Archive for the ‘Employment – Jobs’ Category
January 26, 2022
… that is, when you take the 2.3 million who left the work force out of the calculation.
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Today, let’s take a 3rd whack at Biden’s economic bravado.
True, the unemployment rate is down to 3.9%.
And, that’s a big decline from the 14.7% unemployment rate during the most intense Covid lockdown period.
But, it’s still .4 percentage points higher than the 3.5% pre-Covid unemployment rate.
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And, the current unemployment rate is understated since about 2.3 million people have left the labor force … and aren’t counted in the unemployment rate calculation.
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Combining the current unemployment rate (3.9%) and the number of people who have left the workforce (2.3 million), current employment is only 149 million … about 3.6 million lower than pre-Covid employment.
Bottom line: To stay grounded when the statistical shells start moving, total employment is the number to focus on …
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Posted in Biden, Joe, Bidenomics, Economics, Employment - Jobs, Jobs - Unemployment | 1 Comment »
January 24, 2022
By Biden’s measure, Trump added 12 million in his last 6 months!
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In last week’s press conference, Biden boasted about his economic record.
Top of the list: Biden touted “record job creation” during his presidency.
He said, “We created 6 million new jobs — more jobs in one year than any time before.”
Hmm.
Let’s look at the numbers … focusing on “employment”…
> Before Covid hit 152.5 million were employed
> During the intense Covid lockdown period, employment dipped 22.4 million (14.7%) … down to 130.2 million
> Between the lockdown employment trough in May 2020 until Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 (i.e. Trump’s last 6 months in office), employment increased by 12.6 million (9.7%) to 142.7 million.
> From Biden’s inauguration until now, employment increased by 6.2 million (4.4%) to 149 million.
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“Job Creation” or “Ending Lockdowns”?
So, does the 6.2 million employment increase represent the “creation of new jobs” or “refilling old jobs” by removing the Covid lockdowns and re-opening the economy?
To that latter point, note that employment is still 3.7 million (2.3%) lower than the pre-Covid level (152.5 million).
Hmm.
Bottom line: We’re still 3.7 million below the pre-Covid employment level … and relatively few new jobs have been created … we’re just filling the pandemic hole.
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Biden vs. Trump
And, note again that in the 6 month period from the Covid trough until Biden’s inauguration, employment increased by 12.6 million.
Using Biden’s bogus logic and semantics, that means that Trump, during that period “added” jobs at an average rate of 2 million per month … 4 times Biden’s rate of 500,000 per month.
Hmm
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Takeaway
As even CNN observes:
Biden is free, of course, to boast about how quickly the hole is being filled.
But his claims about setting records should be viewed with contextual caution.
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Posted in Biden - gaffes & lies, Bidenomics, Economic indicators, Employment - Jobs, Jobs - Unemployment, Trump, President Donald J. | Leave a Comment »
February 15, 2018
One of the benefits of the current low unemployment rate is that many people who were previously working part-time “for economic reasons” (i.e. had their hours reduced to part-time status or couldn’t find a full-time job) are now employed full-time.
By the numbers …
Approximately 127 million workers are now employed full-time …. that’s an all-time high … up 16 million from the financial crisis low point … and up 5 million from the pre-crisis high.
Here’s the interesting part …
(more…)
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Posted in Economic indicators, Economy, Employment - Jobs, Health Care / Medical Insurance | Leave a Comment »
December 21, 2017
… and still, nobody seems to be talking about it.
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Now that the tax reform package is in the books, I should be elated, right?
But, I’m quite ambivalent.
On the plus side, I do think that the stock market will stay el fuego.
Selfishly speaking, that dwarfs all of the negatives.
But …
- Based on my calcs, I’m in the 20% of folks whose taxes are going up, not down. I’m thinking that I may be the only person who doesn’t reside in CA, NY and NJ whose taxes are going up. Ouch.
- Carried interest is alive and well. C’mon Donald, you promised. And please, don’t tell me that hedge funds and private equity are engines of growth. May be small potatoes re: tax revenue, but it’s what Rudy Giuliani would call a “broken window”.
