Annie
Diamond Member
- Nov 22, 2003
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We can banter all day long on this....the only thing I can see that's changed in the last 3 months was that Congress was taken over by the republicans. Perception on the direction of the economy may have changed in the last election. Just sayin....
Well the private sector has been creating jobs for over a year now.
Just sayin...
And the civilian labor force has shrunk by 489K while the Civilian Population has increased by over 1.8M. A year ago, the labor force participation rate was 64.9%; now it is 64.2%.
If we had the same participation rate as a year ago, unemployment would be:
Civilian Population: 239.0M
Labor Force 155.1M @ 64.9% participation rate
Labor Force 153.4M @ actual participation rate
Net increase 1.7M
Official Unempl. 13.5M
Adj. Unempl. 15.2M
Adjusted U3 Unemployment rate = 9.8%
THE ONLY REASON WHY UNEMPLOYMENT HAS FALLEN IS BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE NO LONGER BEING COUNTED AS UNEMPLOYED BECAUSE THEY HAVE GIVEN UP LOOKING FOR WORK.
Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted
Total Employed 139.9M
Sounds about right. In spite of all the 'good news' stories, and those where the 'unexpected' bad news cannot be ignored stories, the consumer confidence numbers indicate that the people are getting it. They are not quite ready to lay the blame on Obama, but then again it's not election time. Considering his oil speech, he may be in for much more trouble than any of us can imagine:
Stephen Hayward: The Secret to Brazil's Energy Success - WSJ.com
He's just not serious.