Jobs, Jobs, Jobs....

QE and super low interest rates probably have more to do with the unemployment improvement than anything.   

Also, unemployment is a backwards looking indicator.

Too many cases of management negotiating in good faith and laying their cards on the table, but the union demanding excessive increases.  Thus, closing of the local Pabst brewery & Tuscan dairy.

the Pabst strike was nearly 40 years ago.  And management absolutely did not want to keep the Newark brewery open.  Not to mention the fact that the brand went belly up a few years later.  It was a mismanaged company, and its demise was not the fault of the unions.  

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/24/business/the-blue-ribbon-battle-for-pabst.html

While there are going to be examples of mismanagement or corruption when one is referring to such a massive collection of disparate organizations, the problems of organized labor in this country are not mainly self-inflicted.  The main reasons are more about labor-unfriendly legislation, as well as the willingness of workers themselves to undermine unions by breaking strikes.

but anyone who thinks electoral means alone will solve the problems of working people is kidding him or herself.  It's going to take workers organizing to get any meaningful concessions from the powerful and the well-connected.

tomcat said:
Too many cases of management negotiating in good faith and laying their cards on the table, but the union demanding excessive increases.  Thus, closing of the local Pabst brewery & Tuscan dairy.

 now that's just freaking hilarious.

There's someone looking for a job for their son in another thread.

drummerboy said:

The OP is by far ajc's most insightful post ever.

 ...yes it was, and it keeps getting better.

ajc said:

drummerboy said:

The OP is by far ajc's most insightful post ever.

 ...yes it was, and it keeps getting better.

 You hiring?

ridski said:

 You hiring?

 Yes, are you looking for a job? I have openings at the florist, (Maplewood Flowers) the ice cream store, (Dippy Sippy) the B&B, (Les Saisons) and the repo business (Commercial Service Corporation).

ajc - in 2015 Trump said the unemployment numbers were bogus and actual unemployment was 42%

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-unemployment-rate-may-be-42-perc/

What does he actually believe?

ajc said:

ridski said:

 You hiring?

 Yes, are you looking for a job? I have openings at the florist, (Maplewood Flowers) the ice cream store, (Dippy Sippy) the B&B, (Les Saisons) and the repo business (Commercial Service Corporation).

 Depends. How's the insurance package?

ridski said:

 Depends. How's the insurance package?

 Pretty good as Bernie says: Medicare, guaranteed Health Care, it's a Human Right For All...

jamie said:

ajc - in 2015 Trump said the unemployment numbers were bogus and actual unemployment was 42%

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-unemployment-rate-may-be-42-perc/

What does he actually believe?

Jamie, he said he "heard" unemployment numbers "may" be as high as 42%. We all know how all this main stream FAKE NEWS gets around...  Listen, as of Oct. 2019, unemployment was reported as 3.6%, the lowest since 1969; and when everything he is doing with his trade deals kicks in this year, it may go under 1%. Plus, now with the proposed environmental regulations, 0% unemployment is possible. Thanks to Trump, NEPA has never been better, and under his leadership only keeps getting better.

ridski said:

ajc said:

ridski said:

 You hiring?

 Yes, are you looking for a job? I have openings at the florist, (Maplewood Flowers) the ice cream store, (Dippy Sippy) the B&B, (Les Saisons) and the repo business (Commercial Service Corporation).

 Depends. How's the insurance package?

Go with the repo business.  It's a growth industry these days. 

nohero said:

Go with the repo business.  It's a growth industry these days. 

 Yes it is; and it's mostly because of the great Trump Economy. The repo business is about repossessing new cars, not used stuff. Since I started my business in 1960, its always been that way. When business is good, my business is good, when things go south, my business goes right along with it...

The great trump economy?  The one he inherited from Obama?

the more important number is the percentage of people employed, and although it's moving in the right direction:

The labor force participation rate was steady at 62.3 percent in December — at the top of the post-recession range, even though it’s lower than before the financial crisis. Many of the new entrants have been women, who now make up a majority of nonfarm payrolls and dominate sectors that are expanding fastest, like health care.

A lot of people have still given up even looking for work.  But a lot are rejoining the labor force, suppressing wage growth:

Perhaps the most discouraging news in the report was the anemic wage growth, amounting to just 2.9 percent over the past 12 months — far below the 3.4 percent peak reached in February, and down from the 3.3 percent year-over-year average in December 2018.

...

The flow of more Americans into the job market may also be damping wages. About three-fourths of new hires were not even looking for work the previous month.

and even the topline number isn't that great:

The average monthly gains for the last three months of the year were 184,000, on par with the rest of the year. For the full year, the economy added 2.1 million jobs, fewer than the 2.7 million created in 2018, but more than enough to handily outpace population growth. It is the smallest annual increase since 2011.

and whose fault is it that things aren't better?  Let's think for a moment:

The Labor Department this week also reported a dip in the number of new people filing for unemployment, a figure that remains at historically low levels. Nonetheless, “over all, the job cuts that we saw in 2019 were fairly high, higher than you would expect,” said Andy Challenger, a vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm that tracks layoff announcements.  

Industrial goods and automobile manufacturers were the hardest hit, in part because of the trade war. “As rosy as the numbers look from a high level, there’s still pain out there, jobs cuts that are happening, industries that are struggling and people losing their jobs,” Mr. Challenger said.

I guess it's Tariff Man's fault.

So for all the pundits telling us how awesome the economy is, it isn't great for everyone, and if you look beyond the Dow average and the topline unemployment number you can see why and how.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/business/economy/december-jobs-report.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

nohero said:

ridski said:

ajc said:

ridski said:

 You hiring?