- Are Google and Facebook really going to invest their tax savings here in the USA? I’m betting the under on that one. Wish the corporate tax benefits were tied more directly to employment levels.
And. my biggest concern is the long-run tilt in voting dynamics. Tax cuts will no longer have any campaign whallop.
Why?
Remember Mitt Romneys ill-timed observation about “47% of Americans”.
No, they weren’t deplorables, they were simply the folks who pay no Federal income taxes.
Well if the GOP tax plan goes through, the 47% will be be alive .. and well … and growing.
Source
Let’s start with some data…
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Tax burden, Tax reform, Taxes | 1 Comment »
November 21, 2017
Rather, double the corporate tax deduction for workers’ wages earned the U.S. workers.
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Let’s start with an interesting analysis from Nate Silver’s 535.com titled Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back
“It’s understandable that voters in 2016 were angry about trade. The U.S. has lost more than 4.5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA took effect in 1994. And, there’s mounting evidence that U.S. trade policy, particularly with China, has caused lasting harm to many American workers.”
“Manufacturing in particular embodies something that seems to be disappearing in today’s economy: jobs with decent pay and benefits available to workers without a college degree are vanishing. The average factory worker earns more than $25 an hour before overtime; the typical retail worker makes less than $18 an hour.”
“In 1994 there were 3.5 million more Americans working in manufacturing than in retail. Today, those numbers have almost exactly reversed, and the gap is widening. More than 80 percent of all private jobs are now in the service sector.”
=======
How can that be? Aren’t we hearing a lot about “re-shoring” and foreign capital investing in U.S. based manufacturing plants?
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Manufacturing, Re-shoring, Tax reform, Taxes | 3 Comments »
October 9, 2017
“Flooding the zone” to land the best & brightest.
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Now that Amazon has staked out territory the grocery business, it’s time for them to move on to another front.
According to the WSJ: “Another Thing Amazon Is Disrupting: Business-School Recruiting”
Let’s put that in perspective:
In the past year, Amazon has hired some 1,000 newly minted M.B.A.s in the past year
Amazon is now the top MBA recruiter at Carnegie Mellon, Duke and Cal-Berkeley.
It hires the most first-year M.B.A.s at Michigan, MIT, Dartmouth College and Duke.
Last year, Amazon took in more interns from the University of Chicago than either Bain or McKinsey & Co., which were until recently the school’s top hirers of interns.
How do they do it?
(more…)
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Posted in Amazon, Employment - Jobs, MBAs | Leave a Comment »
May 24, 2017
Remember when Nancy Pelosi was lauding how ObamaCare was “liberating millions of Americans from the burden of working at jobs they don’t like.”
Simple thesis: just hang on the couch and let taxpayers foot the bill for your food, phone and, now, health insurance.
Why work?
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The issue is front & center again.
According to the Washington Post:
“Making (able-bodied) low-income Americans work to qualify for so-called welfare programs is a key theme of the Trump budget proposal … imposing more stringent work requirements — similar to those in effect in Maine and other states.”
Of course, WaPo thinks that’s a bad thing.
Evidence: a couple of heart-wrenching anecdotes of genuinely destitute folks who the Post asserts (wrongly) would be thrown out in the cold.
Memo to WaPo: The plural of “anecdotes” in not “data”.
Right when I was about to get terminally discouraged (again), I headed out to run some errands.
On the road, my faith in the American spirit was refreshed.
(more…)
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Posted in American Spirit, Employment - Jobs, Motivation, Work Ethic | Leave a Comment »
January 30, 2017
“Retrain and relocate” sounds so reasonable … unless you’re the one needing to retrain & relocate.
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When the Obama administration declared war on coal, and Hillary famously declared “we’re going to put a lot of coal companies out of business and a lot of coal miners out of work” … most government employees whopped and hollered in delight.
Their advice: Shake it off, coal miners.
Go back to school and get trained as a java programmer (even if that’s a quantum leap from your skills, education and interests … and as natural as learning to speak Swahili).
Move to thriving locales like Austin or Palo Alto (even if it means leaving 3 generations of family and friends behind).
