and the disclosure of the emails talking about investigators specifically squelching debate reeks of conspiracy.
It doesn't help that the GW == (AGW & GW) proponents tend to be rabidly antinuclear, and can't solve some of the basic technical problems -- most of which, BTW, could be resolved by placing the panels in orbit, rather than on rooftops.
It doesn't help that a lot of us think "So what? We'll just science the shit out of it".
You don't really have to be a libertarian or a conservative or a "pseudo-skeptic" (whatever the hell that is) to jump down the throat of an AGW proponent who's not an accredited climatologist. In fact, in this forum, it's kind of considered your civic duty, like serving on a jury, or going out to vote.
and Carter's time is just completely by coincidence about the time the baby boomers began entering the workforce in large numbers...right?
and now, 40-50 years later, they're all retiring.
but its all Obama's fault! right?
you're an idiot.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
During Obama's term, 20 million more people have been added to the labor force.
And U6, which includes those who are 'no longer considered' has gone down a lot under Obama as well.
It's not that hard to look up..
http://portalseven.com/employm...
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I know a woman who runs an employment agency. She recently attended a conference here in Minnesota that was designed to figure out how to fill all of the unfilled jobs in the state. The conference produced data showing that there are approximately 100,000 jobs available in Minnesota that can't be filled because of lack of skills or lack of interest. My friend says that she could hire 200 people on any given day for full-time jobs, with benefits, starting at $15/hour, no experience required.
Yet, there are people on street corners with "please help signs". My friend always gives them her card, but they just toss them on the ground.
My point is: anyone who wants to work can get a decent job, at least in Minnesota. If they're not working, they just don't want to, either because they're lazy, or the dole is good enough for them.
Compare it to inflation adjusted salaries, though, and you'll see that in the 50's and 60's, married women weren't working, because men's salaries could feed a household. That's not a relevant comparison to today, with real salaries significantly smaller and most households requiring 2 jobs to achieve that standard of living. ... and those numbers don't include the induced cost of childcare from lower salaries and both adults working.
No one was crying about the different opinions, just pointing out that the site has a broad range of opinions. Microsoft hate may be the only constant ;-)
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
It's completely possible, if you're not ignorant and understand what's happening, and a few definitions:
(Hint: you're ignorant)
without getting into the different U-x metrics, Unemployment Rate is generally: "the % of people not employed compared to the labor force".
Labor force then logically consists of both people currently employed, and those seeking employment. if you're not seeking employment, you're not unemployed, even if you aren't working.
Labor Force Participation Rate is then the size of the Labor Force in relation to the overall population, 16 and older (so young children not included).
(http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#definitions for more reading)
So this is a really simple concept.
its possible because: the two things are not mutually exlcusive, they are not zero-sum.
there was a population boom.
this caused an employment boom.
an explosion in the LFPR.
now we're facing a retirement boom.
and these retirees are living far longer than their predecessors, and so they are inflating that P value, by being a member of the population for far longer, at the same time that they deflate the LF by retiring. this even while the two components of LF, U and E, are respectively at record low and high percentages. give them time to die off, and the P side of that formula will drop, and we'll see a flattening of the current downward trend of the LFPR plot vs time.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The parent has been modded up, yet every number in it is wrong or irrelevant because the parent poster thinks that Obama was inaugurated in January 2008, when in fact, it was an entire year later.
2008 was a year when the economy really tanked. All of parent's figures reflect the very bad last year of Bush Jr's term.
It should be modded down, not up.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Don't worry - Trump and the new swamp he's building will turn that 4.6% unemployment number into at least 14.6% unemployment before he's through. He campaigned on lies and promises he can't keep, and Pence is no better having destroyed the economy of Indiana in pursuit of religious ideology.
So what you're saying is that a lot of people who have no expertise in a given field believe that they're unrelated qualifications make them an expert.
There's a name for that, it's called a "fallacious appeal to authority", and as you make pretty clear unintentionally, having a higher education does not confer some special ability to make declarations on a field for which you have no particular expertise.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
As usual, the number doesn't count the 'statistically employed' - people who've been out of work for long and have given up looking for work as a result
I have a relative in his 30. His wife is a computer programmer and makes good money. He hasn't worked for years. He stays home and smokes weed all day and is perfectly happy. Are you saying we should be counting him as unemployed?
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
That math works only until other companies start extorting the government to keep from moving jobs out, and they've already been doing that.
You don't really have to be a libertarian or a conservative or a "pseudo-skeptic" (whatever the hell that is) to jump down the throat of an AGW proponent who's not an accredited climatologist.
You don't have to be an accredited climatologist to have a credible opinion on the topic. Just as long as your opinion conforms to the research of nearly all accredited climatologists. It is people who believe this consensus is wrong, and who don't have their own climatology PhD or some other similar knowledge level, who deserve to have their opinions fought and ultimately ignored.
You do bring up poorly constructed arguments held by many AGW defenders, mostly because they aren't all extremely educated on the matter. But those are all very minor infractions, as long as the overall narrative of humans needing to do far more to combat climate change is the theme of their argument. The only time these minor arguments even come up is when a climate change denier (or someone being a devil's advocate) is being pedantic.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
So what you're saying is that a lot of people who have no expertise in a given field believe that they're unrelated qualifications make them an expert.
No, what I'm saying is that their ability to think critically qualifies them generally to make judgements as to whether *your* qualifiecations in unrelated fields make *you* an expert.
And you have been found wanting.
In stark contrast, Obama bailed out GM, kept all 1.5 million jobs, got them to pay back the loans. With interest.
But yay for Carrier not shipping ALL their jobs to Mexico and providing a blueprint for every other company to milk the 'conservative' new government. Can Apple get a $1T tax break?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
You mean like how he gave Carrier $7M in tax breaks and now they're building a factory for the 1300 jobs they shipped south of the border?
President-elect Trump was quite clear:
Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen.
So if you think you're going to skedaddle without the government offering you money to stay, you have another think coming. Consequences.
Maybe I should threaten to leave.
