Food Stamp Users Near Record High Despite Low Unemployment Rate

Despite the unemployment rate being at an eight-year low (4.9 percent as of January 2016), the number of people on food stamps remains near an all-time high which was 47,636,000 in 2013. Why the disparity in the numbers? Well, the unemployment rate does not take into account people who are not in, or have dropped out of, the workforce altogether.
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Why doesn't 4.9% unemployment feel great?

The U.S. unemployment rate just fell below 5% for the first time since 2008. Normally, this would merit a celebration. But these aren't normal times.
The economy is better than it was in the Great Recession, but not even President Obama is ready to declare it's booming.
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Federal Reserve blames immigrant kids for robbing jobs from 'native' U.S. teens

American teen employment has dropped 20 percent from the late 1980s, in part because more and more immigrants have flooded into the market to displace native-born kids from jobs in percentages far higher than on adults, according to the Federal Reserve.
"The displacement effect of immigration on the employment of younger persons is much larger than on the employment of prime-age adults," said the September 2014 report, "Labor Force Participation: Recent Developments and Future Prospects."


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100 Million Americans Not Working As Workforce Shrinks

Is America hard at work? Or hardly working? I ask this because 430,000 Americans of working age (16 and older) dropped out of the workforce in June.
Over the last year, only 1.3 million of working age have entered the workforce, even as the population of this same demographic increased by more than 2.8 million. Just over 1 million members of this group found jobs. That's right — of the new additions to the working age population, less than four in 10 found jobs. The newspapers touted the reduction in the unemployment rate to 5.3% as a cause for celebration. Yet for every three Americans added to the working age population (16 and older), only around one new job (1.07) has been created under Obama. At this pace, America will soon officially have a zero unemployment rate — but only be because no one will be looking for work.


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2016 candidates must address high poverty rates among immigrant communities

Immigrants are known for bringing a strong work ethic and economic stimuli to the U.S., but as their families settle into American life, too many are earning too little.
According to the latest US Census data on means-tested government assistance, the two largest demographic groups that include large numbers of recent immigrants or children of immigrants (Asians and Hispanics) are disproportionately poor enough to qualify for public assistance.


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Latest Estimate of Illegal Alien Population Exceeds Unemployed

The Pew Research Center’s latest estimate of the number of illegal aliens residing in the United States—11.7 million as of March 2012—was less than the approximately 12.5 million people whom the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated were unemployed in the United States in the average month of 2012.  However, it exceeds the approximately 11.46 million people whom BLS says were unemployed in the average month of 2013.  Pew released its latest report on the “unauthorized immigrant” population on Sept. 23, 2013.

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Oregon's Sad Focus on 'Happiness'

By Joel Kotkin
Oregon is a beautiful place, and, for many of the state's well-heeled residents, including many refugees from equally beautiful but overpriced California, economic growth not only is unimportant but is even a negative. Rather than create opportunity, the real issue, according to Gov. John Kitzhaber, is making sure the state ranks high on “the happiness index.” Forget sweating the hard stuff, and cozy up with a hot soy latte. ✧ There's a problem with this. Oregon's unemployment rate remains above the national average and underemployment – the measure of people working part-time or well below their skill level – stands at nearly 17 percent, behind only Nevada and California. Since 2007, the state has lost over 3.4 percent of its jobs, a performance much worse than the national average and even California. ✧ “You have to wonder about the rhetoric of happiness,” suggests economist Bill Watkins, who predicts the state won't be back to 2007 employment levels till next year. “You need jobs for people to be happy, you would think.”

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Black Labor Force Participation Rate Under Obama Hits Rock Bottom--Lowest Level Ever Recorded

Five years in to Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force has hit rock bottom. The news media has ignored this stunning revelation from Friday’s monthly jobs report by the Labor Department.   The exception has been PBS, which interviewed economist Dean Baker who had written about it in a report published Friday.  “The drop in labor force participation was sharpest for African Americans, who saw a decline of 0.3 percentage points to 60.2 percent, the lowest rate since December of 1977.

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US LOST 2 MILLION WORKERS IN 2013

Friday's December jobs report was a major disappointment, showing the economy gained just 74k jobs last month. Economists had expected the economy to gain around 200k jobs. The unemployment rate, however, dropped to 6.7% as 347k frustrated job-seekers gave up and left the labor force. We are in an upside-down world where a drop in the unemployment rate is a bad sign for the economy.

