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Posts Tagged ‘unemployment’
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:32 am
Image of the New Year: Biden Brags About Job Gains, But They’ve Continually Slowed Under Him
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The Biden Administration and its advocates insist that the economy is flourishing, often citing the job market.  According to the federal government’s own numbers, however, job gains have slowed since Biden entered the White House:

Job Gains Have Slowed Under Biden

Job Gains Have Slowed Under Biden

 

January 10th, 2022 at 10:11 am
Image of the Day: Biden, Pelosi and Schumer Faceplanted On Jobs in 2021
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On the heels of Friday’s unsettling jobs report from the Labor Department, we can now judge the performance and promises of Joe Biden and the Pelosi/Schumer Congress against actual reality.  They promised 10.3 million jobs would be created in 2021 if their massive spending and regulation blowout passed, versus 6.3 million jobs if their agenda wasn’t passed.  So how did it turn out?  Their agenda was passed, but only 6.1 million jobs were created as the U.S. economy slowed and struggled to recover from the Covid dip, as AEI’s Matt Weidinger highlights.  They apparently made things worse, not better, illustrating the sardonic adage, “Don’t just do something – stand there.”

Biden Jobs Performance: Worse Than Doing Nothing

Biden Jobs Performance: Worse Than Doing Nothing

 

November 22nd, 2021 at 8:10 am
Nebraska Just Posted the Lowest Unemployment Ever Recorded. Guess Why.
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In some impressive and instructive news, the state of Nebraska just claimed the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.  The likely reason shouldn’t surprise anyone:

 

Nebraska’s jobless rate tends to run below the national rate. Economists cite a combination of factors that have kept joblessness in the state well below the U.S. average from the onset of the pandemic. Nebraska had fewer government-imposed restrictions on business, helping it avoid steep job losses some states experienced earlier in the pandemic.”

 

At some point, perhaps other more stubbornly leftist states will catch on before every one of their residents and businesses flees to more economically hospitable states with fewer regulations, lower taxes and less government generally.  But don’t hold your breath just yet.

June 4th, 2021 at 10:17 am
Image of the Day: Another Disappointing Jobs Report Under Biden, and an Increasingly Likely Explanation
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This morning brought yet another disappointing monthly jobs report from the Labor Department.  While the Biden Administration continues to blindly insist that potential employees sitting on the sidelines because of cushy government unemployment payouts aren’t the problem, the people who actually hire people in order to continue their operations seem to recognize a different story.  Over 9 in 10 say that worker shortages are weighing them down – far and away their biggest problem.  We know the workers are out there, but they’re not taking the available jobs.

 

March 29th, 2021 at 9:46 am
Image of the Day: Guess Which States Boast Lower Unemployment Rates?
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From economist and friend Stephen Moore, the latest inconvenient truth:

South Dakota tops the list again at 2.9% unemployment – exactly the same as where it was 12 months ago. The only states with Democratic governors in the top 10 – Kansas and Wisconsin – had Republican legislatures and courts that blocked school closures and lockdown orders. And the same basket case lockdown states are at the bottom – California, New York, Hawaii – barely recovering still.”

Guess Which States Excel

Guess Which States Excel

February 8th, 2021 at 12:53 pm
Image of the Day: On Leftist Policies and Unemployment, the Song Remains the Same
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We often highlight how Barack Obama didn’t end the 2008-09 recession or “prevent the next depression” (despite incessant uninformed assertion to the contrary), but instead captained the worst post-recession “recovery” in U.S. history.  As helpfully illustrated by economist Steve Moore, that just continues the longstanding record of leftist economic failure:

 

 

New Deal Debacle

New Deal Debacle

 

 

January 29th, 2021 at 10:28 am
Image of the Day: On Unemployment, “Red” States Outperform More Pro-Lockdown “Blue” States
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As they say in the legal field, “res ipsa loquitur” – the fact speaks for itself.  From our friend and economist Stephen Moore’s blog:

 

“Red” States Outpace “Blue” States

November 12th, 2020 at 11:49 am
Images of the Day: Unemployment Claims Plummeted Faster After $600 Checks Expired
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As the nation debates continuing coronavirus stimulus, AEI offers an eye-opening analysis:  Unemployment claims plummeted and the employment picture improved much faster after those $600 checks expired, reestablishing that while we always want to help those who cannot help themselves, government payouts can sometimes reduce incentives and ability to return to the workforce.  And this doesn’t even reflect remarkably positive employment reports released by the government since the end dates:

