JOBS
As the “numbers” (I say that because they are adjusted,shifted,teased,crunched,& seasonalized for our consumption) many are a bit tepid by the lower than expected addition of jobs by the private sector for the month of September. The private sector job increase of ,148,000 jobs, was lower than the 180,000 projected by many economists.
“This report on the labor market will soften people’s assessments of current conditions,” said Cary Leahey, a senior economist at Decision Economics in New York. (via @reuters.com)
This jobs report was released about two weeks later than the normal report release time, due to the partial Government shutdown and budget battle.
Yet, there is supposedly a silver lining in this report: the unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a percentage point to 7.2 percent, the lowest level since November 2008.
All of this is supposed to show signs of a recovery that is happening in the economy.
But lets look at the hardcore stats that working people feel and live everyday.
Only 58.7 percent of the adult population of 245 million was working and of that figure, approximately 11 percent of those are part-time workers. So of the adult population about 47% have a full-time job. Grasp that figure; nearly 53 percent of the adult population of United States of America does NOT have a full-time job. Let me repeat :
Nearly 53 percent of the adult population of United States of America does NOT have a full-time job.
That is NOT a sign of recovery for working people, that is a JOBS CRISIS.
“We’ve Got Your Jobless Report,” headlined an Oct. 7 Investor’s Business Daily article. “Unlike the numbers released each month by the Labor Department,” it said, “ours haven’t been crunched, tweaked, twisted, seasonably adjusted or otherwise tortured to tell a comforting story.”
An IBD/TIPP Poll conducted in early October asking, “how many members of your household are currently unemployed and are looking for employment,” reported the numbers unemployed is 47.9 million.
“Out of a workforce of 154 million, that yields a gross unemployment rate of 31%. Among all households, 26% have at least one member looking for work,” reported Investor’s Business Daily.
I have yet to see commentary on whether the jobs added in September,were net full or part-time jobs. I know back in June when there was talk of jobs added the net number of jobs were actually part-time jobs. At that time fulltime employment had shrunk by 240,000. Year to date then, only 130,000 full-time jobs have been added. The rest of the jobs, 557,000, have been part-time.
We are facing a JOBS CRISIS.
ADMINISTRATION ANSWER
President Obama has appointed a new ,Federal Reserve Vice Chair, Janet Yellen to replace Ben Bernanke as head of the central bank. More than likely she will continue the same plan that has been put forth by the Obama administration as the answer to this crisis: printing more money.
This stimulus plan promotes the idea that with more money available to them, the private sector will use it to make more full-time jobs available and hire more people.
This has not happened. There is not even on bit of evidence to show that is the outcome of the money printing/job growth stimulus scheme, of the Obama administration, has produced jobs.
As of October the Fed has maintain interest rate of zero, yet has nearly $3.7 Trillion (yes with a “T”) sitting in reserves waiting for the private sector to borrow, boost production, and hire more workers.
Hasnt happened, the exact OPPOSITE has occurred.
What has instead happened during this slowdown, since it’s not profitable for the great majority of private sector to invest in equipment and labor to expand production, they tended to sit on their cash reserves or seek higher returns through investing it in stocks or other forms of speculative bets, such as on the rise or fall of various kinds of commercial paper.
GOVERNMENT JOBS PROGRAM
As all of this is happening, everyday working people are facing the brunt of this jobs crisis. Standard of living is under attack daily. People of Color & women are disproportionately bearing this brunt of the JOBS CRISIS.
Unions, low minimum wage, workers’ rights, ability to strike, pension funds, Unemployment benefits, insurance benefits, etc, are all under attack during this slowdown period. Working people are constantly trying to figure out how to survive, feed families, keep children from going hungry, child care, insurance, etc. DAILY struggles for needs that are not being met by the economic system, by provide full-time jobs at a wage that people can adequately and properly care for their families.
The daily battle of pitting working people in competition with each other for the few and far between full-time jobs, or the struggle to fight for 2 or more part-time jobs to make ends meet.
There are NOT enough jobs available for the amount of people unemployed. Every adult should have the opportunity to work, it should be a right to have a job. Not the right to look for a job in a market that purposely doesn’t provide enough jobs for everyone. The right to a job that is available.
We need a Government jobs program. The answer is that simple. A jobs program with the goal and idea of FULL EMPLOYMENT. This program and goal will begin to break down and destroy the competition between working people in fighting for a few jobs to make ends meet.
This was actually done toward the end of the Great Depression. This is best answer to the growing millions of unemployed and the growing number of the hopelessly unemployed, in the United States; massive government-funded public works program to put millions to work today, building and repairing infrastructure, hospitals, schools and other things people need.
DEMAND a GOVERNMENT FUNDED JOBS PROGRAM to end the JOBS CRISIS
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