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You can blame yourself for this. In the history of this nation, there has never been a time when the news media so corrupted and compromised its integrity for the sake of a president and his ideals. Your profession has become a joke and both sides of the political spectrum know it.
I know, right. Just look at how the media completely tore George W. Bush to shreds in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. Talk about a double standard.
Tampa isn't on the list? This city had a 12.5% unemployment rate in 2010 and now a 7.5%(I think). Things are doing so much better here. Construction has returned to the city. At one point it was so bad that potholes in major roads weren't even getting filled.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nature's message
Tampa is on there, but the OP just included the largest metro areas. The area has a 6.9% unemployment rate.
Just as an FYI, the Tampa MSA is the 18th largest in the US so probably should have been with that many mentions.
The unemployment rate as it is currently calculated is a pretty naive way to measure unemployment. It has been gamed to death by government bureaucrats to mask the real decay in the economy.
The real statistics tell a completely different story.
These articles are backed by the government's own Workforce Participation Rates, which have cratered since 2009 and continue to do so. We haven't seen numbers this low since the days of the Carter administration:
Not to get all political here, because I don't support either party. But it's pretty evident to all but the most partisan that the current administration has completely and utterly failed to create jobs growth. The economy continues to shed full-time jobs at a staggering rate -- 5.9 million since Obama took the oath of office in 2009.
There are a host of reasons for that, but the central one is the incompetency of the Obama administration. Hey, Bush redefined incompetency, but I really don't understand the free pass this president is getting. Five years into his administration and he's accumulating a rather breathtaking track record for actually retarding economic growth, not creating it.
You realize that this is an administration that has failed to provide the country with a budget in five years? It is the administration that created an enormous stimulus package in 2009, one that only served to expand government rather than pump money into the economy. Instead of providing a more solid foundation for business in this country to succeed, the Obama administration instead chose to devote its political capital to creating Obamacare, an incredibly complex, unworkable plan that will likely increase healthcare costs rather than diminish them. Even Democrats in Congress are now using terms such as "trainwreck" to describe it. Businesses still have no idea how Obamacare will affect them and the 20% of the American economy that is healthcare is in absolute turmoil. And, as a result, GDP growth remains just a notch above stall speed. Nobody wants to invest long-term because no one literally knows what's going to happen next. And uncertainty is like poison to a business.
Until this administration -- or any administration, for that matter -- truly works to create policy that inspires long-term investment, it will be more of the same. Here's an excellent article that expresses the issue far better than I could:
In short, can we dispense with the mindless happy talk? The statistics you cite border on fraudulent and actually distract the public's attention from the deep structural changes that need to happen in the economy for it to grow again.
The unemployment rate as it is currently calculated is a pretty naive way to measure unemployment. It has been gamed to death by government bureaucrats to mask the real decay in the economy.
The real statistics tell a completely different story.
Not to get all political here, because I don't support either party. But it's pretty evident to all but the most partisan that the current administration has completely and utterly failed to create jobs growth. The economy continues to shed full-time jobs at a staggering rate.
There are a host of reasons for that, but the central one is the incompetency of the Obama administration. You realize that this is an administration that has failed to provide the country with a budget in five years? It is the administration that created an enormous stimulus package in 2009, one that only served to expand government rather than pump money into the economy. Instead of providing a more solid foundation for business in this country to succeed, the Obama administration instead chose to devote its political capital to creating Obamacare, an incredibly complex, unworkable plan that will likely increase healthcare costs rather than diminish them. Businesses still have no idea how Obamacare will affect them and the 20% of the American economy that is healthcare is in absolute turmoil.
In short, can we dispense with the mindless happy talk? The statistics you cite border on fraudulent and actually distract the public's attention from the deep structural changes that need to happen in the economy for it to grow again.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cream Man
Thanks again for the information Montclair.
I'm curious to know if the people going off unemployment found jobs or if the unemployment benefits simply ran out? Anyway to find this info out?
Or does these figures factor in underemployment? Or those that have permanently dropped out of the workforce? Or those that have moved from unemployment to disability benefits? Disability benefits have more than tripled over the last three decades.
We all know the answer to this. It sure doesn't feel or look like its dropping
It does where I live- lots and lots of hiring going on, some places can't even find enough qualified workers and have had to recruit outside of the metro area, people I know are making decisions between multiple job offers, stores/shopping malls are always jam packed, regular people are buying houses to the point that new developments are sold out before construction is completed.
Once I saw the initial post, I was waiting for this response. I feel like we've reached a point in our society, thanks to political polarization and the Internet/TV news echo chamber, where it's not permissible to express optimism toward the direction of the country.
I work for a news website and we ran a poll on our homepage the other day asking users if the economy is improving where they live. Around 70 percent said no. Now, is the economy where it should be? I don't think so. Is it improving quickly enough? That's debatable. But I think it's an indisputable fact that it's improving -- I don't think that's a matter of opinion at all. I told our managing editor that the unemployment rate could drop to 3 percent and we could put that poll up every day for the next 10 years, and we'd get the same result every time: 30 percent yes, 70 percent no.
