Last week, mainstream news outlets gleefully reported a booming growth of 151,000 new jobs. Even the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI) joined in the celebration of accelerated job growth. The EPI was also pleasantly surprised by the modest level of state and local government jobs. The real party pooper was the announcement that the national rate of unemployment remained at 9.6 percent. In a more sober moment, the EPI said it will take years before we will see pre-recession levels of employment growth. Bummer….
Unfortunately, the above employment numbers are not real. According to the Dr. Lacy Hunt of Hosington Investment Management, the broader measure of household employment fell by 330,000. While 151,000 more people where included in payroll statistics, 330,000 more working people living in households became unemployed. Using Dr. Lacy’s figures, the total number of newly unemployed was 171,000 in October.
Dr. Lacy also explained why the unemployment rate remained the same. The reason was 254,000 members of the unemployed dropped off the statistical charts. They are no longer getting unemployment checks. They are no longer hoping for a decent job or any job. They no long looking for work. They are dropouts. As of October, the civilian labor force participation rate fell to a record low 64.5 percent. This means 35.5 percent of working age people were not employed. One can only wonder about how the paternal godfathers and mothers on Capitol Hill will attempt to save those dropouts–a new entitlement program maybe?
To make matters worse, the number of full-time workers who lost jobs was 124,000 increasing the total number of full-time job losses over the past 5 months to 1.1 million. This reduces the level of full-time employment to those in 1999. An economy cannot generate income growth by continuing to substitute part-time work for full-time employment, according to Dr. Lacy.
The Feds recent infusion of $600 billion new dollars will further erode the household incomes with which to purchase goods and service and pay their bills.
Xenia taxpayers will have even less after-tax income to spend once the 1/2% income tax, health service tax, and other tax increases take effect.
Source: Thoughts from the Frontline Weekly Newsletter
