The Employment Rate In The United States Is Lower Than It Was During The Last Recession

							The Employment Rate In The United States Is
Lower Than It Was During The Last Recession
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
August 4, 2012
Did you know that a smaller percentage of
Americans are working today than when the last
recession supposedly ended? But you won’t hear
about this on the mainstream news. Instead, the
mainstream media obsesses over the highly
politicized and highly manipulated “unemployment
rate”. The media is buzzing about how “163,000
new jobs” were added in July but the unemployment
rate went up to “8.254%“. Sadly, those numbers are
quite misleading. According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, in June 142,415,000 people had jobs in the United States. In July, that number declined to
142,220,000. That means that 195,000 fewer Americans were working in July than in June. But
somehow that works out to “163,000 new jobs” in July. I am not exactly sure how they get that math to
add up. Perhaps someone out there can explain it to me. Personally, I find that the “employment rate”
gives a much clearer picture of what is actually going on in the economy. The employment to
population ratio is a measure of the percentage of working age Americans that actually have jobs.
When it goes up that is good. When it goes down, that is bad. In July, the employment to population
ratio dropped from 58.6 percent to 58.4 percent. Overall, the percentage of working age Americans that
have jobs has now been under 59 percent for 35 months in a row.
The following is a chart of the employment to population ratio in the United States over the past 10
years….




The gray shaded bar in the chart represents the last recession as defined by the Federal Reserve.
As you can see, the percentage of working age Americans with a job dropped sharply from nearly
63 percent at the start of 2008 to a little above 59 percent when the recession ended.
But the “employment rate” kept on dropping even further.
It finally bottomed out at 58.2 percent in December of 2009.
Since that time, it has stayed very steady. It has not fallen below 58 percent and it has not risen back
above 59 percent.
This is very odd, because after ever other recession since World War II this number has always bounced
back strongly.
But this has not happened this time.
In essence, it is starting to look like 4 percent of the working age population of the United States has
been removed from the workforce permanently.
The good news in all of this is that things have at least not been getting any worse over the last couple
of years. Even though things have been bad, at least we have had a period of relative stability.
The bad news is that the employment rate has not rebounded despite unprecedented borrowing and
spending by the federal government and despite reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve.
Considering how desperately the federal government and the Federal Reserve have been trying to
stimulate the economy, I truly did expect to see the employment rate bounce back at least a little bit by
now.
Unfortunately it has not and now the U.S. economy is rapidly heading for another recession.
But Barack Obama is going to prance around over the next few days and talk about how wonderful it is
that the economy created “163,000 new jobs” in July.
What he isn’t going to talk about are the millions of Americans that have been unemployed for so long
that they don’t even “count” in the official unemployment numbers anymore.
But those people actually exist and they are really hurting. Many of them are starting to lose their
unemployment benefits and they really do not know what they are going to do. The following is from a
recent USA Today article….
      Since abruptly losing her $312 weekly unemployment check in June, Laurie Cullinan has
      depleted her savings, sought food from the Salvation Army and lit candles to save
      electricity.

      If she can’t find a job this month, the Royal Oak, Mich., resident worries she’ll be evicted
      from her apartment, an unthinkable prospect for the 52-year-old, who enjoyed a solidly
      middle-class lifestyle until she lost her office-manager job two years ago.

      “What am I going to do if I’m homeless?” says Cullinan, who collected unemployment for
      1½ years. “My mind won’t let me comprehend that.”

Could you imagine having to face that?
What would you do if you were about to be tossed out on to the street?
When you add up all of the working age Americans without a job in the United States today, it comes
to more than 100 million.
Some people have accused me of lying about that
figure, but it is actually true.
There are more than 100 million working age
Americans that are not employed right now.
And even if you do have a job that does not mean
that you are doing well. As I wrote about yesterday,
only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States
today are good jobs.
The cost of living continues to rise much faster than
wages are. Many families are having a really hard
time just paying for the basics. The inflated standard
of living that we have all enjoyed for so long is
starting to disappear.
An increasing number of young people are living
with their parents well past the age of 18 because there are not enough good jobs and it is just so hard
to make it in this economy. If you can believe it, 24 percent of all Americans in the 20 to 34 year old
age bracket are living at home with their parents at this point.
But we will be seeing a lot more of this as the economy gets even worse. “Multi-generational
households” will become very common, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps this will give
some families a chance to do some bonding.

