According to a 20 September report in the Dayton Business Journal, the Ohio economy faces some positive development in the labor market. Ohio unemployment dropped a whopping 0.4% from 11.2% in July to 10.8% in August.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is the unemployment rate is still well over last year’s rate of a mere 6.7%.
The multiple million dollar question (that represents loss of income) is whatever happened to full employment? That is the employment of all able-bodied citizens. I would include domestic labor such as stay -at-home moms and homemakers as among the employed. Could it be that the welfare state needs unemployment for its beneficent rule?
What scares me is the possibility that the devil really is in the details. As reported by the Dayton Business Journal, “Nonfarm payroll fell about 30,100 jobs to 5.1 million employees from 5.13 million in July, while the ranks of Ohio’s unemployed – those without jobs and actively looking for work – fell to 641,000 from 666,000.” See, 666 x 1,000 probably means there are a thousand devils ruining Ohio jobs. Some people seem to think that if you add up all politicians including lobbyists the number equals about the same.
I’m not blaming the Dayton Business Journal for preaching this bad news in a positive way for one simple reason: they were simply reporting what the Jobs and Family Department of Ohio reported. For example:
“A decrease in Ohio’s labor force was a primary factor in the drop of the August unemployment rate,” department Director Douglas Lumpkin said in a release. “The unemployment rate declined as the number of service-providing and goods-producing jobs decreased and fewer Ohioans were actively seeking work.”
Did you notice the double-speak oozing out of that statement?
I always thought a reduction in the labor force resulted in an increase in the unemployment rate, but not in Ohio. If you get depressed or otherwise sick of trying to find work, it means you are non-existent. It implies that members in the non-labor force are no longer independent citizens. They are nobodies in the statistical world of imperial politics. Such no-bodies may become some-bodies if they submit the imperial paternalism of the welfare state, which by the way, is run mostly by rich politicians and quasi-state institutions called national corporations.
The poor saps who have stopped looking for work are ba-a-a-d people. I can’t understand why anyone could quit looking for work in a society run by rich people who have intentionally worked to put people out of work by their wonderfully increasing debt producing policies that is making it nearly impossible for all but those bailed out by Chinese government loans to continue employing non-labor force people–go figure.
The government should thank those non-labor force people for making the unemployment rate look better than it is. Maybe it will assist political bureaucrats to convince foreign investors to continue loaning them more money.
The unemployed and the state’s economic dependents, however, will be unable to help pay back all of that beneficial debt that will continue to tax Ohio and American citizens’ economic prosperity without their full knowledge and approval.
Source: Dayton Business Journal, September 18, 2009