Worst Jobs Report in Years
Today’s jobs report is stunningly bad. Only 38,000 jobs added. (We need over 130,000 new jobs per month to keep pace with inflation.) 458,000 people dropped out of the labor force.
But with the dishonest way unemployment numbers are reported, we are told it is a “decline” in the “unemployment rate.” The more people stop looking for work, the more that misleading number goes down. It’s just another way government lies with numbers.
Barack Obama bears a large measure of responsibility for this. By passing the job-killing ObamaCare and presiding over an explosion in entitlements like food stamps and disability payments, he has reduced the incentive to work.
Now the country faces a stark choice: between a leftist who believes in government entitlements, and a leftist who believes in government entitlements.
UPDATE: For some reason I wrote “inflation” when I obviously meant “population growth.” I have fixed the error. Thanks to those who pointed it out.
The first leftist will bring in loads of other leftists in statehouses across the country and in Congress on her coattails not to mention putting radical anti-Constitutionalist judges on the Supreme Court with a nod from a willing leftist controlled Congress. The second leftist will bring in many Republicans with some conservatives among them in statehouses and in Congress and will have to pass muster with the Republicans in Congress for his Supreme Court picks. Advantage leftist #2.
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:07 amThis is no longer unexpected.
AZ Bob (d6a3a9) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:14 amNow the country faces a stark choice: between a leftist who believes in government entitlements, and a leftist who believes in government entitlements.
How about a stark choice between a leftist who helped cause our current economic malaise , and a man who succeeded in creating thousands of jobs in spite of government over regulation.
You make the call.
ropelight (596f46) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:23 amFor every vote Trump brings in from the extreme fringe loonies, he costs the GOP two from sane people. Democrats will win every close election on the downticket in November.
nk (dbc370) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:30 amI’m thinking about T.S. Eliot again this morning.
The fact it is the final stanza of Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” just adds to the impact.
On the other hand, as Hugh Hewitt often says, to give up is a sin.
And it is.
Simon Jester (f81a5d) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:42 amMore doom and gloom, nk? You’re really in the bag for Hillary this time around. Cause only those “extreme fringe loonies” would choose to vote for Trump instead of a communist, right?
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:00 amGovernment economic figures are corrupted. Like everything in the Obama administration. If the reported job growth is this bad, the reality must be far far worse.
Its going to be a rough year. Prepare.
SPQR (a3a747) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:04 am> he has reduced the incentive to work.
Is the issue that people don’t want to work, or is the issue that they’ve given up because they can’t find jobs?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:04 amChoice between two leftist?
Bullshit Patterico.
We will have 4 years of MSM saying R’s are “blocking progress” versus 4 years of “R’s are keeping things in control (however haphazardly that may be.)”
That’s the choice.
Steve_in_SoCal (58e1f9) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:12 amaphrael,
The issue is subsidy levels and enrollment requirements such that rational individuals of modest ability make very rational decisions to accept subsidy (plus a little black cash work) in lieu of seeking employment at wages which will not exceed the subsidy by an amount sufficient to compensate the subsidy recipient for his time.
Would you seek employment at $2 per hour for forty hours of labor knowing you could mow four lawns or wash four cars and receive a subsidy which would leave you with the same amount of cash in hand at the end of a week?
Rick Ballard (7727d9) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:45 amIt’s demographics that job growth needs to keep up with, not inflation. Wages need to keep up with inflation and jobs keep up with the pool of working age people.
Johnny (349d5b) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:47 amOne slight correction in the first graph: we need > 130k jobs/month to keep up with population growth (not inflation).
TennLion (d05404) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:20 amAphrael – using SS in your analogy is inapt. Welfare, food stamps, countless others would be apt. But people have paid into the system, and they deserve their promise to be fulfilled. Ultimately, this little catch is a major reason why the system will never be fixed, and will collapse under its own weight.
JD (2e3880) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:28 amHow about a stark choice between a leftist who helped cause our current economic malaise , and a man who succeeded in creating thousands of jobs in spite of government over regulation.
You make the call.
You mean the corrupt cronyist who created jobs like the “professors” at Trump University?
There is no call to make. Our choice is between a quarter-pound crapburger, and a third-pound crapburger.
Though, to be perfectly transparent, my wife is from Mexico, so I suppose that means I have an “absolute” conflict of interest.
cnh (c9c12f) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:45 am@13
So it's come to this (8c7e9d) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:52 amHow would that be a conflict of interest, cnh? My wife is also a legal immigrant, and I’m not seeing any problem in enforcing the laws she’s in compliance with.