Meanwhile, many of our once great cities continue to rot and decay at a staggering pace. Today, I saw
one report that discussed how the city of Detroit has become a dumping ground for dead bodies.
How sad is that?
Detroit was once the envy of the world and now it is a place where murder victims are dumped.
These are all indications of just how far we have fallen.
                                                            But things are going to get a lot worse, so we
                                                            should actually be thankful for the period of
                                                            relative stability that we are enjoying right now.
                                                            The long-term economic collapse that we are
                                                            experiencing right now will soon accelerate.
                                                            Eventually even the highly manipulated official
                                                            “unemployment rate” will soar well up into the
                                                            double digits.
                                                            When it does, the anger and frustration that is
                                                            boiling under the surface in this country is
                                                            going to explode.
                                                            Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare
                                                            for the worst.
Bureau of Labor Jobs Report: More Lies
From “our” Big Brother
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
August 4, 2012
In his report on the Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ latest jobs and
unemployment report, statistician John
Williams (shadowstats.com)
writes: “The July employment and
unemployment numbers published
today, August 3rd, were worthless and
likely misleading.”
I will spare the readers an
explanation of Williams’ account of
the manipulation that is occurring as
it is too arcane for the general reader.
Instead, Let’s just apply common
sense. According to the BLS, there were 163,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs created in July. This figure
is about 13,000 more jobs than is needed to keep pace with population growth. Therefore, the
unemployment rate should have declined fractionally. Instead, the unemployment rate (U3) rose from
8.2% in June to 8.3% in July.
In case you missed the point, new jobs, a net figure, rose and so did the unemployment rate!
Moreover, the alternative, but much less reported, jobs report from the Household Survey found that
the economy lost 195,000 jobs in July.
The government that lies to you about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, about Iraq’s al Qaeda
connections, about the Taliban in Afghanistan, about Osama bin Laden, about Libya and Gadhafi, about
Iranian nukes, about Syria, about Pakistan, about Yemen and Somalia, about Bradley Manning, about
Julian Assange and Wikileaks, indeed about everything under the sun, also lies to you about jobs,
                                              unemployment, economic recovery, GDP growth, 9/11,
                                              the “terrorist threat,” everything. Try to find anything that
                                              the government has said over the past 6 presidential terms
                                              that is not a lie.

                                               Other than some minor insignificant detail, “your”
                                               government has been consistently lying to you about
                                               everything of importance.
“Your” government lies to you, because “your”
government has an agenda that it most certainly will not
tell you about, because if you knew what it is, you would
revolt. Putting down the revolt would divert the
government from its agenda. It would also alert the rest of
the world to the fact that the US government has an
undeclared agenda of world domination, despite the costs
to the American people and every other people. World
War III looms.
Nuclear annihilation is the necessary outcome of the
neoconservatives’ drive for US world hegemony. Syria
can fall, and Iran can fall, but Russia and China are
unlikely to accept their reduction to puppet state status. As
both are nuclear armed and as the crazed criminals in
charge of the US government are wallowing in hubris,
nuclear war seems inevitable.
The world’s most mortal enemy is Washington. If Washington prevails, the world will be dead or in
slavery to Washington, including all American subjects, whether Democrats or Republicans.
Don’t let it ever be said that your enemy, whatever your country, has not been identified.

The Federal Reserve Fractional Reserve Banking Explained VIDEO BELOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWl7Mb49vSk


The Magical Money Machine of The Federal Reserve Eustace Mullins VIDEO BELOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er3xPXb7aQw


America: Freedom to Fascism VIDEO BELOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ayb02bwp0


Hey Banksters: We Are Fully Awake VIDEO BELOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEATp-xM7rU&feature=channel&list=UL


Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve VIDEO BELOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLYL_NVU1bg




http://www.infowars.com/