Economic View: A Growing Force of Non-Workers

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/business/yourmoney/18view.html?pagewanted=all

. . .

IF President Bush was correct when he asserted recently that the economy was strong and getting stronger, why are so many people not only out of work but also not looking for jobs?

Mr. Bush noted with evident relief that the nation had added 1.5 million jobs since last August. Senator John Kerry and his supporters complain that the country still has about a million fewer jobs than when Mr. Bush took office.

But neither statement captures properly the shortfall of jobs that has built up over the last three years. An accurate estimate is not one million but four million, and possibly higher.

Consider just one figure. Since June 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of adults considered "not in the labor force" - those who don't have jobs and are not looking for them - has grown by about 4.4 million, to 66.6 million.

. . .

[NMDemDist2]

1. grown from 4 million to 66 million

16 times as many people???

is that a typo?

[unblock]

2. reread it: BY, not FROM

[TahitiNut]

3. "by about 4.4 million, to 66.6 million" that's FROM 62.2 million

The press is notorious for its inability to convert arithmetic to prose.

[NMDemDist2]

4. oh ok, i misread thanks for the clarification eom

[TahitiNut]

5. I figure we've fallen about 7-8 million private jobs behind since 2000.

What jobs remain are paying less, losing 1.3% in just the last 12 months.

[mhr]

8. Labor Utilization Rate At Roughly 60% - Correct Me If I Am Wrong

That's like saying you have a factory that has 40 % slack capacity!

In other words, 40 % of the able bodied adult workers are not being used productively.

That my friends is a pretty sad commentary on the economy and * policies.

[TahitiNut]

11. "Labor Utilization" and "Capacity Utilization" are different things

While one can measure Labor Utilization as the percentage of the non-institutional adults between the ages of 16 and 65 that are employed, it's meaningful only in the context of some historical trend.

Capacity Utilization is a measure of a business' productive capacity and varies significantly by industry.

The two, of course, are interrelated.

This is where the mythology of "supply-side" is most apparent. When capacity utilization is low, it's obvious that additional investments in productive capacity aren't an issue. Yet this is what the obsessive supply-siders imply. What tends to reinforce the myth, however, is that additional investment capital typically finds its way to the equities markets causing a 'greater fool' increment in equities. When simpleton supply-siders then extol a rise in equities as "proof" of economic gains, they're doing so on the basis of 'greater fool' meringue. Just a light rain washes it all away.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. If one could only organize these people.

A lot of the chronically unemployed just give up. At least that's what the wrong ring is hoping.

[TahitiNut]

10. "organize these people"?

Wouldn't it be nice if that was called "government"? :silly:

[Geo55]

7. stop yer bitchin'

"Mr. Bush noted with evident relief that the nation had added 1.5 million jobs since last August"


WHAT'S A MATTER ? "MANUFACTURING 'BURGERS IS A FINE PROFESSION !

[punpirate]

12. And a fair number of those 1.5 million...

... are utterly fictional, based on how the BLS calculates from its birth/death model.

The number of new jobs cannot go up more than the number of people entering the job market for the first time (school graduates, immigrants) per month minus the number of people leaving the work force per month. If the number of new jobs go up beyond that, the figure is unreal, because there aren't enough real people to make the equation work.

On edit, I should say that one also has to add in the currently counted unemployed (not working, but still in the work force).

What's interesting is that from current monthly figures available, 1.5 million jobs over the cited roughly 10 months, that works out to an average of 150,000 jobs per month. This is the estimated figure required to account for the number of new workers entering the job market, just to keep unemployment stable. So, to have made up for the early and progressive job losses in the Bush administration, about 4.1 million jobs would have to have been created, just to break even, considering the entry of new workers.

[TahitiNut]

13. Let's dispel some myths.

The Bush/Cheney Coprocepahlic Cabal is basing the claim of "1.5 million new jobs" on the seasonally-adjusted employment figures between August 2003 (at which point they'd lost 2.7 million jobs since March 2001) and June 2004.

First: If employment merely grew at an average rate from August 2003 through June 2004, there'd be 653,000 more "new jobs" in June 2004 than reported! Thus, even after losing more jobs than the 17-month Reagan/Bush debacle of Jul'81-Dec'82, employment hasn't even recovered at an average rate. In ten months, they underperformed average employment growth by more than 30% -- and then try to call it a "success." (LIARS!)

Next: The FACT remains that there were 1,206,000 fewer people employed in June 2004 than there were in March 2001.

Last: If employment merely grew at an average rate from March 2001 through June 2004, there'd be 10,038,000 more "new jobs" in June 2004 than reported!!


More than TEN MILLION workers are being denied the opportunity to earn an income by these corrupt bastards!

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Important article -- could have page-oned; but Times did run as lead story

in the last couple of days the disparity between wages and rising prices.

[struggle4progress]

14. It's easy to get the BLS statistics and it's worth playing with them:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsatabs.htm

Compare (for example) the Labor Force, the Unemployed, and the Not in the Labor Force numbers for the last three Clinton years (1998-2000) with the first three Bush years (2001-2003).

Under Clinton (1998-2000), the Labor Force grew on average by about 1.63 million annually, the Unemployed fell on average by about 172 thousand annually, and the number of workers Not in the Labor Force grew by about 815 thousand annually.

Under Bush (2001-2003), the Labor Force grew on average by 925 thousand annually, the Unemployed grew on average by about 657 thousand annually, and the number of workers Not in the Labor Force fell by about 1.099 million annually.

So the so-called Labor Force was growing faster under Clinton than under Bush; reported Unemployment was falling under Clinton, but rising under Bush; and the number of adults not counted as workers at all for these statistics has been increasing about 35% faster annually under Bush than under Clinton.


Data from BLS (all in thousands):

Labor Force
1998 137673
1999 139368
2000 142583
2001 143734
2002 144863
2003 146510

Unemployed
1998 6210
1999 5880
2000 5692
2001 6801
2002 8378
2003 8774

Not in Labor Force
1998 67547
1999 68385
2000 69994
2001 71359
2002 72707
2003 74658

[Southsideirish]

15. This is what fueled the Dean campaign - everyone I met was

unemployed!