JD, nobody who is currently “paying into” social security has ever been told that the money is being put away for them, or that the government is incurring any obligation to pay them anything. Everyone has been on notice since 1960 that FICA is just another income tax, and paying it does not create a legal obligation on the USA to ever pay the taxpayer anything, just as no other tax creates such an obligation. Social security exists at the whim of Congress, and can be changed or repealed at the whim of Congress, and that has been the condition on which FICA has been paid for longer than I’ve been alive, and for longer than any current taxpayer has been paying taxes.
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:53 am“So it’s come to this”, it’s Trump who’s claimed that anyone who is ethnically Mexican has an automatic conflict of interest with him.
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:55 amGovernment economic figures are corrupted. Like everything in the Obama administration. If the reported job growth is this bad, the reality must be far far worse.
Between 2010 and Obama’s reelection in 2012 didn’t the government monthly job figures get readjusted downward something like 30 times in 35 months? Way more often than would happen by random chance. The administration always overinflates the numbers in its initial report, then they quietly correct them later.
But really, it’s not like we need jobs available for people who are just graduating from high school and college. Uncle Bernie will make sure they are taken care of in return for their votes.
JVW (eabb2a) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:56 amAphrael – using SS in your analogy is inapt. Welfare, food stamps, countless others would be apt. But people have paid into the system, and they deserve their promise to be fulfilled.
Didn’t the Social Security Administration use to send each one of us a personalized annual report itemizing our contributions each year and estimating what our payout at various retirement ages would be? I don’t recall receiving that for the past several years. Has anyone else gotten one?
JVW (eabb2a) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:58 amI knew that someone would do that, Milhouse. No shock it was you. Suffice it to say that i am well aware that there is no obligation on behalf of the government to live up to their end of the proposition. That doesn’t change the fact that what should be done with the people currently paying in always proves to be one of the biggest hurdles when reform is discussed. Thanks for your hyper-literal angst.
JD (2e3880) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:59 amHow would that be a conflict of interest, cnh? My wife is also a legal immigrant, and I’m not seeing any problem in enforcing the laws she’s in compliance with.
It wouldn’t be a conflict of interest. I’m making a reference to Trump’s complaint that the judge presiding over his Trump University fraud case has a conflict of interest because he’s “Mexican” (though he’s actually an American, born in Indiana, to Mexican immigrant parents.)
It’s just another way that Trump is a terrible person and candidate.
cnh (c9c12f) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:02 amU6 was 9.7 twice the official number.
narciso (732bc0) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:07 amJD, social security receipts have been spent like all the other taxes the government collects. If it makes you happy to think you’ve been paying into a retirement system, then you really haven’t been paying attention. Three generations of elected officials have chosen to characterize this tax as a “payment”, but that doesn’t make it so. It just adds a little context to discussions of how we got into our current mess. The one retirement plan that is likely to survive a collapse is the pension system that our elected officials grant to themselves for a very modest “career”. Like the repayment of student loans, the payment of government pensions is likely to persist long after the Republic is but a footnote in the history of the next Dark Age. Or so our current incumbents assume.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:09 amJVW (eabb2a) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:58 am
That’s interesting. I haven’t thought about those notices in forever.
felipe (429749) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:18 amThe job creation rate that is required just to provide employment to the massive invasion by illegal immigrants is about 80,000 a month. You might argue that many of these are children who will be enrolled in public schools. But the flood of illegals has gone on long enough that even those who ended up enrolled in public schools or colleges have now left school and are seeking work or welfare. So this steady stream of graduates will balance the portion of newly arrived immigrants who will end up enrolled in the current year.
These are in excess of the “replacement” rate dictated by demographic calculations based on the population of legal immigrants and citizens.
Of course, many of these young adults received a major portion of their education elsewhere, so they will command a premium in the job market.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:20 amBut it strikes me that this could be seen as a promise. That’s what I call a smoking gun.
felipe (429749) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:20 amReally? Anyone, anyone in the whole wide world who is ethnically Mexican has an automatic conflict of interest with Trump? I have to let Manny know about this. He’s the guy in charge of my wife’s salons and he’s from a little town named Mexico City and he loves Trump. Must not be “ethnically Mexican” enough. BTW, my landscaper is also a Trump man and he couldn’t understand why I was for Cruz as his men mowed around my “Cruz” lawn signs.