Suck it up and turn the page, bro.
You’ve got to embrace change and adapt to the changing times (even if the change is artificially induced by government know-it-alls)
Well, it looks like the worm has turned …
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Government Employees, Unemployment | 2 Comments »
January 25, 2017
Rather, double the corporate tax deduction for workers’ wages earned the U.S. workers.
=======
Let’s start with an interesting analysis from Nate Silver’s 535.com titled Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back
“It’s understandable that voters were angry about trade. The U.S. has lost more than 4.5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA took effect in 1994. And, there’s mounting evidence that U.S. trade policy, particularly with China, has caused lasting harm to many American workers.”
“Manufacturing in particular embodies something that seems to be disappearing in today’s economy: jobs with decent pay and benefits available to workers without a college degree are vanishing. The average factory worker earns more than $25 an hour before overtime; the typical retail worker makes less than $18 an hour.”
“In 1994 there were 3.5 million more Americans working in manufacturing than in retail. Today, those numbers have almost exactly reversed, and the gap is widening. More than 80 percent of all private jobs are now in the service sector.”
=======
How can that be? Aren’t we hearing a lot about “re-shoring” and foreign capital investing in U.S. based manufacturing plants?
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Manufacturing, Re-shoring, Tax reform, Taxes | 1 Comment »
December 6, 2016
Yesterday, we looked at the falling labor force participation rate (LFPR) among so-called prime age males … aged 24 to 54 … a range that outboards most students and retirees.
About 10 million men fall into that category – unemployed but not looking for work.
One hypothesis is that the LFPR among prime age males has dropped because – as women have entered the workforce – the men have stayed home to care for family members and do household chores.
According to the Fed’s latest American Time Use Survey, there’s some evidence to support that hypothesis.
In fact, “non-participating prime-age men” spend about 1/2 hour per day more on “household activities & services” than do prime age males who are in the labor force.
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But, that’s only a small part of the story ….
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Labor force participation rate (LFPR), Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
December 5, 2016
More able-bodied men are sitting on their duffs …
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The November jobs report in a nutshell: 160k jobs added, but … the adult population increased by 219k and the civilian labor force contracted by 226k … so, the labor force participation rate dropped again.
It’s no secret that the Labor Force Participation — the % of able bodied adults who are employed or looking for work — has dropped about 4-1/2 percentage points from pre-financial crisis levels … and continues to fall.
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The economy-is-doing-just-fine crowd chalks the declining rate to demographics – old-timers retiring.
In prior posts I’ve attributed about 1/3 to retirees … the rest to slackers.
To that point, let’s cut the data a different way …
(more…)
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Posted in Economy, Employment - Jobs | 3 Comments »
November 13, 2016
Forget ‘Labor Force Participation Rate’ … here’s the indicator to watch
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It’s no secret that the Labor Force Participation — the % of able bodied adults who are employed or looking for work — has dropped about 4-1/2 percentage points .
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The economy-is-doing-just-fine crowd chalks the declining rate to demographics – old-timers retiring.
In prior posts I’ve attributed about 1/3 to retirees … the rest to slackers.
To that point, let’s cut the data a different way …
(more…)
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Posted in Economy, Employment - Jobs | Leave a Comment »
November 10, 2016
And, there are over 100 million of them.
Originally posted March 1, 2016
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From a very interesting election analysis in the Orange County Register by Joel Kotkin – Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University …
Disclaimer: I’m not a Trump fan because of his incivility (bad role model for kids), unpredictability (I have no idea where he really stands on any issue except “the wall” – and I’m betting the under on that one), and temperament (though I wonder why the U.S. should be the only country that doesn’t have a wild man with their finger on the nuclear button – why not round out the roster?).
That said, I’ll fill in his circle on the scantron ballot if it’s Trump vs. Hillary in Novemeber.
Why?
I have much sympathy for his constituency of victims: lower and middle class working class folks … with emphasis on “working”.
You know, the folks that the press likes to brutally characterize as “brain dead, mindless zombies”.
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In his article, Mr. Kotkin more charitably coins them as the “precariat” — people who are working, many part time or on short-term gigs, but lacking long-term security.