 

Unemployment Claimes Dropped

Continuing Unemployment Claims Dropped

 

 

 

 

Initial Unemployment Claimes Dropped

Initial Unemployment Claims Dropped

September 25th, 2020 at 10:05 am
Image(s) of the Day: The Obama/Biden Jobs “Recovery” Versus Trump’s
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From our friends at AEI, a wonderful capture of the difference between the Obama/Biden jobs “recovery,” which was the worst in recorded U.S. history (as the graph shows, they promised that unemployment wouldn’t surpass 8% under their wasteful spending “stimulus,” but instead it exceeded 8% for a record uninterrupted stretch), versus the sharp recovery under President Trump:

The Obama/Biden Jobs

The Obama/Biden Jobs “Recovery”

 

 

 

The Trump Actual Jobs Recovery

The Trump Actual Jobs Recovery

March 6th, 2020 at 8:46 am
Breaking: Incredible U.S. Jobs Growth in February
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This is incredible.  Amid the coronavirus scare and economic malaise across the rest of the world, the Labor Department reports that job growth in the U.S. exceeded expectations by 100,000 in February:

Nonfarm payrolls grew far more than expected in February as companies continued to hire amid a growing coronavirus scare.  The Labor Department reported Friday that the U.S. economy added 273,000 new jobs during the month, while the unemployment rate was 3.5%.  Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for payroll growth of 175,000 and a 3.5% jobless level.  Average hourly earnings grew by 3% over the past year, in line with estimates.”

Although the effects of the coronavirus create uncertainty going forward, the Trump Bump has continued.

February 14th, 2020 at 10:06 am
Image of the Day: Economy Even Better Than We Realized
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Americans already expressed record satisfaction on economic conditions in the U.S., over three years into President Trump’s tenure.  Turns out that things are even better than we initially realized, as employment data from the end of 2019 was just significantly updated:

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Even Better Than Initially Realized

Even Better Than First Realized

 

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June 14th, 2019 at 2:30 pm
Image of the Day: Gallup Poll on Americans’ View of Job Market Hits All-Time Record
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In our Liberty Update commentary entitled “No, Scandinavia Doesn’t Vindicate Socialism” this week, we rightly ridicule admitted socialist Bernie Sanders, including his odd claim that “we now have an economy that is fundamentally broke and grotesquely unfair.”  Well, as this Gallup survey illustrates, he’s swimming upstream against American public opinion.  Specifically, in a survey that Gallup has conducted periodically since 2001, the public’s view of the job market has now hit an all-time record high:

Sorry, Socialists

Sorry, Socialists

 

Perhaps this helps explain why Sanders has suddenly plummeted in 2020 Democratic candidate surveys, although one wonders how long people like Elizabeth Warren can avoid the same fate.

January 28th, 2019 at 3:06 pm
Image of the Day: New Jobless Claims Plummeting
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Last week, new jobless claims fell below the milestone 200,000 level, and to the lowest point since the 1960s (when the labor force was significantly smaller).   In this chart, note also the steep drop starting in 2017 with the tax-cutting and deregulatory agenda that arrived with the Trump Administration, after the number of new claims had plateaued toward the end of the Obama Administration:

Jobless Claims Plummet

Jobless Claims Plummet

 

 

July 6th, 2018 at 1:17 pm
Latest Jobs Report: 600,000 Americans Come Off the Sidelines and Get In the Game
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Today brought yet another impressive U.S. employment report from the Labor Department, with an unexpectedly high 213,000 new jobs added in the month of June (versus the expected 195,000).

But the report includes a particularly impressive number after nearly a decade of people just giving up on working during the Obama era malaise.  Over 600,000 Americans decided that the market is so hot that they got off the sidelines and entered the game:

The increase in the unemployment rate came due to a rise in the labor force participation rate, which increased 0.2 percentage points to 62.9 percent as 601,000 people came off the sidelines and re-entered the labor force.”

