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7/3/14, "The Insiders: This month’s jobs headlines don’t tell the true story," Washington Post, Ed Rogers
"The headline of today’s jobs report,
that 288,000 jobs were created in the last month, is positive. At
least, it is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. However,
as with most economic reports these days, there is a veneer of good news
— but when you look closer, the White House is using the positive
headlines to hide the growing deterioration of the American workforce.
I’m sure by now people are tired of reading about the bad news, and I’ll
admit I am weary of having to blow the whistle and expose the truth
every time this White House pats itself on the back about this or that
piece of economic data. Anyway, here we go again.
Last month, 523,000 full-time jobs were lost, while 799,000 part-time jobs were added.
Another way of looking at these numbers is that almost all [276,000] of the
288,000 jobs created last month were just part-time positions. And
remember, not even that would happen if President Obama got his way and
raised the minimum wage during this anemic recovery.
We need more
robust job growth in this country, but, specifically, we need good,
well-paying, full-time jobs. Right now, only 47.7 percent of adults in
America are working full-time. Losing more than half a million full-time
jobs in one month is not indicative of a strong, growing economy. It’s a
red light flashing on the nation’s dashboard.
The White House
undoubtedly will want to celebrate the slight drop in the unemployment
rate to 6.1 percent. But again, this number is not a cause for
celebration. Teenage unemployment went up by 1.8 percent last month, to a
21 percent unemployment rate. Why would teenage unemployment be so high
when teens are out of school and traditionally getting summer jobs?
Well, because adults are dependent on the low-wage, part-time jobs these
teenagers would normally fill. And that’s not good for the economy or
for our society.
And there’s other troubling data. The average number of hours worked
per week remained stagnant for the fourth month in a row. The labor
force participation rate is still only 62.8 percent — the same rate as
March 1978, during the Carter-era stagflation. And in the past year, 2.4
million Americans dropped out of the workforce altogether.
There
should be authentic benefits for the nation when we add to the
workforce, but not when the unemployment rate artificially declines
because Americans are dropping out of the workforce or relying on
part-time jobs because that is all the Obama economy can produce. After
all, the unemployment rate would be zero if everyone just quit looking
for work.
Is this the future of the American workforce? It’s
getting too late for President Obama to do any good for the American
economy. We are seeing more part-time jobs because employers can’t
afford to pay the Obamacare premiums for employees who work more than 30
hours a week. How many Americans will leave the workforce for good? How
much lower will the labor force participation rate drop? In other
words, how much more dependency will the Obama presidency create?
We
need a real economic recovery. President Obama won’t admit that his
policies have stifled growth, and therefore there is no chance of an
urgent course correction that could put us on a pro-growth path. It just
won’t happen under Obama; 2016 can’t get here fast enough."
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