Can I get just a $500k tax break? I'm not proud, I'd stay for that
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Somehow, reaching an all time high for people not working says more than you suggest, when so many families have more than one person working to try and pay the bills. I think the unemployment number is truly bogus, because many people can't find a decent job in the 6 months they get on unemployment.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
But I also think it's important to include the value of the jobs that have been created. And for that, I turn to these metrics:
Median household income, which tells us that Americans have not been earning any more money than they had been earning a decade ago.
GDP per capita, which tells us that the value of what the average American has been producing has been rising steadily (adjusted for inflation) since 2009.
So, unemployment is nearly half what it was when Obama took office, but people aren't earning any more, despite them producing more. Begs the question...who's pocketing all that extra money?
No, what you're saying is that people with no expertise in a field feel that they have an ability to critique a rather specialized field they have no expertise in.
It's a fallacious appeal to authority, full stop.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Translation: The statistics don't support my point of view, therefore the only possibility is that the statistics are lies.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually, it has. The way unemployment is calculated was changed in the 1990's.
That sentence is missing one clause: "At the salaries/wages/benefits being offered for those positions."
A "skills gap" makes no logical sense - if there is sufficient demand for products that you could hire that many people, then there is sufficient demand that you could train people on the job and still afford it. The other possibility is that it's not a skills gap, but a certification/licensing gap, which means you need to work with your certification boards to start allowing more people through the certification process by opening more schools and/or funding more people to get those certifications. Or in some cases, reducing certification requirements. I'm not even talking about medical or emergency services or anything: beauticians for instance - have you ever seen how many hours they have to put in to be allowed to cut hair and apply makeup (granted, sharp objects and potentially nasty chemicals, but sill...)?
Either way, ultimately there is no "gap" - it's a mismatch in labor supply and demand at some price level.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
* presuming (as I do) that GW is real, but not solely attributable to AGW, no one is willing to give a percentage breakdown on cause
OT, but I'll have a go. Generally what we have over the last century or so is a secular warming trend (from greenhouse gasses) with fluctuations from various other factors including volcanoes, aerosols, solar output, internal variability, etc. That secular warming trend is strong enough now that studies find most, (or possibly more than all)) of the warming over the last 50 years can be attributed to greenhouse gasses. See for example Tett et al. 2000, Meehl et al. 2004, Stone et al. 2007, Lean and Rind 2008, Huber and Knutti 2011, Gillett et al. 2012, Wigley and Santer 2012, and Jones et al. 2013.
>No. Because there are some people who are not "working" and do not want a job. The retired, independently wealthy, people caring for their children or elderly family members, etc.
Communist party chairman wants to disagree. Lets forbid women making kids so they can work more (Copyright some leftie from China)
So, you're ok with it? Even if they get enough in tax breaks to build a factory in Mexico for all the jobs they're shipping off? Are you ok with conservative government interfering in business?
Or do you just hate Obama because something something Fox News has the best "facts"?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Right. Let's reduce every problem to a single number so that everyone can have the impression to understand it. Then go vote for a president based on that.
You do have to have some command of the research, and so far as I can see the vast majority of pseudo-skeptics here have no such knowledge, and most just simply regurgitate things they've read on denier sites. As I observed many years ago with debating Creationists, you have some extraordinarily arrogant people who think they're objections, often based on ignorance of both the theories and the data, somehow constitute a complete rebuttal of the science. You see this often with solar output and cloud cover claims, with people here thinking, out of what I can only see as completely misguided delusions of grandeur, that they've considered something that two or three generations of climatologists have not.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Are you kidding? The War on Christmas hasn't been going well for us under Baraq Hussein Soetoro. We need the smartest men and women in greeter positions to use their technical expertise to strategically deploy Santas, pine trees, striped poles, the virgin goddess, and the other holy pagan symbols of Reichsführer Jesus! Only Walmart greeters have the boots-on-the-ground experience to prevent the gay Mooooooooslims from outlawing Christmas with their highly sophisticated containment strategies based on the latest engineering advancements!
They'll keep fighting, and they'll win!
I dispute those numbers.
There has been a very real growth in nominal median household income, while people claim that real household income is flat even as far back as pre-1970.
Meanwhile, we see in the long term reductions in the percent of that income spent on food and clothing, as well as a 31% increase in spending on shelter while the median size of shelter increases by 56% and the household size (persons) decreased by 15%. That means spending 84% as much on shelter (and 71% per area per person, but that's irrelevant except to say that we're not cramming lots of people into cramped little spaces).
Even since 2005, the food expenditure was 13% and it's now under 12% (personally, it's 3.9% for me, and I eat out a lot--frequently spending $15 for one meal, but not nearly on every meal). Across the past decades, people have been enabled to put more money into savings, buy more and better healthcare, and spend much of their money on entertainment and other discretionary spending.
That doesn't even get into what accounts for "equivalent goods and services" these days.
Dual-core desktops hit the market in 2005. That's quite a shock compared to 66MHz 486DX or 200MHz Pentium Pro chips that cost $200. Never mind the constantly-falling price of RAM, hard disk, and SSD. PCs, costing thousands of dollars in the early 90s, were $350 commodity items in the mid-2000s.
Cell phones of 1983 cost $4,000 for the phone and $55/month for the service, plus 42 cents per minute voice. Two hours per week would net you $250/month service. That's a $9,000 phone and $550/month service today. Somewhere along the line, we got consumer cell phones with $100/month service; then we had $250 flip phones, $40/month service, and text and video messaging; and now we have heterogeneous hex-core smartphones with 2GB RAM for $350, backed by $60/month service with high-speed data (although I pay $35/month to Ting instead).
An ISDN 128K line in 1998 cost $35/month and required a $250 modem. Today I get 200Mbps Comcast service over an $80 modem--it's $54,687 worth of ISDN lines all tied together for $83. Do you remember DSL talking about their wicked-fast "three megs" in 2005? I have 70 of those.
Even cars only standardized transistor radio and air conditioning in the 1950s. Now we have antilock brakes, traction control, EFI, complex suspension systems, air bags, vehicle dynamics that prevent rolling and skidding, sensors and cameras to assist in lane control and parking, and all other manner of highly-complex systems with many moving parts. Somehow, we don't pay a bigger chunk of our income for these things: cars cost about the same proportion of our income, but come loaded. This will remain true when we all have self-driving vehicles.