I went out to eat Tuesday night -- historically a slow restaurant night -- at one of the many new restaurants in my neighborhood. It was packed, and we had to settle for a smaller table than we needed. A few years ago, it felt like a third of the storefronts on the main shopping drag were vacant. In 2013 three gastropubs have opened within half a mile of my apartment in the past month. I questioned the business sense of their owners, opening the same thing that everyone else seems to be opening -- but what do I know, all of them have been full every time I walk past.
Inadvertently, you have articulated everything that is wrong with journalism today: Lazy, agenda-driven, and too enamored of political power to ask hard and difficult questions. All you had to do is watch the 'interview' conducted by 60 Minutes of Clinton and Obama. The softballs they threw out bordered on dereliction of duty.
Have you seen the Workforce Participation Rate? It is lower than it has been in 31 years. Economic beat writers will tell you that the Unemployment Rate is next to useless in comparison to the Workforce Participation Rate. THAT is why 70% of the respondents on your website felt that things weren't getting better. Instead of digging deep and trying to understand why your respondents felt the way they did, you decide to sell your editors on the premise that the respondents were ignoring reality -- using some pat, ginned-up theory that talk radio is to blame. I'm thinking it's your reality that is skewed, not theirs.
More than 15 million full-time jobs have disappeared from the workforce since 2000. Think about the enormity of that number. 15,000,000. And the Workforce Participation Rate continues to plunge, even accelerating its decline over the past couple of years. And yet you have the nerve to accuse the American public of ignoring facts? Maybe you should leave the insular world of your newsroom and take a look at the real world these people are experiencing. Sure, a lot of those people who lost full-time jobs are earning money by either cobbling together part-time work or consulting or taking a cut in pay somewhere else. But it's not the same thing as having a steady paycheck you can rely on from month to month.
And then you dredge up the most hoary of anecdotes, namely that a restaurant you visited was full. First, anecdotes are not the same as facts. Second, restaurants can actually benefit during hard economic times, because those feeling the financial pinch will use a nice meal in a restaurant as a way to splurge rather than spending the money on a vacation or a new house or anything else.
So do your job as a journalist. Dig deeper into the economic numbers and prepare to be shocked. Realize that we're in a Depression. For while a Recession is essentially a price adjustment, a Depression is a balance sheet adjustment. It takes far longer to remedy, and it's much less likely to be fixed when the real issues are papered over by misleading statistics, as well as credulous reporters who don't bother to check the facts.
Only when the UE rate hits zero percent will the President have earned the right to declare "Mission Accomplished" and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Inadvertently, you have articulated everything that is wrong with journalism today: Lazy, agenda-driven, and too enamored of political power to ask hard and difficult questions. All you had to do is watch the 'interview' conducted by 60 Minutes of Clinton and Obama. The softballs they threw out bordered on dereliction of duty.
Have you seen the Workforce Participation Rate? It is lower than it has been in 31 years. Economic beat writers will tell you that the Unemployment Rate is next to useless in comparison to the Workforce Participation Rate. THAT is why 70% of the respondents on your website felt that things weren't getting better. Instead of digging deep and trying to understand why your respondents felt the way they did, you decide to sell your editors on the premise that the respondents were ignoring reality -- using some pat, ginned-up theory that talk radio is to blame. I'm thinking it's your reality that is skewed, not theirs.
More than 15 million full-time jobs have disappeared from the workforce since 2000. Think about the enormity of that number. 15,000,000. And the Workforce Participation Rate continues to plunge, even accelerating its decline over the past couple of years. And yet you have the nerve to accuse the American public of ignoring facts? Maybe you should leave the insular world of your newsroom and take a look at the real world these people are experiencing. Sure, a lot of those people who lost full-time jobs are earning money by either cobbling together part-time work or consulting or taking a cut in pay somewhere else. But it's not the same thing as having a steady paycheck you can rely on from month to month.
And then you dredge up the most hoary of anecdotes, namely that a restaurant you visited was full. First, anecdotes are not the same as facts. Second, restaurants can actually benefit during hard economic times, because those feeling the financial pinch will use a nice meal in a restaurant as a way to splurge rather than spending the money on a vacation or a new house or anything else.
So do your job as a journalist. Dig deeper into the economic numbers and prepare to be shocked. Realize that we're in a Depression. For while a Recession is essentially a price adjustment, a Depression is a balance sheet adjustment. It takes far longer to remedy, and it's much less likely to be fixed when the real issues are papered over by misleading statistics, as well as credulous reporters who don't bother to check the facts.
Though things are not back to where we would like them to be, in no way can we call this a depression, or even a recession anymore. Sure there are still some people that are struggling to find meaningful employment, but in almost every city things are better than they were 2 or 3 years ago. More jobs, more hiring, evidence of improvement by more stores/restaurants/other businesses opening and lots of new retail, corporate, and residential construction, etc. Again that doesn't mean everything is perfect or that we are where we need to be, but we are definitely in a big upswing, the evidence is all around us!
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Exactly! Corporate media has been terrible for decades now.