(more…)
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Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, Employment - Jobs, Immigration, Trump, Donald, Working class | Leave a Comment »
March 23, 2016
Interesting analysis from Nate Silver’s 535.com titled Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back
There’s no mystery why candidates love to focus on manufacturing and trade.
“It’s understandable that voters are angry about trade. The U.S. has lost more than 4.5 million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA took effect in 1994. And, there’s mounting evidence that U.S. trade policy, particularly with China, has caused lasting harm to many American workers.”
“Manufacturing in particular embodies something that seems to be disappearing in today’s economy: jobs with decent pay and benefits available to workers without a college degree. The average factory worker earns more than $25 an hour before overtime; the typical retail worker makes less than $18 an hour.”
“In 1994 there were 3.5 million more Americans working in manufacturing than in retail. Today, those numbers have almost exactly reversed, and the gap is widening. More than 80 percent of all private jobs are now in the service sector.”
=======
How can that be? Aren’t we hearing a lot about “re-shoring” and foreign capital investing in U.S. based manufacturing plants?
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Manufacturing, Re-shoring, Tax reform, Taxes | 2 Comments »
March 18, 2016
From a very interesting election analysis in the Orange County Register by Joel Kotkin – Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University …
Disclaimer: I’m not a Trump fan because of his incivility (bad role model for kids), unpredictability (I have no idea where he really stands on any issue except “the wall” – and I’m betting the under on that one), and temperament (though I wonder why the U.S. should be the only country that doesn’t have a wild man with their finger on the nuclear button – why not round out the roster?).
That said, I’ll fill in his circle on the scantron ballot if it’s Trump vs. Hillary in Novemeber.
Why?
I have much sympathy for his constituency of victims: lower and middle class working class folks … with emphasis on “working”.
You know, the folks that the press likes to brutally characterize as “brain dead, mindless zombies”.
=======
In his article, Mr. Kotkin more charitably coins them as the “precariat” — people who are working, many part time or on short-term gigs, but lacking long-term security.
(more…)
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Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, Employment - Jobs, Immigration, Trump, Donald, Working class | 1 Comment »
March 1, 2016
From a very interesting election analysis in the Orange County Register by Joel Kotkin – Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University …
Disclaimer: I’m not a Trump fan because of his incivility (bad role model for kids), unpredictability (I have no idea where he really stands on any issue except “the wall” – and I’m betting the under on that one), and temperament (though I wonder why the U.S. should be the only country that doesn’t have a wild man with their finger on the nuclear button – why not round out the roster?).
That said, I’ll fill in his circle on the scantron ballot if it’s Trump vs. Hillary in Novemeber.
Why?
I have much sympathy for his constituency of victims: lower and middle class working class folks … with emphasis on “working”.
You know, the folks that the press likes to brutally characterize as “brain dead, mindless zombies”.
=======
In his article, Mr. Kotkin more charitably coins them as the “precariat” — people who are working, many part time or on short-term gigs, but lacking long-term security.
(more…)
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Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, Employment - Jobs, Immigration, Trump, Donald, Working class | Leave a Comment »
January 22, 2016
Here’s a chart that caught my eye re: the value of a college degree …
Since the mid-60s, the real wages of a worker holding a bachelor’s degree have increased by about 40%.
The increase for workers with a graduate degree is even greater …. almost 90%
That sounds formidable, but even it is only about 1.3% per annum.
Source
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Dragging the numbers down further …
During the same period, real wages for high school grads only increased about 15% … about 1/4% per annum.
And, real wages for workers without a high school degree stayed flat … or arguably, fell.
Of course, those small percentage differences in growth rates have a dramatic compounding effect …
(more…)
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Posted in Economics, Employment - Jobs, Wages | Leave a Comment »
July 20, 2015
Note that I said “freelancers”, not “freeloaders” ….
So, how many?
Place to start is with a definition ….
According to a trade group called the Freelancers Union, there are 5 basic types of freelancers:
- Independent Contractors: These are the “traditional” freelancers who don’t have an employer and instead do freelance, temporary, or supplemental work on a project-to-project basis.