Your argument is essentially that somebody else has told you that we're producing more, we're not earning more, and our buying power is not increasing. My argument is that the percentage of the median income being spent on goods like food, clothing, and shelter square-footage has gone down; people have spent more on luxury, leisure, savings, and medical care; and that the common goods and services we consume have rolled in more stuff we couldn't have afforded years and decades ago, essentially taking the same portion of our money and giving us more stuff in exchange.
Reality suggests buying power has increased. A lot. People like me--at $75,000 income--are pocketing all the extra money. I bought a house and paid off the mortgage in 3 years. I'm getting ready to buy a car, but I have a couple debts I want to clear out first (adding payments on top of other payments is stupid). I bought myself a $7,000 piano for the house. I put $18,000 into my 401(k) and $3,385 into my HSA this year
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One other bit of unaccounted for info.
Carrier was threatened with getting federal contracts pulled if they left.
So if they did leave, those jobs would have stayed. Maybe not in Indiana, but certainly would not have left the US.
So, your numbers are essentially meaningless.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
See, I said GM paid back all their loans. Not TARP as a whole, which is what you're referring to.
And they did:
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/...
"Yes, it’s true that GM paid back its loan from the Treasury Department, in full, ahead of schedule."
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
There are more Millenials than there are Baby Boomers.
Labor force participation is going DOWN for folks under 54 and going UP for those above. Doesn't seem to be well explained by mass retirement. Also, the mass retirement coincidentally started at the 2008 financial crisis. Coincidentally?
Sorry for lack of citations but those are the facts.
In stark contrast, Obama bailed out GM, kept all 1.5 million jobs
And ripped off all of the GM stock holders by stealing their shares and giving them to union cronies in a blatant quid pro quo. Yes, wonderful.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yes, of course, if they offered $1K/hour, they'd fill the jobs. On the other hand, I suppose that's why jobs are going overseas.
Obama inherited an almost trillion dollar deficit and a tumbling economy that reduced revenues and increased expenditures - that is what increased the debt under Obama. The deficit has been cut in half since then, which is not good enough, but better than it'll be if Trump increases "infrastructure" spending and reduces taxes.
Do you have any actual statistics to much where anecdotal claims?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The standard of living is different. Today it is much higher than it was in the olden days. People live in bigger houses, have more vehicles, and have much more technology than they did back then. They also spend more money on stupid things, like $4 cups of coffee, designer clothes and handbags, and every single service wants a monthly subscription for $20 or more. If people lived exactly like they did in the 50's, they could probably do it pretty well with a single income.
Also, odd that Pence has said that the government shouldn't pick winners & losers:
https://twitter.com/speechboy7...
But he & Trump are doing exactly that.
Are they lying, unethical, or just scummy? Or actually closet Democrats?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Maybe instead of giving her card to people with "Please Help" signs your friend ought to place some "Help Wanted" ads around town. If she can geet them $31,200 annually "with no experience required", I am pretty sure she'd get takers.
(Note: this is my polite way of saying that your friend's claims are bogus. Does she work for Breitbart?)
I was enjoying your perspective and your argument, up to the insult at the end. Too bad you had to discredit yourself with it.
Yes, many goods and services have gotten cheaper, though you omit the fact that others, including post-secondary education and health care costs, have risen sharply relative to inflation. And I generally accept your argument that purchasing power has steadily increased. Your summary of my argument was partially incorrect; I never said purchasing power has gone down.
I also don't understand why you think the clause "Someone else has told me" is important enough to bold it. These are economic figures from established agencies for which I have reasoned a valid point: If the value of production goes up this country, why doesn't median income? What people are able to do with the money they earn is irrelevant to the discussion, and only distracts from it.
You are just one drop of water in the ocean of our economy, and using yourself as an example to assert the strength of our national economy is not a valid metric. While you and I* may be doing well enough financially, many people aren't. It's those people that elected Trump to the presidency, and it's those people that currently have the strongest and most determined voice in our country. They're not earning $75,000. They're begging for jobs that would earn them even half that, but those jobs are disappearing. They don't want handouts. They just want a good day's salary for a hard day's labor. There are many reasons for why that's unobtainable, though one of them is that consumers like you and me have demanded with our dollars that prices for goods and services get cheaper, which have driven many of these production jobs overseas to cheaper labor markers.
* Congratulations on your good fortune. I'm earning $65,000 a year and also diverting a lot of money to debt elimination, including student loans, hospital bills for a child, and car payments. No "hot tubs and hookers", as you put it. I don't actually recall complaining in my post that I'm spending all my money and wishing I had more. I'm rather comfortable where I'm at; more would allow me to pay debts faster, save more, and enjoy more, but it's nothing that I envy.
Was GM forced to take the deal? No
Were they given loans in exchange for stock? Yes
Is that stealing? No
Is that a normal business transaction? Yes
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Why people like to compare past households with present day households to suggest the economy was better in the 50's, 60's is incomprehensible. They're apples and oranges. The economy was not better, the standard of living was lower. At no time in the history of the United States has there been a time when the average citizen has been as materially wealthy as they are now. We don't build 1000sq. ft. mid-century modest homes, we build 2000+ sq. ft. McMansions. We don't drive those unreliable, antiquated tanks on wheels, nor is there just one per family. Today the average passenger car would be seen as fit for the 1/10th of the 1% back then. Today the average person owns vastly more cloths and of that those of materials that would have been exclusive to the elite. Imagine sitting down in the evening to a 15" manual-tune grayscale VHF tube TV the size of a significant chest of drawers today. People back then couldn't even comprehend the existence of the personal electronics the average person owns today let alone possessing them themselves. The quality and kinds of food readily available and affordable today would be seen as scandalously extravagant. The service industry of which everyone presently avails themselves was bit a tiny mote of what it is today. These comparisons can be made for nearly all facets of life with great similarity of result.
