When the most recent unemployment numbers came out they had an aroma about them that spoke of being over cooked. While apathy still reigns in a vast number of Americans on such things as appointing extremists to the Supreme Court, or allowing Bush to wiretap our phones, the public remains realisticly pessimistic about the economy. I found those numbers that said that unemployment has dropped sounded like a lot of bull so I started poking around.
Oh, that’s just the beginning…
How many new jobs have been created over the past five years and one month? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest revisions, a total of 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs were created over the past 61 months (January 2001 through January 2006). Add the total net government jobs created over the period for a total net job creation of 2,093,000 jobs over the past 61 months.
That figure is 7,057,000 jobs short of keeping up with population growth!
What about manufacturing jobs? Well apparently there were 7,000 created in January, but total number of jobs is 48,000 less in ’06 than in January ’05. Manufacturing engineering jobs have been bleeding out since 2001.
Here’s the real kicker. January’s official unemployment rates are supposedly at 4.7%… most economists consider an unemployment rate of 4.7% to be FULL EMPLOYMENT!!!
Bush’s recovery is so anemic it’s hard to find:
Wages are up by the smallest amount in 9 years, people in this country are saving at the same rate as during the Great Depression, and the more jobs that are lost, the more Bush claims the opposite.
The only ones benefitting from this economy are the corporations and the rich. On top of that, consider that more and more people are falling below the poverty line. That means that more and more families are qualifying for government programs… those very same programs that Bush wants to cut or eliminate. More and more families are loosing their homes, their jobs, their lives. How many of these families will end up homeless because of Bush’s economic disaster? Could eventually be millions.
Bush wants you to believe that the US is currently at “Full Employment”. He wants you to believe that housekeeping jobs and flinging burgers for poverty wages and no benefits are dream jobs. The US economy is just another Big Lie. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of being lied to, abused and used by Bush. Where the hell is the media on this? Oh, I forgot, they’re all licking Bush’s soiled boots. This is population abuse.
Job Disinformation From The New York Times
Leading Conservative attacks Bush on economy
Economic Policy Institute graph on jobless recovery.
Home forclosures are creeping up in North Carolina, California, Massachusetts, Texas, and everywhere else. The ownership society, my ass.
Here’s a link to download pdf file “Missing Inaction:
Evidence of Undercounting of Non-Workers
in the Current Population Survey,” which is a great rundown on how the numbers are cooked beyond recognition. Thanks to Kamakhya, who reminded me of this report.
This has been simmering inside me for a while. I never felt qualified to write a diary about economics. When I began to poke and search, however, I found a mountain of evidence that even I could understand. The bottom line is that Bush’s economy is just another lie. The redistribution of America’s wealth to corporate America and rich America is tragic.
I heard a bit of information last week on Thom Hartman’s radio show and cannot find a link. As well as I can remember, it goes like this: before Bush, the top 1% of the population owned a little over 40% of corporate wealth… now, under Bush, that number is more like 56%. Dear God, and they STILL are not satisfied.
This is another reason to be angry at the media… they are fully complicit in this lie. If I can find the disparities, why can’t all the cheerleading economists and reporters?
Polls indicate that average Joe and Jane American know full well how bad this economy is… and they know that we are all fucked.
Because, thanks to Michael Powell, the top 1% of the population owns the vast majority of the media in this country. The reporters either go along with the lie or lose their jobs and perhaps even get in an “accident”. The most compliant of the reporters get “visitor admission” to the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous.
Looking at various unemployment rates, actual “employment” rates (% of people 16-65 employed).
It dovetails nicely with your diary.
forgot the http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/1/9/124017/2072 link
Checked out your diary… I had totally missed it. Good work… I love all the graphs. Thanks for the link. I haven’t heard of the BLS-U6 before. I can see why the government would ignore those numbers.
Saw a couple of the comments on Dkos, sorry I missed it earlier, the “Unemployment” rates (U1-U6) are created from the Current Population Survey if you go to the BLS.gov site, somewhere they have a description of the methodology.
Excellent diary. We need to keep on calling this manipulation of basic data for what it is wherever we find it so people won’t mistakenly trust it. See some examples from the interaction of the Bushcorp world with the world of science over in my news dump into today’s news bucket. Welcome to the USSR.
The good news is that by not trusting the truth and by issuing lies in their reports they’re driving blindfolded, and will eventually run off the road or into a bridge abutment. The bad news is that we’re the kids in the back seat along for the ride.
“The bad news is that we’re the kids in the back seat along for the ride.”
…and none of us are wearing seatbelts.
Of course not! Mandatory seat belt laws are sooo a part of that whole paternalistic government thing the Bushistas saved us from, LOL.
“Mommy, I’m scared! Daddy’s driving funny and he has that glazed look in his eyes again!”
“It’s OK honey, I forgot my Bible, but I did bring daddy favorite book along so I can read that to you – My Pet Goat.”