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:28 amYes.
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:35 amThere is no proposition. There hasn’t been since the 1940s, really, but in 1960 the Supreme Court took official notice of it, and thus served notice on anyone who hadn’t noticed it already.
For all of our working lives FICA has been a tax like any other, and social security a completely unrelated welfare program like any other.
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:44 amThat’s what Trump claimed.
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:47 amAgain Milhouse, I am aware of that. But thanks for your pedantic predictable proclamations. I am quite aware of the difference between the perception of SS and the reality of SS. I bet a large percentage of the public does not.
JD (2e3880) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:54 amAmerica has an unemployment crisis and we’re borrowing billions annually just to stay afloat, yet we have 13-14-15 million illegal aliens sponging off our social welfare system and taking American jobs.
Coincidence?
Or, cause and effect?
ropelight (596f46) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:09 pmRick Ballard – thank you for the answer.
On some level your premise is that there is a large quantity of people who are choosing not to work, but who could obtain work if they chose to work.
If that were true, wouldn’t there *also* be a large number of jobs going unfilled?
My sense is that people are dropping out of the workforce (and going on disability, among other things) *because they cannot find jobs*.
I would understand it if you were arguing that the jobs don’t exist because they’ve been destroyed by regulations.
But if you’re flat out arguing that the jobs exist and people are just choosing not to take them, then you must live in a part of the country with very different economics than anything I’ve heard of (outside of North Dakota).
JD – I believe you are responding to something I said in a different thread.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:24 pmUPDATE: For some reason I wrote “inflation” when I obviously meant “population growth.” I have fixed the error. Thanks to those who pointed it out.
Patterico (0c81af) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:30 pm“Now the country faces a stark choice: between a leftist who believes in government entitlements, and a leftist who believes in government entitlements.”
Uh, no.
This Fall, it’s ‘Battle Of the Networks Stars’ where the country can choose between Maude Findlay or The Great White Dope. Or make it a ‘Family affair’ and vote for Mr. French.
Americans don’t want to be governed. They wish to be entertained.
DCSCA (a343d5) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:32 pmYou say this a lot. But it’s like saying Fannie and Freddie had no bailout guarantee. It’s technically true but it’s false in political reality.
Patterico (0c81af) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:34 pmThat’s nobody’s fault but theirs. The government never told them there was an obligation, the Supreme Court told them explicitly that there wasn’t, so where did they get the idea that there was?
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:44 pmYou mean in people’s expectations. I fail to see how that’s relevant to the context. We are not talking about what is politically feasible but about what people deserve. Aphrael suggested that cutting off all government payments to anti-Trump protesters would be the same as cutting off social security to TEA Party movement protesters, and JD replied that the analogy was inapt because SS recipients “have paid into the system, and they deserve their promise to be fulfilled”. They have not “paid into” anything, and have no legal entitlement to anything, so I don’t see the inaptness.
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:51 pm> Aphrael suggested that cutting off all government payments to anti-Trump protesters would be the same as cutting off social security to TEA Party movement protesters, and JD replied that the analogy was inapt because SS recipients “have paid into the system, and they deserve their promise to be fulfilled”.
Right, but I did that *in some other post* so I’m confused by its presence here. 🙂
And to be clear, I would not support doing *either* of these things. I was merely posing it to highlight what I perceived as political bias in the suggestion that anti-Trump protesters who receive government benefits should be cut off.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:55 pmJD’s response was here, I assume by accident
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:58 pmT-T-T-T-T-TOTUS just received its 2 week notice…
Colonel Haiku (cdccbe) — 6/3/2016 @ 1:35 pmaphrael, perhaps the reference group is illegal immigrants. Wouldn’t what make a difference?
ropelight (596f46) — 6/3/2016 @ 2:09 pmYes, I responded in the wrong thread. Milhouses’s subsequent proclamations from on high followed. Milhouse, you inability to separate perception and fact is clouding your ability to understand.
JD (2e3880) — 6/3/2016 @ 2:16 pmAphrael, Tea Party movement members were protesting being Taxed Enough Already, over regulation and dismal economic growth (among other things) affecting them as American tax payers. The Trump protesters of which we speak are illegal immigrants who were attacking American citizens exercising their support of their Presidential candidate. And the Tea Party protesters attacked no one, assaulted no one and cleaned up after themselves. There is no moral equivalency here. Tea Party people should have nothing “taken away” from them, they earned it. Illegal immigrants should not be here and therefore should have everything taken away from them, it has been obtained by illegal means.