To suggest that people would be better off with the economy of the 50's and 60's is preposterous. If we lived now as we did then, then Walmart would absolutely be the employer of bourgeoisie.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
If only reality were as simple as your high-school macro-econ course.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I want to begin a new party: the STATISTICS party. We have no emotions, we have no views, and we have no values, just cold hard indisputable and dispassionate facts. Anyone want to join me? Seriously, I'm just so tired of these derpy politicians in D.C. who don't believe in data unless it supports their stupid arbitrary opinions and who base all their decisions on emotions. We need more dispassionate people in charge. On matters of fact, base decisions on fact. On matters of ethics/morals, stay away because nowhere does it say the Government has the power to legislate morality. Let people figure out what's right for themselves.
I know it's true that you do, but I still find it hard to grasp that people like you exist. You'll believe and repeat everything you hear from your favorite talking heads with no regard for how much it defies logic. How is an interest bearing loan repaid in full a taxpayer handout while a tax break which is to say, they get to put fewer dollars into the government coffers, not a handout?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
That will be more important as soon as Trump takes office. The transition is already beginning.
Consequences can be both negative and positive. Trump just didn't say which direction he was going with that...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
So if 99% of employable people are not working and don't want jobs, you would still see that number as unimportant. The important one would still be the one that shows full employment.
It's all about the Fed pumping trillion$ into the economy year after year.
The number is not indicative of a problem by itself. Because there are an enormous number of reasons why someone works or does not work. To actually use employment/population ratio in a useful way, you're going to have to look at a lot of other statistics too.
Somehow, reaching an all time high for people not working says more than you suggest
Yes. It says the population is larger than it was in the 1950s. Ooooooooooo scary!!!
I think the unemployment number is truly bogus, because many people can't find a decent job in the 6 months they get on unemployment.
Unemployment rate is tied to unemployment benefits. The unemployment rate is measured by surveying people, not just counting people receiving benefits. As I mentioned above.
U6 (and U4) include the people you are talking about.
That's not a relevant comparison to today, with real salaries significantly smaller and most households requiring 2 jobs to achieve that standard of living
Actually, the point is people focusing on employment/population ratio alone are missing an enormous number of confounding factors. Employment/population ratio is only a useful statistic when combined with a whole lot of other statistics to try and tease out whatever it is you are attempting to analyze.
Have you performed a calculation and comparison of what kind of income would be required to live at the standards of the 50's and 60's in the modern age? Until you normalize standards of living you really cannot perform an honest comparison. Hint: the bourgeoisie of the 50's and 60's would more closely fall in alongside those in many of the modern developing nations.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Because liberals have been losing all the talking points since the internet exploded, so there's dissent even in their own enclaves.
They never do.
The funniest/saddest part is this:
'Tax & spend' is much more fiscally conservative than 'just spend'.
Yet Republicans claim to be fiscally conservative. They close their eyes when the R gov't spends & spends. Like it did under Bush Sr, Bush Jr, and Reagan.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
They do! Her agency and many other put signs all over the place. There are "help wanted" signs all over the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. They even print them on some receipts. My friend and employers hold free job fairs where they virtually hand out jobs - but not many people show up. I see those advertised all the time, too. Her agency makes money by placing employees.
It's amazing you can assert my friend's claims are bogus simply because they don't match up with your world view.
By the way, for reference, the stated unemployment rate in Minnesota is 4%, and has been for some time. A bit lower than the rest of the country's average.
and here I expected Trumptards to give him credit...
Credible economists (not on TV) said for quite a while the Obama stimulus was not large enough and followed the "lost decade" where Japan did almost the same things. Obama did restore the economy poorly (which is still better than nothing.) Before one blames him as if he was a dictator, you have to realize that the GOP prevented it from being what it should have been and that Obama's poor negotiation skills always had him beginning with a compromise as a starting point. He really wouldn't get a burger without tomato because he'd start by giving up the buns and still end up having to remove the tomato himself. Combine that with an unprecedented opposition with no rational explanation outside of racism or disguised corruption.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Hint: Baby boomers retire.
Another Hint: Students are staying in school longer
Another Hint: Unemployment is not at a record low.
One More Hint: The labor participation rate is nowhere near a record low.
several local news channels say 1100 jobs are staying. The HVAC guys where I work say Carrier stuff is garbage. The wife says they were going to pay the Mexicans $3/hr with no benefits which was also on the local news.
$.02
Hmm...but they DID seem to be much less obese, had more intact families (children raised with both parents, this is especially true in the minority communities back then), more of a true middle class....and in general, the country seemed less stressed and happier in general.
Of course some exceptions...Vietnam war, etc...But in general, the US seemed a happier and MUCH LESS divided nation than we are today.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
For example, here in Michigan, for the six months that you're collecting unemployment payments, you count as unemployed. When that six months is over, they cut you off and remove you from the 'unemployed' category
This is wrong. The unemployment statistics are not connected at all to unemployment benefits.
Unemployment statistics are created from surveying the population. Not just counting people receiving unemployment benefits. That is how BLS creates multiple unemployment statistics - they have to find out why someone is not employed to produce the statistics.
This table gives a quick-and-dirty synopsis of U1 through U6. Google can give you plenty more detail.
During your slightly-over-a-year job search, you would have been counted in U2 and U3, then U1 and U3, then depending on what was going on you may have stayed in U3 or moved to U4.
while people claim that real household income is flat even as far back as pre-1970.
It's not; you need to look at total compensation per hour worked.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Do you employ thousands of people? Cool! What do you manufacture?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
https://projects.propublica.or...
"Below is a list of all companies that failed to repay their bailout money. These transactions are final and will never result in a profit for taxpayers."
BAILOUT FUNDS OUTGOING BAILOUT FUNDS, INCOMING /Net Outstanding Disbursed Returned Dividends + Interest Warrants Other Proceeds
Name Type State Profi
General Motors Auto Company MI -$11,393,681,666 $50,744,648,329 $38,656,806,062 $694,160,600 $0 $0
CIT Group Bank (Public) NY -$2,286,312,500 $2,330,000,000 $0 $43,687,500 $0 $0
Chrysler Auto Company MI -$1,212,849,005 $10,748,284,222 $7,256,590,642 $1,171,263,942 $0 $1,107,580,633
GM received over $50B, and still owes $11B. Chrysler received over $10B and still owes over $1B. I suppose "still owes" is not exactly accurate, as the numbers largely reflect the loss the government took on the equity instruments they forced on the companies and the government has closed the books. It is true that GM paid back the loans with interest, but that was not the full extent of the monies that were extended to GM.