- Moonlighters: Professionals with a primary, traditional job who also moonlight doing freelance work. For example, a corporate employed web developer who also does projects for non-profits in the evening.
- Diversified workers People with multiple sources of income from a mix of traditional employers and freelance work. For example, someone who works the front desk at a dentist’s office 20 hours a week and fills out the rest of his income driving for Uber and doing freelance writing.
- emporary Workers: Individuals with a single employer, client, job, or contract project where their employment status is temporary. For example, a business strategy consultant working for one startup client on a contract basis for a months-long project.
- Freelance Business Owners: Business owners with between one and five employees who consider themselves both a freelancer and a business owner. For example, a social marketing guru who hires a team of other social marketers to build a small agency, but still identifies as a freelancer.
OK, so what’s the answer? How many?
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Freelancers - freelancing | Leave a Comment »
April 8, 2015
It’s not new news that the Labor Force Participation Rate has been falling .
What struck me in March’s employment stats was that the LFPR is still dropping
Many economists say it’s simply demographics — it’s old folks retiring.
Partially true, but certainly not the whole story.
(more…)
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Posted in BLS, Employment - Jobs, Labor force participation rate (LFPR), Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
April 7, 2015
Last Friday, the President was spinning the 126,000 jobs gain as a continuation of the longest consecutive period of (meager) monthly jobs gains.
OK, I added the meager part …
And, he touted how he’d added 12 million jobs to the economy since he took office.
Not to nit-pick, but it’s 10 million since he took office … 12 million since the slide bottomed out.
.
OK, so 2 million more people are working since the worst recession since the depression.
That’s pretty good, right?
(more…)
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Posted in BLS, Economy, Employment - Jobs, Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
April 6, 2015
Last Friday, the BLS reported that the U.S. economy added 126,000 jobs.
That’s about half of the consensus forecast (which was about the prior 12 months average).
Look at the chart and tell me if your see a pattern …
(more…)
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Posted in BLS, Employment - Jobs, Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
March 6, 2015
A couple of weeks ago, the Administration and its friends were touting that unemployment claims had dropped to historically low levels … proof positive that the pork-laden, 2009 Stimulus Spending Program worked … albeit 4 or 5 years after the program ended.
There has been a lot less chest-pounding the past couple of weeks. Wonder why?
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Stimulus Bill, Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
February 9, 2015
A lot of chatter over the weekend about how President Obama’s economic policies are – after 6 years — humming.
More than 250,000 more people were employed … but interestingly, the unemployment rate inched up as the labor force participation rate increased a bit.
What’s going on?
A couple of economists at the NBER – the think tank that officially declares when recessions begin and end – just issued a study with an evidenced-based hypothesis …
(more…)
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February 5, 2015
I didn’t say it, Jim Clifton, Gallup’s CEO did.
Specifically, he says that he hears all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it.”
The reason: “The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.” It doesn’t capture the true angst in the job market.
The crux of his argument centers on a “good jobs” metric: the ratio of full-time workers to the total adult population.
That ratio dropped about 5 percentage points during the recession and has recouped only about one of those 5 percentage points.
That’s not good.
Clifton brings those numbers to life in his opinion piece …
(more…)
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December 17, 2014
This isn’t it !
This one was in the WSJ last week.
The accompanying narrative was something like “adding jobs – full-time, not part-time — looking good”.
Earlier this week, we showed that the WSJ data is accurate, but it’s analysis is misleading because it starts analyzing from the depth of the recession (versus before the start of the recession) … and looks at raw numbers of jobs added (without normalizing for population growth).
Again, this isn’t the killer chart, I’m talking about.
Rather, I’ve pulled together my earlier analysis into one simple chart that tells the story …
(more…)
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December 15, 2014
It has been a while since we looked into the employment numbers … long overdue.
I was awakened by a WSJ article that put a positive spin on the November jobs report – jobs continue to be added …. and, they’re full-time jobs:
“The economy has seen a net gain of more than 6 million full-time jobs since the official end date of the 2007-09 recession, which was in June 2009. The economy has witnessed a net increase of just 311,000 part-time jobs over the same period,”
Hmmm.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
What the Journal says is true, but not complete … and picking to start the chart at the trough of the recession obscures some of the context.