I recently read an interesting take on this on AlterNet, iirc, which basically stated that the census data was also manipulated in such a manner that there was at least 1.4% more unemployed than reported. It went on to note how the Bush Admin routinely manipulates and obscures governmental data, which we are all aware of. BushCo are masters at data manipulation making all governmental reports seriously suspect.
Thanks, Kamakhya, for reminding me where that report came from. I have it in pdf, but could not remember for the life of me where I downloaded it from. I’m off to locate the link.
The other thing that’s going on is “underemployment” and taking folks off the payroll, then re-hiring them as free-lancers on an hrly basis (without benefits, of course).
That’s what’s been going on in this household for the past 5 yrs: Hubby used to have nice cushy job. I was the freelancer , and was included in his health care plan. Everything was fine.
then came BushCo.
After 25 yrs in the biz, hubby was laid off. Has since been hired back as freelance. Income is pretty much back where it was, but health insurance is now prohibitive–neither of us has any at all. Also, no security whatsoever. If the contracts quit coming (for either of us), we could be at ZERO tomorrow.
And we are amongst those who are “doing well.” Hmmm.
Great diary, Nag. I am proud of you for bringing this to our attention. As you have mentioned, we are aware of the lying going on. I, too, am amazed that the media is not picking up on this, but then again, who owns the media!!???
Hugs and thanks again for your hard work in this.
Thanks, Brenda. My question about the media and economists was purely snark… I know who owns the media. I heard this morning that the FCC just lost someone and gained another crony. That means that Republicans are now the majority they will be soon be trying to screw with the media rules even more. So, the media will probably get worse, if that’s possible.
I just crossposted this at DKos
http://tinyurl.com/a97an If there was any doubt(not that there was)in my mind that the economy might be recovering-hahah-this article shows what a complete crock of shit bush is trying to tell us.
This is a link to an article in Chicago paper from Jan. 26th stating that job applications for a new Wal-Mart opening there which had 325 job openings attracted—24,500 fucken applications…that’s almost unbelievable…and shows how gdamn desperate people are.
Just let that sink in for a minute-TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED people applied for 325 jobs.
That many people desperate for a job that isn’t even a livable wage job…This particular story has stayed in my mind the last few weeks not because I was particularly shocked but it only confirmed my worst fears about the whole economy outlook in this country..which I find extremely scary and very depressing.
I’ve been saying almost since the time bush took office that he was going to run the country into the ground economically and we would end up quite literally with another ‘Great Depression’…I think it’s already here or if not completely noticeable to all the economy under bush is on an irreversible path to Great Depression. This time with no plan by the government to do anything to lift people out of the Depression.
Very good diary Nag…and one we could only wish the MSM would fucken cover instead of there gdamn stock market updates. I don’t even know why I bother to rail about MSM anymore..there isn’t much point.
Do you think we could get Olberman interested in your diary..it’s very concise and to the point along with the Wal-Mart story.
One other thing…the comments section here on my computer have blown the right hand margins..anyone else having that problem?
24,500 fucken applications.
Would be interesting to know how many of those applicants had college degrees (remember the blather from the debates about how we just have to see to it that all those people at the bottom get degrees from community colleges….that’ll fix things? Yeah right, C-student from Yale, would you be satisfied sending your kids to community college?).
I ramble …. but the point, and what I’m wondering: who is applying for these jobs?
Professionals who have long since lost their jobs and are now so desperate they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel? (I know quite a few people in this category, at least one with an MA, most with BA at the very least; fortunately don’t know of any PhD’s who are that desperate–oooooops, yes I do).
They say that we have a shortage of engineers and other professionals… bullshit. They fell off the unemployment rolls and are applying at Walmart. Now they’re overqualified.
Yep.
But even when they apply to “real” jobs, they are “overqualified”–that is, end up having to compete w fresh out of school young upstarts willing to work for peanuts.
Or H1Bs or outsourced labour that not only works for peanuts, but has no labour protections.
I’d be very interested in that breakdown also. And I would be willing to bet that there were people with those education levels applying.
I know there are.
The social worker who basically saved my live 20 yrs ago (MA, social work) is currently working at fucking walmart. It breaks my heart to see.
She’d been in her job for yrs and yrs. Got downsized by bushco budget cuts. She was in her late 50s. Just ‘young’ enough not to be eligible for retirement and just old enough to not have a shot in hell at any job anywhere, except walmart.
If my better half were in any sort of social service field, i’m sure he’d have been in the same boat.
My job went to China (at 1/12th of what I was being paid) just before my 59th birthday. Several hundred resumes later with only two responses, I realized that my age was against me. Fortunately, we had enough savings and live close enough to the bone that we were able to coast and early social security kicked in at the end of last year. Major medical at close to $400 a month is the real kick in the teeth and it doesn’t cover anything like meds or office calls – but hopefully if anything dire happens it will protect us from losing the house and our IRAs.
I heard about that as well, and it stuck in my craw. (um, what’s a craw, anyway?) In the diary I crossposted at DKos, Politboro has been arguing with me that the numbers are most definetly not cooked. He/she says that they are what they are, and the disparity comes when Bush decides to just use certain numbers to skew the message. Man, that may be, but I can’t believe that the numbers aren’t manipulated in some way.