GM and Chrysler bailouts tossed bankruptcy regulations out the window, screwed over primary bond-holders, but saved the union jobs at outrageous expense while setting dangerous precedents.
The additional location information you provide suggests a reason for your friend's failure: the cost of living in the Twin Cities area is about 1.4 times that of, say, Brown County. The average hourly wage in Twin Cities is around $15 to $16. In Brown County it's $11.50. The reported yearly COL for Twin Cities is more than $32K; for Brown County it's $24K (for a single individual with 0 children).
https://mn.gov/deed/data/data-tools/col/
So let me amend my statement; your friend is papering the Twin Cities with ads for jobs that pay slightly less than average. Tell her to go a little further into Minnesota where people would be happy to earn $3.50 per hour more in a full time job with benefits.
But the reality is total number of workers no longer in the work force, which is 95,055,000. Really, 50% unemployment?
Employment/population ratio does not work like you are trying to claim. Because lots of people do not work because they don't want to and do not have to. Students, taking care of loved ones, independently wealthy, retired, disabled, etc.
Here's the employment/population ratio for the last several decades. You note it never got remotely close to 100%, even during economic booms.
Thanks, but, as a professional, I think she probably knows her business.
But you're forgetting the main point of my original post: there are, according to employers and employment agencies, about 100K unfilled jobs in all of Minnesota, which clearly includes out-state. Additionally, she is offering the AVERAGE wage as the starting wage, which is actually quite good. Anyway, that was just an anecdote, that should could hire 200 people on any given day at that wage. I'm sure she has a range of wages and jobs available.
A "queue of people seeking workers" for full time jobs with benefits and overtime pay? No. You describe a queue of people seeking impoverished workers for day jobs paying not enough to rent a room and buy meals and clothing let alone medical care? Cheap labor is wonderful for the buyer.
Nope. There are 6 unemployment statistics. The one that shows up in newspaper headlines is U3. U6 covers people who would take a job if they could find one, or want to work more hours than they already are. Here's U6. You'll note it is also down.
To get a better idea of just how misleading that headline from Zerohedge is, here's the employment/population ratio for the last few decades. That is down from it's peak, but well above where it was during the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s. You'll also note we have never gotten remotely close to 100%, yet the breathless story from Zerohedge implies something is wrong with less than 100%.
There are lots of reasons someone does not have a paid job. Some of the most common are retirement, going to school, and caring for a loved one. And they are all "not in the labor force".
Even looking at take-home pay would blow that argument out of the water. The fact that we can buy more and better things than we could years or decades ago is an increase in real income.
Nobody wants to admit income is actually hard to measure, and that wage income doesn't tell you about buying power because the entire point of technical progress is to make the same things with less labor, and thus to employ the same wage-compensated hours to make more things and more-complex things. It sounds easy when I describe it in terms of wooden chairs versus chairs with cushions, but what happens when we get to talking about cars with fluid couplings versus cars with torsen differentials?
One day, we will have the same cars with self-driving modules in them. Look at Tesla: the self-driving hardware is already in the cars; you pay $2,000 for a software update. Building a car with a self-driving module versus building it without isn't flatly the cost of the module; it's also the cost of labor to make two different assemblies, and logistics to determine how many to supply of each. Those labor and logistics costs are so high in some cases that many cars with a heated seat option actually ship all seats heated, and simply don't install a heating port or connector on the seat itself--that way it gets built the same, and they simply skip a step. How do you gauge how much buying power you've gained now that a car with heated seats or a self-driving software program costs trivially-more than one without, when those things come with all cars and you only pay for the permission to use them?
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Guess what? BLS doesn't only count U3. In fact, they have a statistic called U6 which covers the people you are claiming BLS ignores. The Shadowstats article you linked even talks about U6, so it's kinda odd you forgot about it when making your post.
Here's U6.
And the owners of Shadowstats would like to thank you for your efforts at generating more subscribers to their website.
Inevitably the "solutions" for AGW are just socialist economics mixed with SJW punishments that, generally, by their own admission will do little or nothing to actually stop the causes of AGW or ameliorate the existing problems. Rich countries should unilaterally tax themselves to give money to poor countries. The West "owes" the world for its pollution. That sort of thing.
It doesn't help with prominent AGW proponents openly declare that it's not about the environment anymore.
For example, former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:
"One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole," said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.
"We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy," said Edenhofer.
Earlier, he also said that "the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."
Any number of others in that domain with similar comments.
And already Trump is doing more than Obama.
hat ratio is 59.7% at the moment, which is barely one percentage point above the lows it hit in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. The whole "economic recovery" and the "unemployment rate" which has gone from 8-9% down to 4.9% is an illusion. The real economy and real employment situation still suck.
Here's the employment/population ratio going back several decades. Please provide the statistics showing the US economy was terrible in the 1950s and 1960s, when the employment/population ratio was significantly lower than it is today.
People fall into this category when their unemployment benefits run out, but they're still unemployed.
This is wrong. Unemployment benefits have nothing to do with unemployment statistics. Unemployment statistics are created by surveys, not by counting people receiving unemployment benefits. U3 (the unemployment number in headlines) includes plenty of people who do not get unemployment benefits. Such as contract employees who have reached the end of their contract and people who got fired.
If you're really worried about people being left out, you can use U6. U6 includes people in U3, as well as people who are currently employed but want to work more hours, as well as people not actively looking for work but would take a job if they could find one.
Actually, I think an even more interesting metric would throw kids into the equation. They need to be supported too. In that case, we've got a country where ~152 million people are supporting 320 million people, so the unemployment rate is really 52.5%
So how long should newborns wait before taking their first job? Do they have to leave the hospital first? 'Cause the statistic you just came up with implies they should get a job about the same time their umbilical cord is cut.
It wasn't stolen from GM, it was stolen from the investors who owned the stock. Which you know. There wasn't anything "normal" about that transaction. Especially the part where it wasn't really a transaction at all, but a government-enforced transfer of wealth from private investors and retirement funds into the hands of a politicized labor union. Which you know.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
U3 never has included them.
