Latest Jobs Report ‘Very Bad’
Directly contradicting President Obama’s claim yesterday that the recovery is “very real”, the latest jobs numbers show an employment situation that even White House friendly MSNBC had to call “ugly” and “very bad.”
From a political perspective, there is a silver lining – the unemployment rate, which most news outlets report on, dropped to 6.7% from the previously reported 7%. Unfortunately, it was due almost entirely due to Americans giving up on finding a job and leaving the workforce.
91.8 million Americans are not in the workforce as of this month’s report – a new record. The labor participation rate, a measure of the percentage of the working age population that is working, dropped to 62.8%, a level not seen since Jimmy Carter was president.
5 times as many people left the workforce than the number of jobs the economy created.
As the current administration sees these numbers as a recovery, it should not be long at all before they take a victory lap – right about the time we have about 50% of all working age Americans employed and a 3% unemployment rate because everyone else has given up on even trying to find a job.
Well there was something else to note that came out today. It is coming out on CNN. The jobless have given up. So therefore by Progressive agenda and now many GOP’rs we must do what? Support them indefinitely?
Giving up. That is the mantra of today’s world in America. I have written several comments on this. Everyone who is continuing on agrees with me. Those who have now been unemployed for a year or two do not.
The argument, usually a knee jerk reaction by the Progressive, is that the government has shipped jobs overseas and there is nothing left in this country. Etc Etc. And that is true. It was true in the 1980s and 90s as well. And in those times I have said I had no degree, no trade and no skills. I have lived in the ghetto twice for extended periods of time.
And you know what? That’s the way life goes.
There are still many opportunities in this country. There are many trade schools that not only give a skill but give a good paycheck as well. There are medical professions such as the RN that are crying for licenses. There may be a lot of companies lost–but do not tell me you cannot get another trade. You can get another trade in your fifties.
Remember the movie “Reality Bites?” That was the representation of the perpetual whine. And many of those people are now in their forties. And it is the same whine. And it will fall on deaf ears with me. As I am no longer in the ghetto. I was a medical provider. And now doing well as a writer. And I achieved it by my own hand. I’m not any more gifted than anyone else. And if it all fell apart I’d go right back, take out a loan and go to trade school. And so would the WW II generation. They lived through worse than this economy. And they made it. Because they had to.
You do not invoke an evil policy of the producer must pay for the non producer. Unemployment should last no more than one year. And then you are on your own. Regardless of if you lose your house and have to move in with your parents. Or the ghetto like I did. Because that is fair. It is the epitome of fairness. If your answer is “I can’t” then whatever follows does. One man does not work to support another–for years.
We will collapse if we continue this reckless spending combined with the entitlement attitude. The mentality that no one should suffer. I don’t need to refer to my fiction–history completely agrees with me.
Charles Hurst. Author of THE SECOND FALL. An offbeat story of Armageddon. And creator of THE RUNNINGWOLF EZINE.