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Old 02-05-2012, 03:39 PM
 
Location: Pluto's Home Town
9,982 posts, read 13,732,686 times
Reputation: 5689

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Tons of retirements may be playing into this. The boomers are leaving in droves with the stock market back up, especially government employees.

It is a blessing and a curse. Unemployment is going down, but retirement payments will be kicking in big time.
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Old 02-05-2012, 08:20 PM
 
Location: Charlotte, NC (in my mind)
7,943 posts, read 17,217,328 times
Reputation: 4686
Quote:
Originally Posted by freightshaker View Post
You will be amazed at the number that will come into this thread and try to sell the governments statistics as factual...
Anybody who tries to say this is an improving economy is politically motivated. Sure the stock market is up but for the average American there has been no improvement whatsoever. Real unemployment is still above 15% and countless millions more are underemployed. For most Americans the recession is still going on even though the government said it ended 2 and a half years ago.
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Old 02-06-2012, 07:54 AM
 
Location: Ohio
24,623 posts, read 19,105,746 times
Reputation: 21738
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smash255 View Post
A key part of the reason the labor force has declined is the age brackets that traditionally have a larger portion of those who aren't in the labor force have increased at a higher proportion than others. Primarily those 55-64 (boomers) and those 16-24.
The labor force has not declined, rather it has increased. The labor force are those over over age 16 seeking employment. In general, you have an average 115,000 new entrants every month, and another 35,000 returning entrants to the labor force, ~150,000.

I use unadjusted data, because there's no logic to seasonally adjusting data, and because seasonally adjusting skews the data.

The population 16 years and older is 242,269,000

88,784,000 Americans are not in the labor force for whatever reason, whether retired, home-makers, at school, in hospital, no desire to work, or are totally and completely discouraged and have given up.

The civilian labor force is the difference between the population and and those not in the labor force.

242,269,000
-88,784,000
------------
153,485,000 in labor force

139,944,000 Americans are employed.

The unemployed are the difference between the labor force and the employed:

153,485,000
139,944,000
------------
13,541,000

The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed divided by the number of employed or:

9.68% (the government claims a lower rate due to, um, "seasonal adjustment")

The labor participation rate is the labor force divided by the population or:

63.4%

The employment to population ratio is the number employed divided by the population or:

57.8%

Some comparisons:

Employment-to-Population Ratio

January 1999: 63.5%
January 2012: 57.8%

Highest level: 64.9% June 2000

Labor Participation Rate

January 1999: 66.7%
January 2012: 63.4%

Highest level: 67.7% June 2000

Unemployment Rate

January 1999: 5.03%
January 2012: 9.68%

Lowest Level: 3.75% October 2000
Highest Level: 11.8% January 2010

That's straight from the BLS website.

---The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 415,094 in the week ending January 28, a decrease of 1,786 from the previous week. There were 464,775 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.
---

That is from DOL's web-site, and as you can see, not much difference between this year and last year.

What you can see is that your population has steadily increased, while your employment-to-population ratio and labor participation rate have steadily decreased.

The last time your unemployment rate was below 9% was December 2008 when it was 7.67%.

Over the last 49 months (January 2009 through January 2012) your unemployment rate was lowest at 9.02% and highest at 11.8%.

Assuming no changes in the labor participation rate then:

175,000 jobs per month for 206 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in April of 2029.

200,000 jobs per month for 100 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in June 2020.

225,000 jobs per month for 70 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in December 2017.

250,000 jobs per month for 55 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 4.97% in September 2016.

In reviewing the CBO report, they are of the opinion that the end of the FICA tax holiday, coupled with rising property and sales taxes and the ignoble end of the Bush Tax Cuts will limit both job and economic growth for the next several years.

If the FICA tax holiday did come into play at all, you'll know in about 90 days (right around May/June).

Not adjusting...

Mircea
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Old 02-06-2012, 07:58 AM
 
Location: Florida
77,012 posts, read 47,481,489 times
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There is nothing faudulent in the nation adding 243,000 jobs.

The labour force losses were mostly from retiring baby-boomers, and that will continue to happen no matter what.
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Old 02-06-2012, 08:01 AM
 
29,409 posts, read 21,967,571 times
Reputation: 5455
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea View Post
Because you very obviously still don't get it.

You can spin it until you're blue in the face, but it does not alter the fact that your labor participation rate has declined from 67.3% to its present 63.7% over the last several years.