However, U6 always has included those workers. Here's U6. It's also down.
The "official state statistics" are actually the bullshit here. There's lots of arcane rules about who can get unemployment benefits and who can stay on them, as well as wildly different policies in each state. As a result, "number of people receiving unemployment checks" has very little to do with the number of people unemployed.
And remember, unemployed people have plenty of time to fill out government surveys.
You describe a queue of people seeking impoverished workers
Cash income of $12/hr is equivalent to roughly $15 hour regular payroll, since no taxes are taken out. That is equivalent to about $30k year. The last guy I hired said he and his wife shared a 3 bedroom house with 2 other couples, and they were all working. So 6*30k = $180k of household income. I would not call that "impoverished". Sure, $180k doesn't go far in SF, but most of these workers commute in from the East Bay, where living costs are much lower.
paying not enough to rent a room and buy meals and clothing
These workers are not homeless, they are well-fed, and they are wearing clothes. So they are obviously able to afford all of these things.
let alone medical care?
So we have homeless people because they refuse to accept jobs that don't offer medical benefits? Seriously?
The people from 2008-2016 that still have yet to find work still exist in large numbers.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
When you make it so that after somebody has spent a year looking for a job (might be 6 months now, actually) and then give up is no longer considered unemployed (you need to be both in the labor market AND unemployed AND actively looking for a job to qualify as officially "unemployed"), your unemployment statustics become utterly meaningless. Now if you look at the "labor market participation rate", which is at it's lowest point in many decades (if not ever), an entirely different picture presents itself...
Congress and Obama administration managed to spend (in $ millions) more than $28.7T:
2009 3,517,677
2010 3,457,079
2011 3,603,056
2012 3,536,951
2013 3,454,647
2014 3,506,114
2015 3,688,292
2016 3,951,307 (estimated)
Or about $3.5T per year, while taking in about much less, leading to deficit spending of:
2009 -1,412,688
2010 -1,294,373
2011 -1,299,590
2012 -1,086,963
2013 -679,544
2014 -484,627
2015 -438,406
2016 -615,805
Years after the "crisis" is over and we're still spending about $0.5T more than we take in.
On the day Obama administration took office (with the various Congresses he oversaw), the total national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08 ($10.6T). As of 11/30/2016 it stands at $19,948,064,697,245.75 ($19.9T).
http://treasurydirect.gov/NP/d...
Given that you are offering $12/hr cash payment to evade taxes that means that:
a. The federal, state, and local governments get nothing; you are ripping off your fellow citizens, all of them.
b. The workers aren't getting credits towards Social Security so no retirement "safety net" for them.
c. The workers aren't getting credits for unemployment so no insurance when you fire them.
You on the other hand are getting $15/hr value for $12/hr.
Furthermore, you are talking about "day jobs" not full time jobs, so your $30K (tax-evaded) equivalent assumes that they can get a job every single day of the work week. You don't mention 1.5X rate for overtime, which they would normally be entitled to. They get no sick pay or vacation pay - something that a normal full time job would offer. And you're talking about six adults working full time for minimum wage sharing a 3 bedroom house (or apartment); that sounds a lot like the Samsung worker dormitories https://stopsamsung.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/300-samsung-security-cameras-record-a-young-worker%E2%80%99s-four-attempts-at-suicide-yet-fail-to-save-him/ - maybe not exactly what we ought to be hoping to make the standard here in the US.
Because its a republican doing the handing?
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Where, in India, Mexico, the PRC or maybe Vietnam?
No, what you're saying is that people with no expertise in a field feel that they have an ability to critique a rather specialized field they have no expertise in.
It's a fallacious appeal to authority, full stop.
You are claiming authority without evidence when you argue, but when they argue under the same circumstances, you claim fallacy.
You are engaging in a variant of the false equivalence fallacy called the false inequivallence fallacy.
You right, because you're right, and they're wrong, because they disagree with you, even though you are not an acknowledged expert, nor are you citing sources who are acknowledged experts. Full stop.
The apparent lack of familial issues was merely an illusion. As soon as divorce became a realistic option the numbers of broken homes exploded as victimized women fled abusive relationships.
Much of the troubles among minority communities, especially African Americans, came with the war on drugs. That single policy has systematically destroyed entire generations, and not by accident.
The internet and modern 24 hour cycle media can be thanked for the impression that we're more stressed and divided than ever. Crime has actually been in a steady decline practically since our country started tracking those statistics. When something horrific does occur you can be sure that it'll be published and covered to some extent by dozens of news sources. Major political divisions have been with us since the founding of the country, the only real difference today is the speed and omnipresence of the media coverage today.
Wealth inequality has definitely been getting worse, which is why the middle class is disappearing. Obesity has risen as access to food has increased and sedentary lifestyles made more of the norm. Despite both of those things though the average person today likely has access to better healthcare, at least on the medication side of things, and a longer life expectancy.
I saw the rise of the internet from nothing till now.
And honeslty, I"d seriously consider trading some of the tech we have today, to go back to have more closeness and civility we had back then.
I actually am starting to thinks that some of the all the time connected social media proliferation, has had somewhat of a detrimental effect on our society.
We're certainly MUCH more polarized as a nation now than then....I'd trade a few smart phones for that again.
I'm certainly glad I'm not growing up a kid today....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You're saying that the value of a job isn't as important of the purchasing power created from its wages. And as I said, I generally agree that we have more purchasing power. You don't need to justify that point any further or defend it with an Economics 101 lesson. (While I'm not an economist, I am a mathematician, who, as such, is inclined to tell you that "you and ten people" is eleven people total, though your math indicates a labor pool of ten. Try not to fail mathematics when you argue mathematics.) Arguing about purchasing power being up when median income isn't is like a patient telling his doctor that he's not worried about his cholesterol levels because he exercises everyday and feels fit. In both cases, there are indications that things aren't as healthy as they seem.
