NYT: Jobless Rate Falls to 6.2%, but Payrolls Slump: 500K discouraged drop

[kysrsoze]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's unemployment rate declined to 6.2 percent in July as nearly half a million discouraged Americans stopped looking for a job. Payrolls were cut for the sixth month in a row, suggesting that businesses remain cautious and want to keep work forces leans despite budding signs of an economic revival.

The Labor Department's report Friday pained a picture of a job market that remains stubbornly sluggish and continues to frustrate people looking for work. The economy lost 44,000 jobs in July. While that's an improvement from the 72,000 shed in June, economists were hoping that positions would actually be added. They were forecasting payrolls to go up by around 10,000.

Although the jobless rate dipped to a two-month low of 6.2 percent from a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June, much of decline's July represented the exodus of 470,000 discouraged people who abandoned job searches because they believed no jobs were available.

[mbperrin]

1. That's right! Can't create new jobs?

Then simply let unemployment benefits run out! Now these folks are not "seeking" work any more (after all, they're not drawing unemployment, are they?) So they either took their huge stack of savings and went home - don't need to work! (Right!) Or they just don't need to work somehow.

And remember - those in occupations not covered by unemployment insurance or not employed long enough to file were never unemployed to start with!!!

Whattaya suppose the real rate is? 13%? or closer to 20%?

[dfong63]

3. not quite accurate

Then simply let unemployment benefits run out! Now these folks are not "seeking" work any more (after all, they're not drawing unemployment, are they?)

the official unemployment rate does include people who are not drawing unemployment benefits. it does not include people who gave up looking for work, or who are underemployed. nor does it include people who retired early, chose to go on disability (people who had some disability, but could still work if the jobs were there), or went to prison (after turning to crime).

furthermore, the unemployment rate is based on sampling, and the sub-population that they choose for the sample is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the nation as a whole. earlier this year, the BLS changed their sampling criteria, resulting in an artificial ("paper") reduction in the numeric value of the unemployment rate. no jobs were created, but it made the number dip slightly.

the official rate also, being an average, tends to mask the pain level felt in the hardest-hit geographical areas (eg silicon valley), and by the hardest-hit demographic groups (eg blacks).

and beyond the actually unemployed, there's the fear factor. even those who currently have a job, know they could be next to be thrown overboard.

in an atmosphere like this - killing Saddam or Osama or their children, is not going to make the nation feel "secure".

[TripleD]

9. According to NewsHour it's 17.8%...

...at least for men.

Last Tuesdays newscast ended with a story analyzing the unemployment rates:

...Add them all up, and today's 6.4 percent official unemployment rate approaches 1982's 10.8 percent record, at least for men. There's one last way to confirm this. Back in 1982, the percent of total working age men not employed for whatever reason -- discouraged, disabled, jailed, retired early, or officially out of work -- was 17.3 percent. But as of last month, that total was even higher: 17.8 percent not employed, which make the current job bust, at least for men, look far deeper than the official unemployment rate suggests.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec03/unemployment_07-29.html

[NYC]

2. This just feeds itself.

Jobless people are not shopping. That in turn will cause more layoffs at stores because of fewer customers and smaller purchases.

More unemployed means yet fewer shoppers. Fewer shoppers = more layoffs.

Meanwhile, Bush threatens to prevent states from passing laws that would interfere without outsourcing of jobs to India?

I can't see an end to this.

[grasswire]

4. an end....

....would be a visionary government that set some goals that would create jobs.

President Gore would not be in this fix, even with a trifecta of disasters. That's because he had a vision for the future economy that moved away from carbon fuels and created new industries.

Remember what the government did in the Great Depression? People were put to work creating the great parks, the roads, the work projects. Instead, the Bushes put the Iraqis to work and allow trade practices to strip our land of jobs and industries.

[NYC]

5. Outsourcing strongly supported by Bush.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=47040&mesg_id=47040

The federal government wants to PREVENT states from enacting laws that would interfere with outsourcing to India.

Read the article at the above DU link in conjunction with this thread. These articles belong together.

[chiburb]

6. The REAL Unemployment #s...

PAUL SOLMAN: When the government adds the white-collar unemployed to out-of-work urban youth, plus the manufacturing workers who've borne the brunt of the recession and jobless recovery, it comes up with an average official unemployment rate of 6.4 percent, highest in a decade, and more than 50 percent higher than it was just two years ago. Now, there is a positive way to look at it. Today's 6.4 percent is nowhere near the post-depression record of 10.8 percent, set back in the recession of 1982. Chicago-based John Challenger, however, in the outplacement business since the early '80s, says unemployment is much worse than the official number suggests.

JOHN CHALLENGER: 6.4 percent only tells the first part of the story. There are discouraged workers. There are people who have been marginalized, and that puts unemployment up over 12 percent.

PAUL SOLMAN: 12 percent?

JOHN CHALLENGER: They're being pushed out of the workplace. They're being deskilled. The problem is much deeper than it looks.

PAUL SOLMAN: John Challenger's extreme claim, first made to us on the phone, is what motivated this story, and what we came to Chicago to explore: That today's unofficial unemployment rate is much higher than the official 6.4 percent. And in fact, what we found suggests that for men in the workforce, today's number actually rivals the 10.8 percent record of 1982, because, it turns out, there are four factors suppressing today's official number, at least for men: Millions more discouraged workers than there were in 1982; millions more on disability; nearly 1.5 million more incarcerated men; and finally, there's a demographic factor. Today's is an older workforce. To make it comparable to 1982, the economists we spoke with would adjust today's number upward for that reason alone. And the same is true for each of these categories. Take discouraged workers, who aren't officially counted as unemployed unless they say they actively looked for work in the past four weeks.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec03/unemployment_07-29.html


The lives of a farmer, the lives of a doctor should be running parallel. Shrewd politicians meet wealthy morticians, do they really burn in hell? "

[robbedvoter]

7. Official real numbers:

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm
Click u-6, then retrieve. Compare with Clinton's #

[goobergunch]

8. In other words...

people have just given up looking for work.

Eventually * will have an unemployment rate of 0% because everyone will have given up.