Joe Biden said it last night in his speech: “We’ve turned the corner.”
If you read this article, you will see how right – and yet how terribly, wickedly wrong – Joe Biden and the Obama administration truly are.
The key to understanding the official (U-3) unemployment rate is the bizarre measure by which people who are out of work are counted as “unemployed” only if they’re actively looking for a job. Only 63 percent of working-age adults are working in Obama’s God damn America. Millions of people – over 23 million – have dropped out of the work force, making this unemployment statistic not only meaningless, but cruel, as oppressed people simply don’t count any more.
The most accurate description of the August unemployment report is coming from the UK:
Are you better off? Just 96,000 jobs added in August as 368,000 people LEAVE the workforce in bleak employment report dealing blow to Obama re-election hopes
• Lowest workforce participation rate since September 1981
• Jobless rate drops to 8.1 per cent but only because workforce shrinks
• President Barack Obama knew of figures before big speech
By Toby Harnden In Charlotte, North Carolina
PUBLISHED: 08:07 EST, 7 September 2012 | UPDATED: 09:04 EST, 7 September 2012Just 96,000 American jobs were added in August in a bleak monthly jobs report as 368,000 left the workforce, bringing labour market participation down to its lowest level for 31 years and dealing a blow to President Barack Obama’s re-election chances.
The national unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 per cent, down from 8.3 per cent, but this was only because so many people gave up looking for work. If the participation rate had not dropped so precipitously, unemployment would have risen to 8.4 per cent.
Factory employment fell by the most in two years and temporary-help companies eliminated positions for the first time in five months. The 69.9 per cent labor force participation rate for men is at lowest level recorded since the US government began tracking it in 1948.
According to James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, the unemployment rate would be 11.4 per cent if the labour force participation rate had remained what it was when Obama took office in January 2009.
President Barack Obama was made aware of the figures before he took the stage to deliver his prime-time address at the Democratic convention on Thursday night, which could account for his sometimes grim demeanour as he spoke.
In a biting statement, Romney said: ‘If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover. For every net new job created, nearly four Americans gave up looking for work entirely. This is more of the same for middle class families who are suffering through the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression.
‘After 43 straight months of unemployment above eight per cent, it is clear that President Obama just hasn’t lived up to his promises and his policies haven’t worked. We aren’t better off than they were four years ago. My plan for a stronger middle class will create 12 million new jobs by the end of my first term. America deserves new leadership that will get our economy moving again.’
On Thursday night, Obama laid out his case for being re-elected to a second term by comparing himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won an unprecedented four presidential elections and led America to recovery after the Great Depression.
Stalling: The growth of new jobs has taken a significant dip compared to the beginning of the year
The grim economic data came as Obama and Romney were deadlocked in the national opinion polls in a race that has been too close to call for many months. It was the last opportunity for either man to use a defined ‘moment’ to change the trajectory of the race before the three presidential debates in October.
[…]
The labor force participation rate declined again to 63.5%. That is down from 65.7% when Obama assumed office in January 2009. That 2.2% destruction in the American workforce participation rate, but it is actually huge:
“In the latest, much celebrated, unemployment report, the labor force participation rate had plummeted to 63.7 percent, the most rapid decline in U.S. history,” writes economist Peter Ferrara.
Does that sound like a president who should be reelected? Obama is presiding over “the most rapid decline in U.S. history.” His polices are failing about as massively as they could fail.
Fox New reported:
Friday’s report was discouraging throughout. Hourly pay fell, manufacturers cut the most jobs in two years and the number of people in the work force dropped to its lowest level in 31 years.
As stated in both articles, this is the lowest participation in the employment force in 31 years. And the rate for men is the lowest number EVER RECORDED since tracking began back in 1948.
I’ve written about this growing disaster: two years ago, Obama had degenerated the workforce to it’s lowest participation rate in 25 years. Last year, Obama sunk the labor participation rate to its lowest level in 27 years. Just in May of this year, it was at the lowest level in 30 years. And now it is at the lowest level in 31 years and sinking like a stone.
At the rate we’re going, as I’ve said, Obama will be crowing about zero percent unemployment and he and his government cronies will be the only people in America with damn jobs.
Obama has led America into a jobs holocaust. The only reason the unemployment rate went down is because the participation rate dropped. If we calculated unemployment by the same participation rate that George Bush handed Obama, unemployment would be 11.4%.
