Shovel ready, baby.
From CNS news.
11.4 million Americans age 16 and over have left the workforce since President Obama took office in January 2009, according to data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In July 2014, there were 92,001,000 Americans, 16 and over, who were classified as “not in the labor force,” meaning they not only did not have a job, but they didn’t actively seek one in the last four weeks.
This number has increased by 11,472,000 since January 2009, when the number of Americans not in the labor force was 80,529,000.
The number of Americans not in the labor force dropped slightly in July, down 119,000 from the 92,120,000 Americans not in the labor force in June.
The participation rate, which measures the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population that participated in the labor force by either having a job or actively seeking one, increased from 62.8 percent in June to 62.9 percent in July.
The real unemployment rate is 12.2%.
That number is probably inaccurate. In other words, it’s underestimated. According to a Wall Street Journal economist:
Unemployment has never been measured very accurately . Calculations do not count those who have just entered the labor force and haven’t found a job yet, who have been searching for employment so long they have given up the search , who work part time but are actively seeking full-time work and who are actively seeking employment but were not included in the monthly jobs survey.
Unemployment in its truest definition, meaning the portion of people who do not have any job, is 37.2%. This number obviously includes some people who are not or never plan to seek employment. But it does describe how many people are not able to, do not want to or cannot find a way to work.
……So how could our stock market be at such record highs while so many are unemployed? Given current government policies, it is specifically by avoiding U.S. workers that companies are keeping their profits strong. Obamacare punishes large companies for each full-time worker and provides strong incentives for small businesses to stay below 50 full-time-equivalent employees.Automation and outsourcing are making U.S. companies more profitable at the expense of U.S. employment.
Inflation, the other half of the misery index, assists stock prices as well. Every month, the Federal Reserve has been injecting $85 billion into the money supply. This devaluation of the currency causes inflation that naturally pushes all prices, including stock prices, higher.
The broadest measure of inflation is the Consumer Price Index. But since 1997, the government has manipulated the raw data and significantly underreported inflation.
……These tricks, along with a host of other dubious accounting schemes, underreport inflation by about 3%. Today, inflation is officially 1.24%. According to Shadow Stats , which computes the old way, it is closer to 4.5%. Think of that 4.5% of actual inflation as a tax on anyone who is storing their money in dollars. And since 1997 that 3% annual underreporting has had the effect of cutting Social Security benefits by a cumulative 40%.
Today, the misery index would be 7.54 using official numbers. Using Shierholz’s measurement including discouraged workers (10.2%) and the historical method of calculating inflation (4.5%), the current misery index is closer to 14.7, worse even than during the Ford administration.
The Feds under report the actual numbers. If they tallied everyone working only part time, those who stopped looking for work, and those still looking, the numbers would be dismal.
Between ObamaCare and the rest of his domestic socialist disasters, this is one more example of his epic fail.
Enjoy the next 2 1/2 years.