I disagree that purchasing power alone, apart from job value, is the only metric worth evaluating. And you already gave the reason why: The existence of capital induces demand for products, which induces a demand for labor. Median income measures the strength salaries have to pay for products and services, which induces job creation. It matters significantly. So when lower-wage jobs replace higher-pay jobs*, when existing jobs producing the same product pay less to laborers, and when jobs move to overseas markets where labor is cheaper, less demand for labor is induced. Less demand for labor creates less demand for work, restricting access to capital among laborers, which restricts their access to goods and services, decreasing quality of life. All this happens, even if our purchasing power has risen relative to median income.
Also, I found your labor force statistics fascinating. Honestly. Though I'd like to know their source.
Finally, I don't disagree people want security, but they want it through a job. People find value in work. If you don't believe me, visit with some blue-collar workers, and listen to Mike Rowe's take on it.
* For example, manufacturing jobs are down, while Leisure and Hospitality jobs are up. It doesn't take an economist to tell you that they don't pay the same. And this is happening in labor pools across the country.
Hint the 2 most expensive things in the US are rent and health insurance. Other costs like food and cars are actually cheaper than many developing nations. Both the high rent and the high cost of medical care are artificial scarcities created due to Environmental and Medical lobbies. USA has a lot of natural resources and well educated folks. Life should be a paradise in the US instead of being a constant struggle.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Unemployment is at lowest since 2007 (mention the number). Labor force participation decreased to 62.7 (mention a different number). Labor force participation is lowest in 40 years (don't mention this number because it makes the unemployment rate meaningless). That's labor force participation percentage -- not absolute number. So you it's not effected by retirements due to aging population. It's the number of people of working age not looking for work and not attending school or job training.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
What if the underground economy is actually burgeoning? We've long equated (or nearly equated) unlawful behavior with unethical behavior, but in most countries around the world where business is heavily regulated, such notions don't exist. Sure there is a strong propaganda to maintain such belief, but what if it's actually crumbling? What if the underground economy is not just selling drugs, gambling, prostitution anymore? What's if it's now manufacturing? Even if we were to discount the driving of business underground due to regulation, there is also a pressure for regular businesses to go underground to avoid litigation risks (which are, by far, the single most damaging risks any business can suffer)?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Right. If you own stock, you own it. If it becomes nearly worthless, you own nearly worthless stock. You can choose to sell it or walk away from it ... but no, you don't get it taken from you by the Obama administration who then props it up with government loans so it's once again worth something and then have it handed over to political supporters as a prize.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Given that you are offering $12/hr cash payment to evade taxes
Nonsense. I am paying MORE taxes. If I pay cash, then the cost of hiring that person is not a deductible expense. So I pay the taxes, not the worker. I am almost certainly in a higher bracket.
a. The federal, state, and local governments get nothing; you are ripping off your fellow citizens, all of them.
Hogwash.
b. The workers aren't getting credits towards Social Security so no retirement "safety net" for them.
They are illegals. They don't get benefits from these programs, so why should they pay into them?
c. The workers aren't getting credits for unemployment so no insurance when you fire them.
You don't "fire" day laborers. If I don't hire them, they walk three meters to the next van in the queue.
assumes that they can get a job every single day of the work week.
I am not assuming this. I am observing it.
And you're talking about six adults working full time for minimum wage sharing a 3 bedroom house
That is a lot better than picking tomatoes in Chiapas.
You on the other hand are getting $15/hr value for $12/hr.
Which I can do, quite legally, up to $600 per year before having to report their income to the IRS via 1099.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
even our "left" is essentially right-of-center, see Obama/Billary.
I'm buying a home soon. It'll be a little over 1000 sq/ft because that's what I can afford.
I have 2 cars in my family and will have a third soon (for my kid). This is not by choice. Without a car I need to live where I work. The increased cost of that is several times more than a car, so I put up with a shitty commute. My kid is in college. In 2 years she starts clinicals and they're spread all over town. No car, no clinicals, no degree. I will work harder to have things I don't want so someone can get rich selling them to me.
I can't afford a stay at home mom to cook. So I eat a lot of cheap take out. It tastes bad and it's bad for me, but after two 50 hour weeks nobody in my household is making a good home cooked meal.
I suppose I have a big honking TV though. And it was cheap ($200 bucks). So I'll give you that. Whoop de fucking do. I can drown my sorrows in cheap electronics made by slave labor in China. Thanks.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What did the average 1950's apartment look like? What kind of medical maladies could 1950's medicine treat/cure?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Nonsense returned: There is absolutely nothing preventing you from deducting your business expenses that are paid in cash. Of course if you aren't paying into the Social Security program for them, and you aren't paying into Unemployment Insurance, then you would not want to draw attention to your own tax evasion while encouraging theirs, hence you forego your expense deduction.
Do you mean "Why should they obey the law?" Or do you mean "Why shouldn't I take advantage of their tenuous position and profit illegally from their status as undocumented workers?"
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/undocumented-immigrants-and-taxes/499604/
And as for your concluding statement:
Your analysis has just reached the bottom of the barrel.
I have lived in 6 countries including 2 developing countries. Believe me the apartments were much better than the current Silicon Valley one and were 1/6th the price.
Also everything that can be cured in the US can be cured in India and you will not have to declare bankruptcy to pay for it either. Medical technology travels very well. The same medicines, same scanning equipment, same robotic arms are used in India as well in US but medical care is 20 times more expensive in the US. (Other fields things are more expensive like Cars and gas cost a lot more in India.)
**Life is too short to be serious**
THIS is why Trump won. White votes matter.
This is why Trump won: people who cannot even find a job think they are competent enough to determine which candidate is more likely to improve their opportunities. So much so that they pick the candidate whose campaign promises caused nearly all economists to refute his ideas. Even the republican establishment desired to tone down his proposed tax cuts. These citizens convince themselves the elite (aka educated) are somehow incompetent and that people who haven't been able to keep up with the modern world are somehow more capable. It is quite the delusion. But if religion teaches us one thing is that delusions are often powerful enough to affect the vast majority of people.
The job market for truly skilled older works has never been better. The past three companies I have worked for would create positions for any available skilled worker they were lucky enough to find, because an unemployed skilled IT worker is more rare than a mega-millions lottery winner. The only ones I have come across were only unemployed because of a recent move to a new area.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I will be unemployed after the 15th again. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Workforce participation numbers have gone down because of baby boomers retiring and stubbornly refusing to not die instantly. That metric goes up and down over the course of history correlated directly to birth booms from about (wait for it) 65 years earlier.