(more…)
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Posted in Economic Recovery, Economy, Employment - Jobs, Part-time workers, Unemployment | Leave a Comment »
October 6, 2014
Lots of end-zone dancing last week re: the economy.
The President says that all indicators are good, and that folks who aren’t feelin’ it just “don’t get it” because they’re watching FoxNews too much.
Say, what?
Let’s look at the ultimate measure: household income.
Adjusted for inflation, median household income dropped 8% during the recession … and has been flat after bottoming out a couple of years ago.
That means that the median real household income is still down 8% from the pre-recession peak.
Hard to get excited about that, right?
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The drop in median household income has come despite a steady increase in average hourly wages … they’re up about 10% since the official end of the recession.
That’s before inflation, but the Feds keep telling us that inflation is negligible, that shouldn’t matter, right?
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Let’s see, average wages are going up, but median household income is stalled at a depressed level.
What’s going on?
(more…)
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July 24, 2014
interesting factoid from Quartz.com “ What universities have in common with record labels” …
Used to be that the majority of college faculty were on the tenure track … with less than 1 in 3 being non-tenure track “part-timers”.
Source: Quartz.com
With the cost pressures that universities face these days, those numbers have completely reversed.
Now, the majority of university faculty s part-timers … and about 1 in 3 are on the tenure track.
And, Quartz points out that there’s increasing separation between content producing “marquee” profs and “average” profs.
“The ranks of professors will quickly diverge into the 1% and everyone else.”
As the original Grandma Homa used to say; “It’s easy to be good, hard to be great.”
#HomaFiles
Follow on Twitter @KenHoma >> Latest Posts
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Posted in Education - Academics, Employment - Jobs, Higher Education, Tenure | Leave a Comment »
July 14, 2014
Last week, we pointed out that the 288,000 jobs gain in June wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be since full-time employment declined by over 500,000 and part-time employment increased by almost 800,000.
For details see: Last week’s employment report in 4 charts …
I thought the spike in part-time employment was a bad thing … a drift to a part-timer economy.
Silly me.
Liberal economist Dean Baker hset me straight in a HuffPost article:
“The Good News About Obamacare in the June Jobs Report”
Here’s Mr. Baker’s spin …
(more…)
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July 9, 2014
An article in the WSJ this week is causing a bit of a stir.
Titled “Who Really Gets the Minimum Wage”, the report concluded that Minimum wages are ineffective at helping poor families because such a small share of the benefits flow to them.
Specifically, “Obama’s $10.10 target would steer only 18% of the benefits to poor families; 29% would go to families with incomes three times the poverty level.”
Hmmm.
How does that happen?
The essence of the dynamic: counter-intuitively, low-wage workers and low-income (i.e. “poor”) families are not the same folks.
According to the article, data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that there is only a weak relationship between being a low-wage worker and being poor.
Three reasons for that:.
- Many low-wage workers are in higher-income families—workers who are not the primary breadwinners and often contribute a small share of their family’s income.
- Some workers in poor families earn higher wages but don’t work enough hours (and have hours cut when the minimum wage goes up)
- About half of poor families have no workers, in which case a higher minimum wage does no good. This is simple descriptive evidence and is not disputed by economists.
Bottom line: Not much help to the well-intended anti-poverty movement.
There’s another “non-poor” group that benefits when the minimum wage is raised..
Glance at the picture above and see if you can guess who that is.
(more…)
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Income & Wealth, Income Inequality, Minimum Wage - Living Wage, Poverty - Income Distribution | Leave a Comment »
July 7, 2014
Lots of hoopla last week that the unemployment employment rate dropped to 6.1% as employers added 288,000 jobs
Yep, 288k jobs added … which continues a year-over-year running rate growth in employment of slightly less than 2% … a little less than real GDP year-over-year growth.
But, there’s more to the story.
Let’s dissect that 288,000 …
(more…)
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June 9, 2014
According to the Feds, the economy added 217,000 jobs in May … that’s good.