What is true of the labor force participation is also true of business start ups in America under Obama. Two years ago – and this being during the so-called Obama “recovery,” the number of U.S. business start-ups and dropped 24% – and how the hell does that happen in a “recovery” when you’re supposedly coming out of a recession that you blame Bush for? Last year the number of business start-ups had plunged to a 25 year low – which was THE LOWEST level ever measured since the statistic began to be tracked in 1986. Now under Obama’s utterly failed leadership and under his Marxist class warfare, the number of business start-ups is at a 30 year low.
Obama isn’t adding anywhere NEAR enough jobs to keep up with the 10 million people who have joined the workforce by virtue of becoming adults during his presidency. And when you add the discouraged workers who are simply abandoning all hope of any change in Obama’s rhetoric-based “reality” of “hope and change,” 96,000 jobs is a thin stream of piss in the Pacific Ocean.
If you have any damn clue whatsoever about what is going on in this economy, you have simply got to be an evil psychotic communist to believe that Barack Obama should be reelected.
Obama has made his entire presidency about demonizing and fearmongering the last presidency. But that last presidency had an average unemployment rate of 5.26%, basically the same as Bill Clinton whom Democrats idolize. Versus Obama, who promised the American people that if his now known to have been a failed stimulus, unemployment would never go above 8% (whereas it’s been over that for his entire presidency) and the current unemployment rate was supposed to be 5.4% today.
Obama is great at making promises; but he’s just as bad at fulfilling them as he is at making them. He believes he can make a bunch of promises and then move on to make a new batch of promises. That was the essence of his speech last night.
Zero Hedge (who provided this link to as well as a block quote from the official BLS report) summed it up thus:
In August, two months ahead of the presidential election ahead of which this number will be one of the most critical and talked about, the US generated just 96,000 non-farm payroll jobs, on expectations of 130K additions, and compared to the July number of 163,000, now revised to 143,000K. Private payrolls rose by a modest 103,000, much lower than the expected number of 142K, and down from July’s revised 162K. -15,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, compared to the expected +10K, and sadly just a little bit short of Obama’s recent promise to add 1 million manufacturing jobs by 2016. Finally, while the unemployment rate came lower (surprise, surprise: this is what appears in newspapers) at 8.1%, far lower than expectations of 8.3%, and below last month’s 8.3%, the broad total underemployment rate (U-6) continues to be sticky at 14.7%. Birth Death added 87,000, up from July’s 52,000. The reason for the drop in the unemployment rate: labor force participation dropped to 63.5%, down from 63.7%. Oddly enough, this report leaves the NEW QE door open, even as Obama can take the accolade for a declining unemployment rate. Win-win for everyone
Just to point out what Zero Hedge hinted at: there is a constant monkeying with the data such that for some reason every single report ends up ultimately being revised DOWN under Obama. And it all seems to be geared toward a game of giving Obama talking points on the one hand and the Federal Reserve more power to devalue our currency on the other.
I like the way Clint Eastwood put it following his “empty chair” talk at the RNC:
“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
True that.
We’ve turned the corner, all right. And 368,000 more Americans showed their agreement this month by abandoning hope of getting a job in the Obama regime. Under this failed presidency, we are heading at breakneck speed toward a depression unlike anything this nation has ever seen. Because if Obama is reelected, you will see businesses immediately do the exact same thing they did when he was elected in 2008: bail out of America as the American people betray them by electing a business-hating Marxist. Only this time it will be worse as businesses do what millions of Americans have already done in despair and quit “participating” in the US economy.
Tags: August unemployment rate, business start-ups, discouraged workers, gave up looking, labor participation rate, lowest in years, thirty year low
Start Thinking Right 
September 7, 2012 at 1:37 pm
According to the government, how many people have left the workforce since January, 2009? How many of these people are below retirement age, i.e. affirmatively withdrawing from the workforce as opposed to retiring? Where can I find these numbers for myself?
September 7, 2012 at 9:44 pm
dan,
That’s an excellent question. As you probably noticed, I cited several “labor force participation rates” at various points during the Obama presidency. And you probably saw that one of the economists pointed out that if Obama was held to the same labor participation rate that Bush had, unemployment would now be 11.4%
For the record, labor force participation is defined as “working age adults” who are actively working or actively seeking employment. As we continue under Obama, fewer and fewer working-age adults are actually WORKING and more and more of them are NOT working.
When Obama took office, that rate was 65.7%. It is now 63.5%. (see here for a good interactive chart on that). As you can see, it remained pretty steady under Bush, but has dropped to historic lows under Obama. If we can find census data for how many working-age Americans there are, we would have our answer. Merely by multiplying the difference (65.7% – 63.5% = 2.2%) times the number of working-age Americans.