My husband is the head mortgage guy at a local bank and says that another indicator is that new construction seems to be very deflated this year. They’re going to keep feeding us this crap right until we’re all flushed. Current status of the US economy: circling the drain and picking up speed.
most of the 401K liberals over there are just as oblivious to the truth and in denial as Bushco.
As far as I know, unemployment stats only record the number of people registered unemployed (someone correct me if I’m wrong).
Most people who are chronically unemployed and therefore no longer registered as such are not included in the stats.
And again, there’s the business of the underemployed (i.e. advanced degrees working at Walmart).
Wouldn’t suprise me if only those collecting unemployment were counted.
You are right. There are many people who have given up on looking for work, or who have never found work to begin with, and they are not eligible for unemployment and do not count at all. We have thousands of them in Detroit, and will have more with the melt-down of the auto industry.
Origingally from Detroit–now live in the 8th District. Things are also rough out here. Now I am also wondering how those who are working 2 jobs to make ends meet are counted.
Oh, I can answer that: Fully Employed!
Should have known. Heard something else in conversation (unverifiable thru link that I know of):
Those in serving in Iraq are also counted as being employed!
You bet! They get a regular paycheck, they certainly are working full time, so they certainy are considered employed.
Why would anyone NOT believe bushco is cooking the books on these numbers?..they do on everything else or just make shit up.
Also as far as the employed at Wal-Mart go..most don’t work a 40 hour week..they are working but at poverty level wage and not even full time..so counting anyone working there definitely skewers the percentage anyway. McDonalds used to do the same thing..not have anyone work a full 40 hours a week.
The percentage is also an average throughout the country..so if some city has say 14% unemployment and another say 4% the stats are going to get rounded out. I remember reading for instance that Jessica Lynch’s hometown and area had something like a 14% unemployment rate and that is why so many from there end up in the military.
I’m wondering how the rates vary from state to state. Might be interesting.
I think most retail employers pull that 35 hour work week. That’s an age old trick. That way no one but upper management gets benefits. Ever.
Why, thank you!!! I have been seething about this for a long time.
Guerrilla News Network, 3.5 million people would have been classified as unemployed before the Bush Administration began “reclassifying unemployed workers” and they have been reclassified as “not seeking employment” and then a mysterious “seasonal adjustment” was also used that we didn’t use before the Bush Administration. If we still did the books the same old way the Clinton Administration did we would have an unemployment rate of 7% right now, but we don’t thank God.
Thank God that we’re at Full Employment. I’d really be worried if it was at 7%!!
Bush has been adjusting the numbers? Well, he can adjust this (gesturing wildly). 😉
Michigan’s unemployment rate in December was 6.7%. Since then Ford & GM have announced layoffs & plant closings. Then add in Delphi which is trying to void union contracts in bankruptcy court and cut wages up to 60%+. Every neighborhood around here (northern Detroit Metro area) is dotted with for sale signs and local small businesses are cutting back or going under. It isn’t a pretty picture.
I wonder if the States’ unemployment figures are any more accurate than the Fed? That is not a happy story. I wonder where people will go… what area is left in the country that isn’t hurting? (Maybe they should go to Calcutta… or Bangalore) When I googled the word “foreclosures”, I got hits, lots of hits. Nothing in the national media, of course, but lots of local articles from all over. It’s bad.
because of these two things – and how they’ve both increased alot recently, along with the continuation of a 30-year trend in decreased real wages – I don’t think the unemployment figures are anything more than a government fantasy. and the fact that even those numbers look grim when compared to population growth says a lot.
Man, I needed you over at Kos… I kept getting skewered for saying that the numbers are wrong. I kept getting lectured about how the people who do the figuring are honest and not political. It’s just that Bush picks and chooses the numbers that fit his lies. MMmmm… I don’t care how into statistics you are, a lie is a lie. If the process they use omits important data (like the underemployed and lapsed claims, then the resulting numbers are wrong. Period.
yeah, well, you won’t find me over there doing much other than trying not to get ban-innated for calling someone to remain nameless an agent provacateur.
and like BushCo doesn’t put pressure on whomever does the number-crunching. are any of those people appointments? i really have no idea but, like i say, this is not a new problem or one that is specifically about Bush.
According to the poster at Kos, no, there are no cronies involved. I take that with a grain of salt. Every other corner of Bush’s government is tainted with cronyism, why not the Bureau of Labor Statistics? It’s more probable than the idea that they are clean and upstanding, just misunderstood.
They’re right. The clerks problably don’t fudge the numbers. That’s to say that they follow the proscribed method for calculating the numbers rigorously.
The corruption comes in that the proscribed method for calculating the numbers is fudged all to hell.
And that sort of mindless pedantry is yet another reason why I don’t post to or read dKos anymore.
And if they are ever questioned by anyone, their answer is that is is not my job!