Big deal made of the fact that the economy has regained all of the jobs lost in the finance-induced recession.
But, save the high fives …that’s only part of the story.
The rest of the story doesn’t look nearly as rosy.
(more…)
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May 14, 2014
Two related articles caught my eye ….
First, Business Insider reported that “spending on healthcare grew an astounding 9.9% in Q1 … the biggest percent change in healthcare spending since 1980”
The article goes on to say: “Analysts said it’s primarily due to a consumption boost from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”
That makes sense.
Some folks rushed to their docs in the last quarter of 2013 to beat the jump in their deductibles and to jump the line ahead those becoming newly insured.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that, adjusted for inflation, America is spending more on healthcare than ever before..
Here’s the big takeaway … (more…)
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May 8, 2014
Two related articles caught my eye ….
First, Business Insider reported that “spending on healthcare grew an astounding 9.9% in Q1 … the biggest percent change in healthcare spending since 1980”
The article goes on to say: “Analysts said it’s primarily due to a consumption boost from the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”
That makes sense.
Some folks rushed to their docs in the last quarter of 2013 to beat the jump in their deductibles and to jump the line ahead those becoming newly insured.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that, adjusted for inflation, America is spending more on healthcare than ever before..
Here’s the big takeaway … (more…)
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May 5, 2014
The headline: 288K jobs added.
Boom times in America, right?
Hmmm.
Here’s what has me scratching my head …
First, some technical background.
There are two BLS surveys: the Establishment Survey which queries businesses and the Household Survey which queries individuals, i.e. people.
The Establishment Survey is a larger sample, but has a huge data whole – new and small businesses — that gets plugged with a SWAG.
The Household Survey is smaller (about 10,000 respondents) … but big enough that it’s treated as the gold standard for calculating the unemployment rate.
It was the Establishment Survey that reported 288K jobs were added.
Guess what?
The Household Survey said the opposite … that 73K jobs were lost.
Let’s take this a step further …
Earlier last weeks, the Feds reported that GDP was essentially flat in the first quarter … only increasing by 1/10th of a percentage point.
Despite a flat economy, the BLS says that employers were adding jobs like drunken sailors.
Does that make sense to you?
My view: one of the two numbers has to be wrong … either the GDP or the employment numbers … and, given the job losses reported on the Household Survey … I’m betting the 288K job gain is more illusion than reality.
#HomaFiles
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March 17, 2014
This morning, the WSJ published an editorial titled “The Hidden Rot in the Jobs Numbers ” by Prof. Edward Lazear, who was chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2006-09, is a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Strong credentials, right?
The punch line: “Hours worked are declining, resulting in the equivalent of a net loss of 100,000 jobs since September.”
No kidding, Prof. Lazear?
Loyal HomaFiles readers are already aware of that … assuming that they read last Monday’s post: Smokin’: Employment growth exceeds expectations … oh, really?
Gotta crow a bit on this one … beat the WSJ by a week.
Here’s what we said last Monday:
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Smokin’: Employment growth exceeds expectations … oh, really?
The headlines are that 175,000 jobs were added in February.
Proof positive that the Obama economy is kicking in.
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Hate to rain on the parade, but ….
(more…)
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February 20, 2014
Last week, Pelosi. et. al., were lauding how ObamaCare was “liberating millions of Americans from the burden of working at jobs they don’t like.”
Simple thesis: just hang on the couch and let taxpayers foot the bill for your food, phone and, now, health insurance.
Why work?
Right when I was about to get terminally discouraged, I decided to go fetch our mail … on one of those windy, below-zero days.
At the mailbox, my faith in the American spirit was refreshed.
(more…)
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Posted in American Spirit, Employment - Jobs, Motivation, Work Ethic | 3 Comments »
February 19, 2014
President Obama is pushing to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.
Interesting play
$10.10 … not $10.
Why?
To make folks think that he thought about it … that $10.10 is some kind of magical optimum.
Putting that silliness aside, the rationale is well-intended: get low-earners closer to a “living wage”
The major argument against the move is econ 101 … and empirical evidence.