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/3/2016 @ 2:31 pmI’d give them a year to clear the country with everything they possess. After that, any illegal apprehended forfeits all property (60 – 40%) to local authorities and federal transportation agencies in addition to being ejected from the US.
Any such illegal alien (without official invitation) apprehended illegally in the US after having removed himself or been so ejected, is subject to a penalty imposed by the surviving parents of the victims of felonies committed by illegal aliens.
ropelight (596f46) — 6/3/2016 @ 2:52 pmropelight, none of that is ever going to happen. If you’re unsure, Mr. Trump will make it plain should he win the election.
Evan3457 (79ccc1) — 6/3/2016 @ 3:04 pmYou sure about that?
ropelight (596f46) — 6/3/2016 @ 3:07 pm“On some level your premise is that there is a large quantity of people who are choosing not to work, but who could obtain work if they chose to work.”
Nope. The people would be foolish to obtain work with subsidy levels so close to the amount they are capable of earning. Why would anyone take a job at $12-$15 per hour when they can receive a subsidy of $10-$13 per hour? A worker incurs costs due to regular employment and the costs avoided in addition to a little black cash income obviate the necessity of regular employment.
Rick Ballard (7727d9) — 6/3/2016 @ 3:34 pmRick Ballard (7727d9) — 6/3/2016 @ 3:34 pm
And if they lose the job, will they get food stanos etc back so quickly? And what about endangering their Medicaid?
I think means testing is very pernicious, especially when its premised on an unchanging level of income.
There’s probably no social worker that would advise someone to get a temporary job.
Sammy Finkelman (eb1481) — 6/3/2016 @ 4:04 pmaphrael (e0cdc9) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:24 pm
No, over the medium term, there are as many jobs as there are people looking for work, no more and no less.
That is also true. Unemploment is a combination of structural and frictional unemployment. Some poeple have a problem, or are in alocation where the time to find a job is very long.
I would understand it if you were arguing that the jobs don’t exist because they’ve been destroyed by regulations.
But if you’re flat out arguing that the jobs exist and people are just choosing not to take them, then you must live in a part of the country with very different economics than anything I’ve heard of (outside of North Dakota).
JD – I believe you are responding to something
Sammy Finkelman (eb1481) — 6/3/2016 @ 4:08 pm31. ropelight (596f46) — 6/3/2016 @ 12:09 pm
Two unrelated facts. Jobs cannot exist independent of people.
Immigration was vastly cut during the 1920s, but that did not prevent the Great Depression, nor, if the opposite had hapepned, would the depression have been any worse.
Sammy Finkelman (eb1481) — 6/3/2016 @ 4:11 pmI would understand it if you were arguing that the jobs don’t exist because they’ve been destroyed by regulations.
But if you’re flat out arguing that the jobs exist and people are just choosing not to take them, then you must live in a part of the country with very different economics than anything I’ve heard of (outside of North Dakota).
It’s people looking for work that creates jobs. More people looking for work results in jobs being filled quicker, so the economy explands faster, all other things being equal, so more jobs exist after a year. You only get problems where businesses cannot get capital to start or expand.
Sammy Finkelman (eb1481) — 6/3/2016 @ 4:13 pmRegulation etc can slow the rate of expansion, so the period of time it takes to get ajob grows longer.
Higher interest rates are bad.
Some people in the fed said higher interest rates would cause people to make better investments or something like that. If so, so would higher taxes.
Sammy Finkelman (eb1481) — 6/3/2016 @ 4:15 pmSammy,
Please list and explain to us the premises upon which you base this bizarre statement.
BobStewartatHome (a52abe) — 6/3/2016 @ 5:39 pmWhat does that statement mean?
No it isn’t. Demand for labor creates jobs whoever is looking is irrelevant.
Not if you’re a retiree living off your interest. You paint with too broad a brush.
If people at the Fed said that it is just one more reason to disband the Fed, they’re idiots. Higher interest rates cause people to save. Low interest rates entice people to invest. Higher taxes cause people to invest in tax free bonds or invest overseas to avoid the taxes. And what are “better investments”?
