Unemployment is really 7.1 %!!! not 5.6% Bloomberg News

[fearnobush]

<http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=aS7xpGq9ZHis>

Americans Quit Workforce, Posing Risks for Bush, Fed. Bloomberg, Mar 8, 2004

The U.S. economy added just one sixth of the 130,000 jobs
that it had been anticipated to generate by the median forecast
of economists polled by Bloomberg News. The results fall short of
what would be needed to raise this year's average nonfarm payroll
by 2.6 million jobs to the 132.7 million level predicted by the
White House last month. Bush and his advisers have since declined
to back that target.

`Not Satisfactory'

Treasury Secretary John Snow, who in October said he would
``stake my reputation'' on a pickup in job growth by Christmas,
said the jobs picture shows Congress should make permanent the
$1.7 billion in tax cuts Bush has won in his tenure. On a bus
trip to Washington and Oregon last month, he also said Bush
``inherited an economy that was in steep decline'' fromDemocratic President Bill Clinton.
``Those growth numbers aren't satisfactory,'' Snow said in an
interview Friday. ``We want to see a lot more jobs created.''
The exodus of workers from the labor force may mean the
nation's unemployment rate of 5.6 percent in the past two months
looks better than it really is. Returning discouraged workers to
the labor market and adjusting the participation rate back to the
long-term trend would increase the unemployment rate last month
to 7.1 percent, said Ian Morris, chief U.S. economist at HSBC
Securities USA Inc. in New York, in an interview Friday.

Consumer Spending

``The unemployment rate is really understating the lack of
job availability,'' said Harry Holzer, a former chief economist
at the Labor Department who is now a professor of public policy
at Georgetown University in Washington, in an interview Friday.
``The drop in the participation rate is telling us that the labor
market is weak.''
Slow job growth may weigh on consumer spending, which
accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy,
said Alice Rivlin, aformer vice chairman of the Federal Reserve who is now an
economist at the Brookings Institution, in an interview Friday.

[lastknowngood]

1. It's really about 10.5 and growing with longterm unemployed

n/t

[DemoTex]

4. Higher in some GOP strongholds like SC.

Check-six Mr. Fighter-pilot/President/Impostor. Check your goddamn six. Or, better yet, don't check-six!

[sidwill]

2. How the heck can I beat up on Freepers

without a link!!

Please link.

Please.

[fearnobush]

3. Got it!!!!! top of page

[whistle]

5. Why does seasonally adjusting these statistics....

...always make the unemployment rate lower? The economic impact is the same, people get thrown out of work whether it's the end of a season or not and very often they have to go looking for jobs that aren't there and come next season, they may not get re-hired by the companies that laid them off.:hurts:


Table A-12. Alternative measures of labor underutilization
HOUSEHOLD DATA HOUSEHOLD DATA

Table A-12. Alternative measures of labor underutilization



U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers,
plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a
percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally
attached workers.......................................…

Seasonally Unadjusted Feb 2004…..10.3%
Seasonally Adjusted Feb 2004……… 9.6%


http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

[whistle]

7. As for those 21,000 new jobs created in Feb 2004...

...they are government hires not private sector. The tax stimulus is now over Dubya even though the very rich are still getting taxes back. They aren't spending where it creates jobs and I think when all the economic number crunching on last years tax refund gets fully analyzed, we'll see that the GDP growth did not come from consumer spending growth, it came from government fiscal spending on the WAR, IMHO. Pull the Wool :evilgrin:

[gristy]

6. This is interesting. From the article:

The exodus of workers from the labor force may mean the nation's unemployment rate of 5.6 percent in the past two months looks better than it really is. Returning discouraged workers to the labor market and adjusting the participation rate back to the long-term trend would increase the unemployment rate last month to 7.1 percent, said Ian Morris, chief U.S. economist at HSBC Securities USA Inc. in New York, in an interview Friday.

I'm don't know what he means by "the long term trend". I do know that I still need to be convinced that the "unemployment rate", as defined by the gov't, is actually higher than that reported. That is to say, that the gov't is either NOT following its own rules in the calculation, or something fundamentally has changed in the economy so that the rules for counting the unemployed NEED to be changed. I believe one of these is true; I just need to be convinced.

[kalian]

8. Well, my concern is that the "employment" part of the economy...

is broken...
IF Kerry becomes prez, there really might not be all that much
that his economic team can do to "create" jobs. Government can't
make companies hire more people and unless we're all happy with the
thought of creating endless rows of government employees...I
don't see the "fix" being easy to implement.

This country has to finish its course that it has decided to
take. The economy has been sick for MANY administrations. Sorry
to say that...but its true.

[Deja Q]

9. So if the economy pciks up 3.5 years from now...

That's the results of Bush's tax cuts and nothing that Kerry(1) had done?


(1) Assuming Kerry wins, let's be realistic here... Bushco* can still cheat and connive to make a bogus win, or the people will put Bush's* chaisma over his intellect :scared: . People like image, hate details, realize too late...