We Went From 7.8% to 4.7% Under Obama

[MI2AZ]

It's the end of an era: The last jobs report that falls fully under President Obama's tenure was issued on Friday, and he'll hand President-elect Donald Trump an economy that boasts a 4.7% unemployment rate. That's a tick up from November's 4.6%, and was expected by economists. The rate stood at 7.8% at Obama's inauguration, and peaked at 10% under his watch. Fewer jobs were added than expected for the month, at 156,000 to the 183,000 the Wall Street Journal had forecast. One rosy note: Hourly pay jumped 2.9% from a year earlier, the biggest increase in more than seven years. The AP sees that as a positive sign that the low unemployment rate is forcing businesses to offer higher wages to attract and keep workers.

Sluggish growth in Americans' paychecks has been a longstanding weak spot in the seven-year recovery. For all of 2016, job growth averaged 180,000 a month, down from 229,000 in 2015, but enough to lower unemployment over time. The Journal reports the labor force participation rate has barely budged in a year, with December's 62.7% up only slightly from 62.4% a year prior. That the rate—which indicates how many Americans who can and want to work are working—"remains well below its peaks during better economic times ... [is] a sign that the economy doesn't have enough bodies working to produce strong economic growth," writes Paul Vigna.

.

 

[Greg T.]

Yeah, I love that. The unemployment rate drops but yet, a record number of people are out of work.

 

[AlwaysWrite]

No matter how you look at it logically, the monthly unemployment figures released to the American public are misleading, despite the "celebrating" by the lamestream media and the Obama administration about how unemployment is down.

The statistics released monthly to the public don't include the millions of people who say they want a job but aren't even looking, and they don't include the millions whose work is limited to part-time status even though they preferred full-time work.

The truth of the matter is that if those discouraged would-be workers and current part-timers were actually counted as unemployed, the (actual) rate would soar well into double-digits. Nobody is telling the public that if someone is unemployed and has given up looking for a job, the Department of Labor doesn't count them as unemployed.

Indeed, a person can be as unemployed as can possibly be -- even to the point of not ever being able to find work again -- but not be counted in the figures trumpeted in the lamestream media, currently at 4.7%. At this point in time, tens of millions of Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed, but you can be assured that they aren't celebrating the "falling" unemployment figures.

There are many other reasons why the announced rate is misleading. For example, an unemployed engineer, retail manager or engineer who performs a minimum of one hour of work (in any capacity) a week and is paid $20 or more isn't officially "counted" as unemployed. And those working part-time but wanting full-time work, even if they're only working 10 or 20 hours a week, the government doesn't count them in arriving at the 4.7% figure.

One part of the American dream "equation" is to have a good job, and in recent years, that dream hasn't been delivered. And because the official unemployment rate overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed or underemployed, the announced figures are grossly misleading, if not totally false.

 

[WAMO]

THEY ARE JUST TRYING TO MAKE OBAMA LOOK AS GOOD AS THEY CAN ON HIS WAY OUT.