Continuing the sports analogy, The Wall Street Journal notes that what we’re witnessing is a different kind of ballgame under the Trump Administration than the unprecedented economic sluggishness that characterized the Obama “expansion”:

Steady hiring and low unemployment shows the labor market continues to be an area of strength for the economy since the recession ended nine years ago.  What might be different now is that other aspects appear to be picking up steam.  Some economists project economic output rose at better than 4% annually in the second quarter for the first time since 2014.

Rising consumer spending, manufacturing output and exports are expected to have contributed to the gain, set to be officially reported later this month.  If sustained, that would be a turn from much of the expansion in which hiring has been consistent, but growth has been sluggish, holding near a 2% annual rate.  One explanation is wages.  Even though Americans were finding jobs, scant raises left them with little room in their budgets to step up spending.”

It’s amazing what an economic agenda of tax cuts and deregulation can do for an economic cycle that was supposedly on weary legs and amid an era of “secular stagnation” when solid growth was a thing of the past.

March 12th, 2018 at 10:26 am
Image of the Day: Unemployment Down, Manufacturing Jobs Accelerate Since 2016
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From the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM):

[T]he latest jobs numbers confirm that the labor market has tightened significantly, with manufacturers increasing employment by a rather robust 18,876 per month on average since the end of 2016.  That is quite a turnaround from the sluggish job growth in 2016, and it is a sign that firms have continued to accelerate their hiring as the economic outlook has strengthened and demand and production have improved considerably.  Indeed, manufacturers have told us that challenges in recruiting new workers is their primary business concern right now.”

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Manufacturing Jobs Up, Unemployment Down

Manufacturing Jobs Up, Unemployment Down

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April 3rd, 2015 at 10:10 am
Jobs Report: Worst “Recovery” in U.S. History Continues Under Obama
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As we’ve noted on multiple occasions, the cyclical economic recovery under Barack Obama is objectively the worst in recorded U.S. history.  Recessions and recoveries come and go, but never have we suffered one with declining median incomes, such low economic growth or this level of employment sluggishness.

Unfortunately, today’s unemployment report brought additional bad news and only serves to further cement Obama’s disastrous legacy.  Economists expected 250,000 new jobs for the month of March, but we only saw 126,000, the lowest since 2013:

The 126,000 increase was weaker than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey, and followed a 264,000 gain a month earlier that was smaller than initially reported, the Labor Department in Washington said.  The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 245,000 advance.

‘There’s really no way to sugarcoat this.  This is a soft print all the way around, no matter how you slice it,’ said Omair Sharif, rate sales strategist at Newedge USA LLC in New York.  ‘It seems that it’s corroborating that the U.S. definitely hit a soft patch in the first quarter.'”

Making matters even worse, the labor participation rate continued it’s decline to 62.7%, the lowest since 1978, before women fully entered the U.S. workforce.

The unprecedented weakness of the economy under Obama establishes the backwardness of his policies.  Although he and his supporters remain unwilling to internalize the obvious lesson that lower taxes and less federal regulation lead to a stronger economy, the American electorate fortunately maintains the opportunity to do so as 2016 brings the opportunity to select new leadership.

January 9th, 2015 at 10:00 am
Bittersweet Jobs Report: Wages Decline and Labor Force Participation Rate Falls to 37-Year Low
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Today’s Labor Department unemployment report contains a fresh round of ominous news beyond the headline numbers.

Specifically, the labor participation rate fell to a new 37-year low, which is particularly negative news because women hadn’t yet fully entered the U.S. workforce during that previous 1970s low.  Additionally, wages continued their decline:

Businesses had been creating jobs at a monthly pace of 224,000, though wage growth remained modest and the drop in the headline rate had come in large part due to a decline in the labor force participation rate.  Indeed, the participation rate continued to plummet, falling to a fresh 37-year low of 62.7 percent.  Job quality did not fare well either, with wages actually declining for the month by 5 cents an hour, pulling the annualized gain down to 1.7 percent.”

That annualized gain doesn’t substantively exceed inflation, and since the last recession ended almost six years ago in 2009, median U.S. income has actually declined.  That is unprecedented for a supposed post-recession “recovery,” and Americans continue to simply drop out of the workforce.  Something to keep prominently in mind when Barack Obama trumpets his supposed economic success.