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/3/2016 @ 6:01 pmnk- If Trump gets beat by Clinton, I’ll send you a 2 pound lobster, or some of the greatest bay scallops in the world. Your choice. If Trump wins buy me lunch at your favorite Greek hot spot.
mg (f81376) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:20 pmI don’t gamble, mg. I have a superstition against it. If Trump loses, which is not the same thing as Clinton winning, I will celebrate with you, my treat.
nk (dbc370) — 6/3/2016 @ 8:37 pmeven ingsoc would marvel,
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2016/06/funniest-labor-report-ever.html#more
narciso (732bc0) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:34 pmRIP, Ali dead at age of 74
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/3/2016 @ 9:37 pmno wonder he went into a feedback loop,
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-03/these-are-9-zero-hedge-charts-showing-obamas-recovery-angered-washington-post
narciso (732bc0) — 6/3/2016 @ 10:46 pm18 23
The government (in a somewhat dubious effort to save money) stopped mailing out the annual Social Security Statement in 2011. It is possible to create an online account with Social Security and download the statements.
James B. Shearer (5c63dc) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:05 pm28 For all of our working lives FICA has been a tax like any other, and social security a completely unrelated welfare program like any other.
This is silly. Under current law your benefit is a function of the taxes you have paid. Of course laws can be changed (or evaded) but it is ridiculous to say that the programs are completely unrelated.
James B. Shearer (5c63dc) — 6/3/2016 @ 11:11 pmThen why was there a Social Security Trust Fund?
Then who was the money in the Social Security Trust Fund being held for? What was Al Gore referring to when he called it a “Lock Box”?
Social Security is and has always been a Ponzi scheme, a scam, introduced and perpetuated by the democrats to loot the income of “the average American worker” to line their own pockets and get votes. It is a testament to either the stupidity of the Aerica taxpayer or to the genius of leftist politicians that the same program that loots the middle class was sold to the middle class as “retirement insurance”.
So while you are technically correct, Milhouse, your attitude gives pardon to a bunch of political thieves who stole our retirement. Millions of Americans never bothered to save because they knew “the government” had them covered. Especially the poor. The democrats were so insidious and so interested in screwing the lower and working classes while not alienating their rich friends they even made SS cut off the more a person earned. Now you name another tax designed to disappear the more money you earn.
Rev. Hoagie© (734193) — 6/4/2016 @ 5:16 amSo, all you folks not voting for Trump be sure to vote for Bernie.
cedarhill (c1e1dc) — 6/4/2016 @ 5:19 am“Only a captured government drone could put out a report showing only 38,000 new jobs created,
with the working age population rising by 205,000, and have the balls to report the unemployment rate plunged from 5.0% to 4.7%, the lowest since August 2007. If you ever needed proof these worthless bureaucrats are nothing more than propaganda peddlers for the establishment, this report is it. The two previous months were revised significantly downward in the fine print of the press release.”
— Doug Ross
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New Balance 574 Mujer (da0e47) — 6/4/2016 @ 3:26 pmPlease explain what perception has to do with it.
You claimed that people who have “paid in” to social security “deserve their promise to be fulfilled”. Not that they are believe they deserve this, but that they actually do deserve it. You had to claim that, because a mere delusional belief on someone’s part that he deserves something is no reason not to take it away; after all, the protesters to whom aphrael compared them also believe they deserve the government benefits they receive. So how is it relevant that a false perception exists?
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/5/2016 @ 10:18 amThat Congress currently chooses to scale a specific welfare benefit to a specific tax does not create a real link between them. If it did then Congress would be unable to change it, since it does not have the power to cancel the USA’s contractual obligations.
If you are a supplier who has sold goods to the USA, Congress can’t legislate that you not be paid. But if you are someone who has been paying FICA all your life, Congress can change the social security program to make you ineligible, or to cut your benefits, or even to repeal it entirely.
And you have been on notice of this since before you started paying FICA. There has never been a day when you paid in the legitimate belief that you were thereby creating an obligation on the USA to pay you when you retire.
Sleight of hand for the gullible. Already in the 1940s the government was open about the money being spent. “We owe it to ourselves.”
There was a half-thought-out proposal to stop spending the money that was notionally “set aside” for social security, and start actually accumulating it, even if it wouldn’t be invested in anything. But that didn’t last very long, because it didn’t actually make that much sense. A real “lock box” would be an independent body that got actual payments which it would invest in tradeable bonds (whether government or not).
Milhouse (87c499) — 6/5/2016 @ 10:40 amthe real job report must be hideous since the “official” job report is dreadful. The the entire last eight years, the economy is suppose to be getting better while more people are out of work.
jkstewart2 (aad04b) — 6/5/2016 @ 9:11 pm