Big news of today is the
unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent for January. That’s the lowest it’s been
in three years and the White House, of course, is heralding this boost.
“Today’s employment report provides
further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic
downturn since the Great Depression,” said
Alan Krueger, President Obama’s top economic adviser.
And this, from the president
himself, in a public chide to Congress: “Don’t muck it up,” he
said. “Do not slow down the recovery.”
Else what? He won’t be re-elected?
What a travesty … but what’s even more of a travesty, is the back-slapping that’s
going ‘round about these job numbers. Here’s why: While 8.3 percent is better
economic news, the fact is the percent of Americans who are not actually in the
labor market jumped to a 30-year high, at 63.7 percent.
This
guy at Zero Hedge says it best: “A month ago, we joked when we said that
for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he as
to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55 percent. Looks
like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the
labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million.”
If would-be workers stop looking for
work, they’re not technically counted as unemployed. Good trick. At the same
time, the numbers of part-timers – those who work 35 hours per week or less --
in the work force continues to grow. According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the number of part-time workers between Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012
increased by nearly 700,000. That’s a heck of a jump. And surely, no sane
individual, to include politicians, could claim a healthy economy can sustain
itself with a thriving part-time labor force.
Is this what Obama’s calling on
Congress to preserve – to not “muck up?”
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