I came across this figure: 238.889 million. Which would mean that 5.256 million working-age Americans have vanished under the Obama presidency. They are NOT “retirement age” because they are WORKING age; they are NOT counted in the U-3 unemployment rate; they are just not counted.
Heck, that’s a pretty great stat to pound Obama on the head with.
That figure that I calculated based on the number of working-age Americans is probably pretty darn close to being right. I saw a Forbes article which said back in February 2012:
And here’s another quote that reinforces this number is probably accurate:
So that 2.2% drop during Obama’s nearing four years is THE MOST RAPID DECLINE IN U.S. HISTORY, and more than five million workers have simply vanished from consideration.
That does NOT count the 5.6 million unemployed Americans who ARE in the system.
The final thing is that Obama boasts of 4.5 million jobs created in the last 29 months. Notice he won’t own all of 2009 at all or factor it in, as though it never even happened. But even on Obama’s own logic, 4.5 million divided by 29 = 155,000 jobs a month. To point out how pitiful that is, we need at LEAST 200,000 jobs a month just to barely keep up with population growth.
Obama is failing America on a massive scale. And the media that would be crawling all over a Republican if this was happening won’t honestly report on what is really going on.
September 14, 2012 at 9:01 am
The great recession began under Bush and GOP leadership. Lower taxes and two unfunded wars combined with lack of oversight on wall street created the economic crisis. The Republicans like to blame Obama but Americans are not stupid and know better and still blame Bush. GOP Tea Party activists have made things worse by not passing Obama’s jobs bill and almost forcing a government shut down that hurt our credit rating. Romney’s plan to solve the economic problems is, you guessed it, lower taxes again, increase defense spending and ignore financial regulations to prevent another collapse on wall street. In addition, the party of no puts fourth no solutions to the many uninsured and under insured people struggling with health care. Obama will win because Romney and Ryan will dismantle medicaid, medicare and social security forcing more people into poverty. Mitt needs to do what he does best, make money for himself and stay out of politics. He is disliked in his home state of Michigan and polls show he is 10 points behind and will lose. Republican leadership knows he is losing and there is little they can do but throw more money his way but it will not matter. Americans and the middle class have rejected Romney. Enough said.
September 14, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Dave,
Wrong, and I can’t stand it when you libturds start lying in your very FIRST NINE WORDS. Allow me to correct your garbage –
– with the truth:
The unemployment rate in November 2006 when Democrats demonized their way into leadership over the House and the Senate by demagoguing Iraq and Afghanistan and Katrina was 4.4 percent. Look it up, you liar.
The last budget that was passed (because Republicans actually LED and actually PASSED DAMN BUDGETS) for FY-2007 had a deficit of only $163 billion. Look that up, too, you liar. And that is versus deficits that are easily TEN TIMES that much since Obama took office.
If you’d just said, “… under Bush” I would have corrected you without the outrage. But nope. You had to say “under GOP leadership” when that is a pure factual LIE.
Democrats took over in January of 2007 when things were going well and immediately ran America into the ground. Again, look it up.
Furthermore, you slander and lie about low taxes. I document in my article “Tax Cuts INCREASE Revenues; They Have ALWAYS Increased Revenues,” the Bush tax cuts INCREASED FEDERAL REVENUES.
This is a quote from that article (there’s plenty more where this came from):
Btw, I also document in that article below that quote how not only did tax revuens massively increase under Bush’s tax cuts as a result of being being incentivized to work harder and invest more BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY GOT TO KEEP THEIR PROFITS, that not only did the “rich” pay MORE in taxes but they actually paid a considerably higher overall share of the tax burden.
Now I block liars. And given that you tell huge, MASSIVE lies in just your first 20 words means you are not fit to have any kind of honest debate with.
When two people have a legitimate argument or debate, there is a presupposition that there is a world of facts that stands above both parties, such that one side can convince the other by appealing to those facts and to the truth. There is simply no possible way to have a meaningful discussion with someone who lies and invents their OWN reality the way you just did when you demonstratd such a reckless disregard of history and of reality. So get lost.
September 14, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Btw, I note that in that “Taxes Increase Revenues” there is an error.
The Clinton DotCom recession did NOT vaporize $6 trillion in wealth; it was actually far worse than that and vaporized $7.1 trillion in American wealth.
Which made the Bush recovery all the more dramatic in comparison to what he inherited.