RSSLiberals Giddy Over Perceived Good News
J.J. Jackson | August 10, 2010
Any time I get a couple emails from liberals with nearly the exact same wording of a specific talking point I know that someone is feeding them what to say. Last week, while I was on vacation, the talking point appears to be that the 71,000 net jobs gained by private companies means that the recovery is well underway and the Obamanomics, the policy of tax and bailout, has worked.
Of course, this is not the first time liberals have tried this line of attack on our stagnant economy. The typical cycle goes like this. A slew of bad news is interrupted by some singular piece of good news, or at least perceived good news when taken out of context. This leads to claims that everything is getting better and how great President Obama is. I get lots of emails telling me how it is all over for the “right wing” and that socialism has been proven to be the great savior of America. Quickly however more and more bad news comes out and quickly overwhelms this singular tidbit, the giddy emails cease and the country continues on in misery.
Here is why that report about 71,000 new private sector jobs is a piece of news taken out of context to make it sound like good news. Just look at the overall numbers to see why we are in deep doo-doo. I will used the “seasonally adjusted” data in this article because that is what is being touted when they talk about the unemployment rate hanging steady at 9.5%. Personally I think the “seasonally adjusted” numbers are just a way to massage the raw data and hide true numbers. For example, if you look at the raw, seasonally unadjusted numbers for the past month the unemployment rate rose from 9.6% in June to 9.7% in July. Incidentally that is the same as it was a year ago. Incidentally incidentally the true unemployment rate including under employed souls is nearly twice this percentage.
Now, let’s look at why that 71,000 new private sector jobs are nothing to get excited about. In fact they very well could be a blip and I guarantee you that they have nothing to do with Obamanomics. Here are the seasonally adjusted numbers for the civilian labor force (source Department of Labor http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm )
| Employment status, sex, and age | Seasonally adjusted(1) | |||||
| July | Mar. | Apr. | May | June | July | |
| 2009 | 2010 | 2010 | 2010 | 2010 | 2010 | |
| Civilian noninstitutional population | 235,870 | 237,159 | 237,329 | 237,499 | 237,690 | 237,890 |
| Civilian labor force | 154,351 | 153,910 | 154,715 | 154,393 | 153,741 | 153,560 |
| Participation rate | 65.4 | 64.9 | 65.2 | 65.0 | 64.7 | 64.6 |
| Employed | 139,817 | 138,905 | 139,455 | 139,420 | 139,119 | 138,960 |
| Employment-population ratio | 59.3 | 58.6 | 58.8 | 58.7 | 58.5 | 58.4 |
| Unemployed | 14,534 | 15,005 | 15,260 | 14,973 | 14,623 | 14,599 |
| Unemployment rate | 9.4 | 9.7 | 9.9 | 9.7 | 9.5 | 9.5 |
| Not in labor force | 81,519 | 83,249 | 82,614 | 83,107 | 83,949 | 84,330 |
| Persons who currently want a job | 5,978 | 6,044 | 5,951 | 5,734 | 5,895 | 5,886 |
In July of 2010 the government was shedding Census jobs like the plague. Some 200,000 total government workers went of which about 130,000 were Census workers. Now look at the numbers from July 2009 to July 2010. We are 791,000 workers less than a year ago and out noninstitutional population is up 2,020,000 in the same time (see above chart).
This all translates to an employment ratio nearly a whole percentage point lower than a year ago and even one tenth of a percent lower than in June.
Lots of people are simply, giving up looking for work. That is the only reason the numbers, cooked as they are, look as good as they do. The number of people who “want a job” is also down from a year ago after being at just over 6,000,000 in March of this year.
Is any of this good news? Heck no!
And if you think that 71,000 private sector jobs is a “good sign” that President Obama’s misplaced and highly unconstitutional economic actions are working then you need to think again. To just get back to the number of jobs we had a year ago we would need 11 months of this anemic growth. And that is, might I remind you, just to get back to a year ago. To get back to two or three years ago? Well, you do the math on that.
Now let the giddiness subside.
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