From George Ure.......... Let's see if we follow the the Whopper, shall we? If you believe the administration, there were 112,000 new jobs created in January. Now, this is pretty interesting because a lot of spoon-feeders (pseudo-economists) didn't even question the rise in construction jobs when the weather was some of the worst in recent memory - and the retail jobs increase looked suspicious because there was virtually no hiring at Christmas. The "cleansed" version of the story is being found on places like: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAYRU2CCQD.html. But hole on a minute. Without even commenting on Democrats pointing out that 90,000 people per week are falling off the government's nose count, let's look at the OFFICIAL numbers contained in the Alternative Measures of Unemployment table at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm which shows that unemployment this year is 10.9% - statistically a dead heat with last January's 11% reading. Within margins of error. Want a simple prediction? Look for the BLS to come under heavy-handed pressure from the Bushocrats who obviusly don't want numbers like this 10.9% measurement getting out to the public. How do they fix it? A couple of ways: 1) Don't be surprised if we don't see some personnel changes at BLS and 2) don't be resurprised if between now and election day we don't see somne sudden "revisions" of the "alternatrive measures" table to spruce up the numbers so they will look a little prettier than the crap coming in now. Of course that won't change anything, and worse, Kerry is just another Yale secret club crony wrapped up in new marketing gear, but regardless of who leads in the polls, the BLS numbers are pointing at the emperor's clothing...
Pity, I would appreciate you being one of those 2 million desperate peoples who have families, mortgages, leases, car payments, children and expenses of child care, and bills to pay, not to mention health concerns and elderly parents. Only to realize that the last check ran out and the extention checks ran out also. Jobless Recovery, 4 Years of this stupidity from the WH Tax credits to employers who off-shore previous US Jobs... Pity, you see all that as the worker's fault.
Ure missed it. Because of 911 the seasonal adjustments have screwed things up during this time of year. The adjustments do this to the numbers: Dec= bad; Jan = good.
Oh come on now. I mean we are lucky enough to even be given 1600 a month by the state for 6 months. Nowdays, you get a year easy without even any serious checking. I know cause I was on unemployment for almost 9 months. They extended my benefits automatically and I only had to go in for one 5 minute meeting. Look there are jobs out there. Jobs that pay more than 400 a week. Anywhere from the service industry to retail, the jobs are out there. Become a nurse, it's in serious demand and it is excellent pay. Get into hospital work, they are always hiring. Look, it sucks to have many quality jobs exported out of US to the East. But stop blaming the White House and blame the CEOs that are making these decisions because they want an even bigger bonus. And if you want to blame the government, blame Bill Clinton and his promotion of globalization and the strong dollar. The unemployment benefits programs have been very generous in the last few years. I would bet that 80% of the claimants just collect and chill out or work for cash. Anyone that I knew on unemployment did just that. The excuse was that jobs were not just coming their way, which is true. But if those benefits did not exist, they would have found a job long time ago.
Sluggish Job Growth May Threaten Recovery Sunday February 8, 11:33 AM EST By Andrea Hopkins WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Another month of disappointing job growth in America has sown a seed of worry among analysts that the fragile economic rebound may not be strong enough to last. For months now, economists have been forecasting an improvement in employment. Each month, they've been disappointed, and the news from January was no different. While 112,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent -- the lowest in two years -- forecasters, traders and economists had been expecting much better. Most had hoped to see payrolls jump by 150,000, with the more optimistic estimating gains of 300,000. "It's just flat-out disappointing. We're just not creating many jobs," said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics in California. He worries the sluggish employment growth could eat into consumer confidence just as the economic recovery begins to gather steam -- undermining the shopping strength that helped pull America out of the recession. "Unless there is more job creation and faster wage growth, it is difficult to see how real consumer spending, (which makes up) 70 percent of the economy, can continue to sustain strong economic growth," Wood said. Healthy 4 percent GDP growth in the final quarter of 2003 and sizzling 8.2 percent growth the previous quarter had spurred hopes that real hiring was just around the corner. President Bush promised summer tax cuts would ease unemployment, which looms as a key issue in the November elections. Democrats blame Bush's economic policies for the loss of 2.2 million jobs since he took office. BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A JOB? For five months in a row, the economy has eked out employment gains -- but the pace is well below the 150,000 new jobs economists believe are needed each month just to keep up with population growth, and jobless Americans are desperate. "I'd be prepared to work in a warehouse, I'd be prepared to do assembly work," said Donald Thomas, a 46-year-old unemployed marketing and client relations consultant who has been looking for work since being laid off in July 2002. "I'm at the point now where quite frankly I might consider just managing a Walgreen's store after midnight. I need to get back in the work force," the Chuluota, Florida, resident said. But Thomas knows just getting his foot in the door of a new industry is daunting -- especially since his most recent retail experience was when he was 19. Employers also have a hard time believing he's willing to take a low-paying job after earning $100,000 a year as an independent contractor. "I'm considered well-overqualified for positions I'd be willing to take, and don't have enough credentials in other positions," he said. Even those who still count themselves among the employed in America are struggling to make ends meet. Self-employed computer programmer Thomas Mooney -- who bills himself as the "president/janitor" of his Minneapolis company, TeleProc -- said he cannot last much longer with so little work in an industry that was once booming. "I'm barely employed -- no income yet this year," Mooney said. "I have $7,000 in future prospect business and that is all I know about for the rest of the year." Mooney, a 52-year-old father of two teenage boys, is convinced the job market is even bleaker than official figures suggest, since he and other idled independent contractors do not collect unemployment benefits and thus are never counted among the unemployed. "If I had to put a label on myself, it would be 'severely underemployed,"' he said. "And the market is still getting worse rather than better, as far as I can see."