Unemployment Goes ... Up?
The April jobs report is out and it has some mixed news. While it showed an increase of 244,000 jobs, the unemployment rate rose to 9.0 percent. Sometimes I feel like half of my extended family and friends -- all or nearly all of them solidly capable, hard-working individuals -- are out of work or sitting in the only job they can find. It's discouraging, I tell you.
Jay Cost, over at The Weekly Standard, has some interesting political thoughts that arose after he realized a significant number of his own social circle was on food stamps. Prior to this latest report coming out, he basically said that both President Obama and the country are in trouble:
If the economic recovery does not begin to show substantial improvement, the likes of which we have not really seen in the last two years, and if the GOP nominates a reasonably acceptable alternative, this president is going to lose in 2012, and the final result will not be close. Nobody gets reelected with employment way down, real income way down, and 14 percent of his fellow citizens on food stamps. Nobody.
And the president needs something more than a “recovery” in the sense that we’ve seen to date. When you start controlling for inflation, population growth, and government intervention, the recovery we’ve seen has only been, at best, a treading of water for average people. This president needs to see a significant improvement in real, per capita, and private metrics of personal economic vitality. Put simply, he needs something more than this "food stamp recovery" to win next year.
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Jan '11
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
The obvious solution, therefore, is to tax the rich and the oil companies.
And I've got the slogan:
"Food stamps in every pot and a windmill in every backyard!"
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
The likelihood of the type of improvement that Obama needs is very low. As I repeatedly said in my last few posts, if the Republicans can find an articulate principled standard-bearer, they will win and win big in 2012.
Jul '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Obama is a man trying to put out a fire using Gasoline.
And what's confusing him is Gasoline is a Liquid, jsut like water, so why isn't it working?
My idea for a bumper sticker the GOP can use...
Mr. Obama; Unemployment just isn't working!
Dec '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Didn't the method of measuring unemployment change a few months ago? Not only is this not the true unemployment rate (U6 is up to 15.9%) but I remember that when the U3 dropped significantly a few months ago, that there was some sort of recalculation that went into it.
May '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
As your latest podcast is titled..."He's dead, Jim."
Oct '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Unemployment stats, inflation stats, and who knows what else, have been rejiggered to the point where the old line is now true: "enough anecdotes and you now have statistics". We have reached the point where the numbers no longer represent any meaningful metric which can be measured by historic trends. The only meaningful metric is identified by Mollie, what her friends and family are experiencing, and what I and my acquaintances are experiencing.
Reread the Ricochet comments over the last 18 months and a common thread is; "the stats say one thing and my experiences say the opposite". We Americans simply are not accustomed to the feral government lying to us about domestic matters. Better get used to it.
Paul, sorry to disagree with you, but in a great many third world, somewhat democratic countries, not all of the elections are rigged. Many of the fools and tyrants actually do win their elections. Ignorant and corrupt people willing vote for the demagogue who will reward their greed. Remains to be seen whether America is now entering that phase. Of course, your thesis requires that the GOP put a decent candidate. Looks like you might never get the proof you require.
Jun '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Note that the labor force participation rate is currently 64.2%, a 25-year low. A decreasing percent of the population is willing or able to work, yet unemployment remains high. That's a bad sign.
Mar '11
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Unexpectedly!
I am shocked this is all happening under such a smart President, who writes so well, speaks so well, and dresses so well.
A post-partisan President, who was gonna heal America and the Planet (he forgot to mention he was gonna do this by bringing the Economy to a standstill).
Edited on May 6, 2011 at 9:23amSep '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
David Williamson: Unexpectedly!
09:23 am
...women and minorities hardest hit.
Mar '11
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Jaydee_007:
My idea for a bumper sticker the GOP can use...
Mr. Obama; Unemployment just isn't working! · May 6 at 8:28am
It seems to me that a good campaign slogan would be:
"It's the Economy, stupid!"
We can steal that from Mr. Clinton, can't we?
May '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Republican candidates should remind people repeatedly over the next year that Obama single-handedly destroyed an entire industry: drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jul '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
If the real value of the dollar is falling faster than the official inflation figure by more than the official GDP growth number, than we have never left the recession and there has been no recovery. We just said there was while Obama kept us on the rapid rail to ruin.
Apr '11
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
I get the feeling that unemployment/underemployment (however it's calculated) is going to remain high compared to the past. For a whole lot of reasons, there's just not enough work to keep the people we have (and continue to import) busy - especially given off-shoring and productivity gains in the activities that remain here (gubmint excluded, of course).
The digital economy, too, is taking an enormous toll. Sure, there are a lot of neat technologies (like Google) that we find useful even though we're not willing to pay for them. Outfits like Facebook are interesting to a lot of people as well but, again, most aren't willing to pay for it and Facebook, Twitter, et al don't employ very many people. There's only so much money to be made marketing things to people who are less and less able to afford them.
It's great that McD's hired a lot of people last month but entry-level jobs aren't what great civilizations are built on.
Jan '11
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
Mark Belling Fan
David Williamson: Unexpectedly!
09:23 am
...women and minorities hardest hit. · May 6 at 9:49am
Every time they say "unexpectedly" (i.e., every time they issue the report) they prove Hayek right. An economy is always going to be unexpected. We just can't possibly predict the outcome from the 300 million variables, um, excuse me, consumers who interact strategically every hour of every day, where every decision changes the environment for future decisions.
That's why the market works. The market is self-correcting knowledge.
Oct '10
Re: Unemployment Goes ... Up?
unless obama is able to re-create the california effect on the rest of the country in 2012