February 6th, 2014 at 2:48 pm
An Idle Generation
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Following on Ashton’s post below (many of the themes of which appear in my column for this week), it’s crucial to note that the hazards presented by Obamacare’s incentives for lower-income Americans to stay out of the workforce are compounding a pre-existing problem. As noted by Mark Peters and David Wessel in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

More than one in six men ages 25 to 54, prime working years, don’t have jobs—a total of 10.4 million. Some are looking for jobs; many aren’t…

… The trend has been building for decades, according to government data. In the early 1970s, just 6% of American men ages 25 to 54 were without jobs. By late 2007, it was 13%. In 2009, during the worst of the recession, nearly 20% didn’t have jobs.

To the crisis amongst men, we can add the crisis amongst youth. As noted earlier in the week by Zara Kessler at Bloomberg:

According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, 36 percent of the country’s 18- to 31-year-olds were living in their parents’ homes in 2012 — the highest proportion in at least 40 years. That number is inflated because college students residing in dorms were counted as living at home (in addition to those actually living at home while going to school). Still, 16 percent of 25- to 31-year-olds were crashing with mom and pop — up from about 14 percent in 2007 and 10 percent in 1968. In a Pew survey conducted in December 2011, 34 percent of adults aged 25 to 29 said that due to economic conditions they’d moved back home in recent years after having lived on their own.

Every trend line is pointing in the wrong direction. Yes, there are structural issues (technology, offshoring) that complicate the employment picture, but free markets generally resolve such issues given enough time. Markets can’t resolve, however, the pathologies imposed on the economy by government — whether Obamacare’s perverse incentives or the consistently anti-growth policies of the White House.

If nothing changes, the upshot will be the Europeanization of the American economy: fewer workers toiling to support a growing class of government beneficiaries.

Future generations may note the irony of Mitt Romney being so thoroughly pilloried during the 2012 election for his infamous 47 percent comment. While you can quibble with the statistics, the underlying theme is correct: we’re headed towards an economy with fewer makers and more takers. Changing that trajectory will be the responsibility of the next president — and it won’t be an easy one.

January 10th, 2014 at 9:57 am
The Obama Malaise Continues: Shockingly Dismal New Jobs Report
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Nearly half a decade has passed since the last recession ended in June 2009.  Unfortunately, this morning’s monthly jobs report from the Labor Department sent another alarming signal that the worst recovery in recorded U.S. history continues.  That is directly attributable to the destructive economic policies of the Obama Administration, and changes must be made, lest we stall into an entirely new recession.

According to the Labor Department, the economy added a shockingly low 74,000 jobs in December.  That is the lowest total in three years, and it fell 126,000 jobs short of the consensus expectation of 200,000 or more (which was economists’ highest predicted number in several months).  Nobody foresaw that tiny job creation number.  Even more alarming, the labor participation rate (meaning the percentage of all Americans actually choosing to participate in the workforce) fell again to 62.8%, the lowest number since 1978.  That is significant because that was before women had more fully entered the workforce.

The Obama Administration and its apologists may attempt to cite the decline in the overall unemployment rate to 6.7%, but that is not the result of an improving economy or labor market, but rather because some 374,000 additional Americans simply dropped out of the workforce and stopped searching for jobs.  Moreover, the Administration assured us back in January 2009 that the rate would be down to its pre-recession level of 5% by now under its wasteful trillion-dollar “stimulus.”

This sharp slowdown is simply the latest evidence that we haven’t “turned the corner” as Obama has been telling us since as far back as 2010.  Rather, we’re going in circles.  Until we return to the policies of lower taxes, less regulation and smaller government that create jobs and economic growth, that will continue.  The numbers prove that beyond any rational doubt at this point.  The answer isn’t more unemployment checks, but putting America back to work.

August 20th, 2013 at 10:40 am
Fact of the Day: Unemployment Rose in Most States Last Month
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In this fifth year of the worst economic recovery in our recorded history under Obama, the situation just isn’t improving like it should, or like it has in every previous recovery.  The latest manifestation of that fact came yesterday, when the Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate rose in 28 states plus the District of Columbia last month, and only fell in 8 states.

As we noted earlier this month, 240,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month while only 160,000 jobs were created.  Moreover, today there are 2 million fewer Americans working than in 2008, even though our overall population has increased by 13 million during that period.  The last recession ended over four years ago in June 2009, which is more than enough time to conclusively demonstrate the failure of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi economic agenda of higher taxes, more regulation, wasteful spending and record deficits.