In plain ordinary no-spin, no Orwellian English, your labor force has declined by 5.4 Million, and whatever adjustments BLS made or didn't make doesn't alter that reality.

Another way of saying that is 5.4 Million Americans are permanently and forever unemployed just as I told you would happen 5 years ago.

And as I have been saying for the last year or so, I'm projecting a final labor participation rate of 62.8% when all is said and done.

No doubt you fail to grasp the graveness of the situation or the serious consequences that have arisen because of it.

The actuarial estimates made by Social Security and Medicare pertaining to the future solvency of those programs were predicated on a labor participation rate of 66.5% which you no longer have.

That means your economy will now grow at the predicted rates, and that neither Social Security nor Medicare will gain the revenues they projected they would to remain solvent, which will hasten the collapse of both programs.

It's so sad that you don't understand that, and sadder still that you are unable to set aside your political ideology for even one brief second to realize that you are hopelessly and utterly screwed.

Debunking the spin...


Mircea
Don't worry the kick the can down the road philosophy will still permeate all levels of government. When it finally goes boom it will all be Bush's fault.
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Old 02-06-2012, 08:04 AM
 
23,838 posts, read 23,082,097 times
Reputation: 9408
I always learn something from Mircea's posts.

I'm not an economist (by far, and don't pretend to be), but it's easy for me to see that the government does indeed gloss over the numbers for political purposes.

Good thread.
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Old 02-06-2012, 08:05 AM
 
29,409 posts, read 21,967,571 times
Reputation: 5455
"175,000 jobs per month for 206 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in April of 2029.

200,000 jobs per month for 100 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in June 2020.

225,000 jobs per month for 70 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in December 2017.

250,000 jobs per month for 55 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 4.97% in September 2016."

Those are some pretty harsh numbers to swallow. And here we had the left back in the middle of the '00's screaming at the moon how horrible it was having 5% unemployment. One can only borrow from the future for so long. They have been for way to long. Only way out of this mess is to revamp soc security and medicare but the can kicking is the only thing they know.
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Old 02-06-2012, 08:15 AM
 
Location: Dallas, TX
31,767 posts, read 28,767,183 times
Reputation: 12341
Quote:
Originally Posted by KUchief25 View Post
"175,000 jobs per month for 206 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in April of 2029.

200,000 jobs per month for 100 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in June 2020.

225,000 jobs per month for 70 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 5.00% in December 2017.

250,000 jobs per month for 55 consecutive months will reduce unemployment to 4.97% in September 2016."

Those are some pretty harsh numbers to swallow. And here we had the left back in the middle of the '00's screaming at the moon how horrible it was having 5% unemployment. One can only borrow from the future for so long. They have been for way to long. Only way out of this mess is to revamp soc security and medicare but the can kicking is the only thing they know.
And that is a direct outcome of...
1- Nearly 9 million private sectors being lost during a recession.
2- Negative job growth in private sector between Jan 2001 and Jul 2009, 4million jobs lost (beginning of one recession through end of the next).

This, while civilian labor force grew by over 10 million (and population by 10%).
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Old 02-06-2012, 08:21 AM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,321,515 times
Reputation: 27718
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiddlehead View Post
Tons of retirements may be playing into this. The boomers are leaving in droves with the stock market back up, especially government employees.

It is a blessing and a curse. Unemployment is going down, but retirement payments will be kicking in big time.
16-24 are not boomers.
55 and older..didn't we just read that the boomers can't afford to retire ?

These are the two groups that got the participation rate lowered.
The BLS didn't say why, just that these 2 groups have a lower participation rate and when these groups increase than the rate goes down.

From what I've been reading the 55 and older crowd are getting layed off and can't seem to find comparable jobs. Those 62 and older are just giving up and going for SS.
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Old 02-06-2012, 08:27 AM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,321,515 times
Reputation: 27718
Some folks here are just coming to the conclusion that those 1.2 million that disappeared "just retired".

That's your opinion. There is no data to back that up.
I went to the SS site to see if the number of SS beneficiaries went up drastically over the past month.
Guess what...I can only find monthly SSI data. SS only comes out with a yearly report

But 16-24 is not retirement age and the BLS used that in their lower percent.
Yet we read how the 16-24 group is impacted the most because they can't find jobs because adults who cannot retire are taking those jobs.

Then you read food stamp usage hits a new record high each month.

Individually, each report makes sense. But when you put the reports all together and look at the big picture..IT MAKES NO LOGICAL SENSE
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