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Census ‘faked’ 2012 election jobs report

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

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Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor

On Tuesday, the chief human resources officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.  The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald's Corporation, The Wendy's Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally.  A new immigration law, the corporate officers say, "would be a long overdue step toward aligning our nation's immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels to ensure U.S. global competitiveness." The officials cite a publication of their trade group, the HR Policy Association, which calls for immigration reform to "address the reality that there is a global war for talent." The way for the United States to win that war for talent, they say, is more immigration.

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Obama’s bad news for blacks

Presidents Reagan and Obama dealt with severe recessions:
[Excerpts] Under Reagan, adult black unemployment fell by 20 percent, but under Mr. Obama, it has increased by 42 percent. ✧ Black teenage unemployment fell by 16 percent under Reagan, but has risen by 56 percent under Mr. Obama. ✧ The increase in unemployment rates has been far worse for blacks under Mr. Obama than for whites and Hispanics. ✧ Inflation-adjusted real incomes are slightly higher for Hispanics and whites than they were in 2008, but are lower for blacks. ✧ The labor force participation rate has fallen for all groups, but remains far lower for blacks than for whites and Hispanics.
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Immigrants account for all job gains since 2000: native-born workers’ employment has fallen

Immigrants — both legal and illegal — have accounted for all of the job gains in the U.S. labor market since 2000, according to a report that highlights the stiff competition for jobs in a tight economy as Congress debates adding more workers to the mix.

The Center for Immigration Studies report, which is being released Wednesday, says 22.4 million immigrants of working age held jobs at the beginning of this year, up 5.3 million over the total in 2000. But native-born workers with jobs dropped 1.3 million over that same period, from 114.8 million to 113.5 million.

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Austerity Is Not to Blame for Tepid Job Growth

Politics: Democrats were quick to blame the anemic March jobs number on the "sequester" spending cuts. If that were the case, what explains the previous four years of lousy job growth under Obama?

At 88,000, the jobs growth in March was well below expectations. And while the unemployment rate dropped, that was the result of hundreds of thousands dropping out of the labor force who as a result aren't counted as unemployed.

Democrats, of course, tried to pin the blame for this on Republicans for allegedly pushing austerity measures.

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For Every Person Added to Labor Force, 10 Added to Those Not in Labor Force

A new chart from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee details the fact that, since January 2009, for every person added to the labor force, 10 have been added to those not in the labor force. Here's a chart showing the dwindling labor force:



Read more at the Weekly Standard

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GOP lawmaker calls for change to how government measures unemployment

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) intends to press GOP leaders to move his bill to include the number of individuals who gave up looking for work in the percentage of jobless claims. ✧ Should the government measure unemployment with Hunter's figure, the unemployment rate would be higher than the current rate of approximately 8 percent– a potentially devastating assessment for the White House, especially in an election year.  Read more at The Hill... Read More......

Huffman: Wind, timber and hypocrisy in the Pacific Northwest

DC CALLER, 3/9/2012 by Jim Huffman, Law Professor, Lewis & Clark Law School

[Excerpts] [...] In 2009 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the national death toll from wind turbines at 440,000 birds that year alone. ✧ That seems like a lot of birds, particularly for those of us in the Pacific Northwest, where a once-vibrant timber economy has been devastated in a failing effort to save the spotted owl. Read more at DC Caller...

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Labor Force Participation Rate Tumbles To Fresh 30 Year Low

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a record 1.2 million people fell out of the labor force in one month. How does this figure effect the positive drop in unemployment to 8.3% reported for January 2012? See article and charts at Zero Hedge...

Added 2/13/2012: See chart.

Unfortunately, we can't trust that good news is, indeed, good news. As President Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." --bc Read More......

Obama's Economic Record Chart

The following FYI chart from FireGate Ministries is useful in assessing President Obama's performance as the end of his 3rd year in office approaches. (Hat tip: Stella Guenther)

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GOP.com: Obama By The Numbers

7/11/2011 - Obama’s Treasury Secretary Says It Is “Ridiculous” To Judge The President Based On The Facts – You Be The Judge... GOP.com/PDF

Eye-popping numbers! --bc
(Hat tip: D'Ann Mathews) Read More......