So you don't realize this because you are (a) fucking retarded and (b) a liar, but you are blaming Obama for the post WW2 baby boom.
GM lost $11 billion for the US Government. Hardly a "win". And that was direct cash just given out, not a reduction in taxes paid to the State. And there were about 243,000 employees at GM at the time, not 1.5 million. You really do like lying a lot, don't you?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Again - it's the participation RATE. That's a percentage. I know it's hard to understand - but if there are 100 workers, and 90 have jobs, then the unemployment rate is 10%. If we add 20 more people to the mix, and still have 90 jobs, we have a 25% unemployment rate. If 20 of the 30 that were unemployed are now off of unemployment, and we still have 90 jobs, we now have an unemployment rate of 10% again - but we actually have 20 also no longer "counted". So we have 30 people without jobs, but only "officially" have 10 without jobs. That's why the labor force participation rate matters - not just the unemployment rate.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Cool, so we can say more than 1,100 jobs were saved with the maintaining and expanding of the Carrier factory in Indiana as well, then! So now we can say that Trump has already saved 6,800 jobs (using the same ratio of direct-to-indirect jobs saved as for the GM calculation). So around $100 per year per job saved - that's a massive return on investment!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Took me 7 months, a 300mi move, and a $20,000 reduction in pay. 18mo later most of that is resolved, or will be before the end of this year.
Then $15 isn't enough. Seems pretty obvious. And no, that's not the greedy peasantry talking.
Taking a job incurs expenses. Travel to/from a job site, you might also need some new clothes (depending on the job), if you've got kids, now you're paying for daycare ... add all that up, and $15 an hour might not cover it.
So yeah, 100,000 jobs sit vacant until your friend offers a better wage.
This signature is false.
So... do you actually believe there are 60 million (25% of the US adult population) "delusional" people who can't find jobs? If so, what does that say about the current state of America and how well these "highly educated elite" have been running things?
I don't know if you care (few people seem to this election cycle) , but that "not working" number is a "lie" of sorts designed to support the narrative that the economy is in bad shape.
So by lie, I mean, it doesn't mean what people think it means. That large number includes children, stay at home moms, etc.. people that are not looking for work. And yes, that number has gotten larger in recent years, mainly because more baby boomers retired.
The standard unemployment rate is what we have used to gauge work force health for a long long time. Bringing in the "not working people" number was new to the Obama presidency, and hyped again during the election cycle.
Well, I and a number of people I know are in and have been in that group over the last 8 years, when that had never happened to us before. The economy is doing very well for some, and extremely poorly for others. I am in scientific research, and money is very hard to come by now unless you are working for a very large lab. The idea that all those people are just stay at home moms and kids and grandmas is just pure fantasy doled out by the corporate media. If the "unemployment rate", which is a poor measure because lots of people are on it till it runs out and they are still unemployed, has any meaning whatsoever, then so does the number of people not in the workforce at all. Just be honest.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
I don't know what the next administration is going to do. But I'm investing in micro wave popcorn and soft drink futures. It's already a train wreck and it hasn't even gotten out of the station yet.
So... do you actually believe there are 60 million (25% of the US adult population) "delusional" people who can't find jobs? If so, what does that say about the current state of America and how well these "highly educated elite" have been running things?
No, just a large enough portion to push him over the edge. And I was implicitly referring to the AC when I singled out people who cannot find jobs, there is a much larger subset of people who are generally disillusioned by the job market but are still employed who make up most of the voting bloc I was describing.
As for how the elite has been running things, no political group has any idea how to help these people, since in many cases they won't even help themselves. The worst message they can be given is that they don't have to change but some white knight will fix all of their problems are return the world to the 1960's.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
No, just a large enough portion to push him over the edge.
Consider this, if 25% of the population voted for Hillary Clinton (~60 million), that also means that 75% of the population did not vote for her. They either voted for Trump, Johnson, Stein, or stayed home. 75% of the adult population rejected her. Trump votes compared to Clinton votes is a narrow margin. Clinton compared to "Not Clinton" is a horrendous loss. Don't ask why people voted for Trump. Ask why people didn't vote for Clinton.
As for how the elite has been running things, no political group has any idea how to help these people, since in many cases they won't even help themselves.
Isn't that what the Kings and Queens of feudal Europe used to say about the serfs? The peasantry is too stupid and lazy to help themselves so we must take care of them?
You don't find it all arrogant to speak down to the unwashed masses and dismiss such large swatches of the populace as beyond help? Really? And you wonder why they don't vote the way you want them to.
"The idea that all those people are just stay at home moms and kids and grandmas is just pure fantasy doled out by the corporate media."
So if you don't believe the "corporate media" go look up what sorts of populations are defined in all the "U" employment numbers. It isn't a secret. We have been measuring employment for the same way for a very long time.
Or, if you don't want to parse the Bureau of Labor Stats website, search for any site referring to things like U3, U5, U6 and has references to BLS. LIke http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate .
Uh, WHAT?
Your ignorance on the matter is staggering - do you really believe this?
Ken
Consider this, 6 million 2012 Obama voters chose not to vote for Hillary in 2016... The Democrats on Team Hillary would have you believe they heard about FBI Director Comey re-opening his investigation into Hillary's private email server and choose to stay home instead, they reject arguments that she simply was a poor candidate.
Ken
Yes, they have been measuring unemployment in a very dishonest way for a very long time. For example, do they routinely report on the quality of the jobs that people are employed in, or how many people need to work 2 or 3 jobs to barely pay their bills? Do the numbers include the disparity in compensation for workers vs. management or how much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few?
Predatory capitalism is struggling to keep everyone under control and prevent the move toward socialism. Someday the US will honor the part of the preamble to the Constitution that says the government is charged with promoting the general welfare of the population. Right now, the government is in bed with giant, too big to fail corporations, and they need to maintain their fictions about how well the economy is doing. I am sure the economy is doing very well for the very well to do. Not so much for everyone else.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.