Jobs report: Total catastrophe

While many of the big-box news media reported that the economy created jobs and the unemployment rate fell, they buried the real story.

Here is the fluff most of the media reported. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls):

And if you heard just these statistics it would be pretty easy to conclude that the economy is improving.

But it only takes a little digging to find that the jobs report is actually a total disaster.

The reason the unemployment rate fell was not because of the 115,000 jobs created. Economists estimate that it takes at least 125,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with population growth.

Why then did the unemployment rate fall? Because the total labor force shrunk (see “The Abbott and Costello Unemployment Fiasco”). Three hundred and forty-two thousand people left the workforce. The bls says that these people are not looking for work anymore, therefore they are not technically unemployed.

Thus, say the government statisticians, the unemployment rate is improving.

With reasoning like that it is no wonder America’s economy is self-destructing!

Making matters worse, a different bls survey (the Household Survey) found that instead of creating 115,000 jobs, the economy actually lost 169,000.

I am guessing you didn’t hear that number broadcast on your nightly news.

So depending on which survey you believe, the total number of people working in the United States may actually have shrunk (as the bls reports in its household data) by 522,000 people in March.

Although March was a disaster, over the past year America has added 945,000 people to the workforce.

That may sound positive, but only until you realize that during that same time, 2,693,000 people chose to leave the labor force.

If you count all those people who have left, the headline 8.1 percent unemployed would actually be 11 percent unemployed. Then there are still the millions of Americans who are working part-time because they can’t find full-time employment. That would push the unemployment rate closer to 20 percent.

But who wants to hear the truth anyway?