The below chart – from AEI’s Mark Perry — cuts to the chase.
The chart plots the level of the Federal minimum wage against the number of percentage points that the teenage unemployment rate is over the all-inclusive unemployment rate.
Implicitly, the analysis assumes that the bulk of minimum wage jobs go to teens … and, measuring the differential (instead of the gross rate) normalizes to the overall state of the economy.
The conclusion is stark: when you raise the minimum wage you lose jobs.
Period.
But, some folks argue that economic life is better for the minimum wagers who retain their jobs.
Not so fast …
(more…)
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January 17, 2014
Earlier this week, I posted a chart showing that the LFPR among Blacks (the Fed’s data series description)
My observation was:
Black’s LFPR increased by about 7 percentage points since the mid-1970s (earliest that the data is reported) to 2000 – when it peaked at about 66% …. the rate has dropped to just over 60% …. the declining trend has steepened.
A loyal reader suggested that I put those numbers in context … and linked me to a chart that displays all of the Fed’s demographic categories.
His observation: the recent trend has been fairly consistent across all racial categories,
- Key: Hispanic = purple; White = green; Black = orange
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Note that in the late 1990s, LFPR’s were roughly equal for all groups
Since then, Hispanics have run above average LFPRs …
* * * * *
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January 13, 2014
One of the big headlines last Friday was that the Labor Force Participation rate continued to fall December (which is why the unemployment rate ticked down despite paltry job growth).
More specifically, the LFPR is down more that 4 percentage points since the financial crisis hit.
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Let’s put the current LFPR is perspective: Now, about 62.5% of the able-bodied adult population either has a job or is actively looking for one.
Said differently, over 37% don’t have jobs and aren’t actively looking.
Let’s drill down to a couple of demographic groups ….
(more…)
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November 1, 2013
Feds say that “economy continues to recover … as indicated in the drop in the unemployment rate to 7.2%”.
Hmmm.
Great chart from Wall Street Daily:
Conclusion: Apparent improvements in the unemployment rate continue to be mostly a reflection of a declining labor force participation rate … more and more folks dropping out of the labor force and staying home.
Frustrated by dim jobs’ prospects or satisfied with the government safety net programs .. or both?
Draw you own conclusion.
* * * * *
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Posted in Employment - Jobs, Labor force participation rate (LFPR), Unemployment | 2 Comments »
October 25, 2013
The bruhaha re: the ObamaCare systems implosion overshadowed the belated September jobs report.
To get you up to date …
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Nonfarm employment increased by 148,000 in September … analysts were expecting 180,000 … which is about the average for the past 12 months.
Source
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Importantly, jobs are being added disproportionately in services (think hotels & fast-food places) … not in manufacturing.
Source
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And, there’s more to the story …
(more…)
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September 9, 2013
The Feds reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 7.3% … despite tepid job growth – fewer jobs added than expected, and those that were added were in retail & hospitality.
Most analysts quickly pointed out that the unemployment rate dropped because the number of people dropping out of the labor force was about twice the number of jobs added.
In technical jargon, the labor force participation rate dropped to a 35 year low.
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A complementary metric that combines the effect of the Unemployment Rate and the Labor Force Participation Rate is the Civilian Employment to Population Ratio – the percentage of the working age population that has a job.
That rate dropped about 4 percentage points during the recession … then has flatlined during the “recovery”.
That is, job growth has barely kept up with population growth.
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What about my favorite? The downmixing to more part time positions?
(more…)
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September 6, 2013
Here are some data points in advance of this morning’s BLS Employment Report.
Gallup’s daily tracking report indicated a surge in the unemployment rate … averaging 8.5% … getting as high as 8.8% during the month.
Source: Gallup
More data …
(more…)
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August 12, 2013
Couple of charts – and conflicting interpretations — caught my eye.
First, Wall Street Daily posted their version of an analysis revealing that over 3-in-4 jobs created in 2013 have been part-time jobs.
Their conclusion: “it’s the scariest chart ever”.
Maybe a bit of hyperbole, but certainly worth watching
Here’s another take on the trend …
(more…)
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