Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Max Keiser: Unemployment numbers are 'propaganda' + 2.2 Million Go On Disability Since Mid-2010
The first Friday of every month new US jobs numbers are released. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, America's unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent in April. Non-farm employers added 115,000 jobs, but at the same time 342,000 people left the labor force. Max Keiser, host of The Keiser Report, joins us with his take.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.se/2012/05/22-million-go-on-disability-since-mid.html
2.2 Million Go On Disability Since Mid-2010; Fraud Explains Falling Unemployment Rate; Will Higher Disability Taxes Fix the Problem?
Since mid-2010, precisely the time millions of US citizens used up all of their 99 week of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million. Those on disability are not counted in the workforce and are not considered unemployed.
Please consider Disabled Americans Shrink Size of U.S. Labor Force
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-03/disabled-americans-shrink-size-of-u-s-labor-force.html
The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.
The participation rate -- the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one -- was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year. “How we measure and understand what’s going on in the economy can be influenced by the degree to which various public- support programs are available and being used,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York. “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower participation rates.”
More than 99 percent of all SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program until retirement age, David Greenlaw, a managing director in New York at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a March research note, citing government data. The program provides an average of $1,111 in monthly income to eligible workers with a physical or mental impairment that will last at least 12 months or result in death, according to Social Security. Unemployment insurance requires that applicants search for job opportunities, while disability insurance requires they be unable to work.
Lax Screening Procedures
Less-stringent screening procedures, more attractive benefits and a waning need for less-skilled workers have bolstered SSDI rolls. In addition, “difficult-to-verify disorders,” including muscle pain and mental illness, more easily qualify for SSDI under program reforms, [David] Autor [economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology] wrote in a 2011 paper. Based on current trends, 7 percent of the nonelderly adult population could be receiving disability benefits by 2018, Richard Burkhauser and Mary Daly wrote in the spring issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. That’s two years after the SSDI program will run through its trust fund, according to an April report by the Social Security trustees. Costs Increase
Costs Increase
Costs have increased with the rolls: The program spent $132 billion last year, more than twice as much as in 2000.
The participation rate -- the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one -- was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year. “How we measure and understand what’s going on in the economy can be influenced by the degree to which various public- support programs are available and being used,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York. “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower participation rates.”
More than 99 percent of all SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program until retirement age, David Greenlaw, a managing director in New York at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a March research note, citing government data. The program provides an average of $1,111 in monthly income to eligible workers with a physical or mental impairment that will last at least 12 months or result in death, according to Social Security. Unemployment insurance requires that applicants search for job opportunities, while disability insurance requires they be unable to work.
Lax Screening Procedures
Less-stringent screening procedures, more attractive benefits and a waning need for less-skilled workers have bolstered SSDI rolls. In addition, “difficult-to-verify disorders,” including muscle pain and mental illness, more easily qualify for SSDI under program reforms, [David] Autor [economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology] wrote in a 2011 paper. Based on current trends, 7 percent of the nonelderly adult population could be receiving disability benefits by 2018, Richard Burkhauser and Mary Daly wrote in the spring issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. That’s two years after the SSDI program will run through its trust fund, according to an April report by the Social Security trustees. Costs Increase
Costs Increase
Costs have increased with the rolls: The program spent $132 billion last year, more than twice as much as in 2000.
snip
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/02/news/economy/income-debt-inequality/index.htm?source=Patrick.net&source=cnn_bin
Debt inequality is the new income inequality
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The rich are getting richer, and everyone else is going deeper into debt trying to keep up. The bottom 95% of Americans have seen debt levels balloon compared to their earnings over the past 20 years or so, as falling incomes made them more dependent on credit to maintain their lifestyles.
snip
The debt divide is a result of the growing income gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else. The top 5% saw their share of total income rise to 34% in 2007, up from 22% in 1983. This excludes capital gains, which pump up the income of the rich even more since they are more likely to invest. The wealthy had so much extra money lying around that they channeled it back into the financial system, making more credit available to the rest of the nation.
"Rich people have more money to play with and there are only so many Armani suits they can buy. So they can lend money back to the majority," said Michael Kumhof, deputy division chief at the IMF who co-authored the report. Other Americans "are trying to maintain standards of living." As their wages dropped, some Americans were forced to take on more debt just to stay in place, according to Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Clinton who has written about income inequality.
With credit easier to come by, they financed their spending by taking out home equity loans or refinancing their houses. They also took out more auto and student loans and ran up their credit card balances. "The only way they could continue to purchase what they need was to go deeper into debt," said Reich, now a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
snip
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Nice added broad brush attack with the 'pro-birther' smear, btw. 
CNBC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. Hmmmm, they sure do seem to be not only cheerleaders for the corporate/bankster line of 'reality'. Also, in terms of real world financial messages, they have all been tragically, devastatingly wrong.
RT, Deutsche Welle, France24, Press TV, and other non-US controlled news networks have been much more accurate.