 Yes, are you looking for a job? I have openings at the florist, (Maplewood Flowers) the ice cream store, (Dippy Sippy) the B&B, (Les Saisons) and the repo business (Commercial Service Corporation).

 Depends. How's the insurance package?

Go with the repo business.  It's a growth industry these days. 

 His answer to my insurance package question is telling. He doesn’t need staff, or else he’d actually have a real answer to that very real question. If employment is so awesome, us un- and under-employed would be able to dictate our terms, but instead we still get fobbed off with jokes, and as an employee (with supposedly my widest ever choice of who to work for) why would I decide to work for a guy who doesn’t care about my health?

ridski said:

 His answer to my insurance package question is telling. He doesn’t need staff, or else he’d actually have a real answer to that very real question. If employment is so awesome, us un- and under-employed would be able to dictate our terms, but instead we still get fobbed off with jokes, and as an employee (with supposedly my widest ever choice of who to work for) why would I decide to work for a guy who doesn’t care about my health?

 It's not only your health he doesn't care about....

these trolls just come on here to lob their latest ideas they just heard on Fox news. 

FYI re: thread topic.

nohero said:

FYI re: thread topic.

Is this chart not the definition of cherry picked data (almost certainly as this chart was prepared by the Clinton dominated Center for American Progress (aka "CAP"))?

IOW, if you cherry-pick data you can create any conclusion that is desired.  There is a book entitled "How to Lie with Statistics" that can give you further details on how such "motivated analysis" works.  See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

Attempting to present CAP propaganda as reliable information gives rise to question about nohero's integrity.  CAP is the propaganda machine for the Clintons and their allies. Recently, CAP has been smearing Bernie's health plan. See:
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/center-for-american-progress-disinformation-bernie-sanders-health-care-plan

PS I am no fan of DJT but the economy is humming (how much is attributable to DJT is open to debate).

Brief excerpt from Wikipedia link:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress

The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a public policy research and advocacy organization which presents a liberal^[2] viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The president and chief executive officer of CAP is Neera Tanden, who worked for the Obama and Clinton administrations and for Hillary Clinton's campaigns.^[3] The first president and CEO was John Podesta, who has served as White House Chief of Staff to U.S. President Bill Clinton and as the chairman of the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.^[4] Podesta remained with the organization as chairman of the board until he joined the Obama White House staff in December 2013. Tom Daschle is the current chairman.^[5]

RealityForAll said:

nohero said:

FYI re: thread topic.

Is this chart not the definition of cherry picked data?

What would a chart of BHO's job creation for the first 35 months look like when compared to  DJT's job creation for the first 35 months?

IOW, if you cherry-pick data you can create any conclusion that is desired.  There is a book entitled "How to Lie with Statistics" that can give you further details of such "motivated analysis."  See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

PS I am no fan of DJT but the economy is humming (how much is attributable to DJT is open to debate.  

 No, it's not the definition of cherry picked data, at all. It's the exact opposite. By picking these two adjacent periods in time, you are selecting the best case for comparing these numbers, because the overall economic environment was roughly the same for the two periods.

Cherry picking would be picking the first  35 months of Obama's Presidency - because, obviously, that period was roiled by the financial crisis and can't possibly be compared to the years 2017 through 2019.

Wow, that was some post editing you did there.

IMHO it's very elitist to tout how great this economy is doing. As the NYT analysis of BLS stats shows, it's doing well for certain people in certain areas of the country.  The well-off on the coasts continue to do very well, as they have for nearly four decades.  But outside of the cities and suburbs, little has changed in the past decade.  Life expectancy outside of the affluent areas of the country continues to decline, due to diseases of despair, and the lack of good and affordable health care.  Lots of people who want full time jobs with benefits are still stuck in part-time or gig economy jobs that don't pay very well, and don't include decent benefits.

Anyone touting the Dow average and the topline unemployment rate as evidence of how well Americans are doing as a whole is missing the reality for millions of people.  There's a reason Trump tweets about only those stats, because looking at the economy in any more detail doesn't tell a great story.

From Forbes, 15 months ago.

ETA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes

Forbes (/fɔːrbz/) is an American business magazine. Published bi-weekly, it features original articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. Forbes also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, politics, and law. Its headquarters is located in Jersey City, New Jersey. Primary competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek. Forbes has international editions in Asia and Europe.

The magazine is well known for its lists and rankings, including of the richest Americans (the Forbes 400), of the America’s Wealthiest Celebrities, of the world's top companies (the Forbes Global 2000), 30 Under 30 and The World's Billionaires. The motto of Forbesmagazine is "The Capitalist Tool".^{[citation needed]} Its chair and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes, and its CEO is Mike Federle.^[3] In 2014, it was sold to a Hong Kong-based investment group, Integrated Whale Media Investments.^[4][5]

and your point is?

drummerboy said:

and your point is?

Additional graphic information. Enjoy!

more jobs data

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Employment Situation report (better known as the “jobs report”) to outline latest state of the nation’s economy. And with it, of late, have been plenty of positive headlines—with unemployment hovering around 3.5%, a decade of job growth, and recent upticks in wages, the report’s numbers have mostly been good news.

But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Are these jobs any good? How much do they pay? Do workers make enough to live on?

Here, the story is less rosy.

In a recent analysis, we found that 53 million workers ages 18 to 64—or 44% of all workers—earn barely enough to live on. Their median earnings are $10.22 per hour, and about $18,000 per year. These low-wage workers are concentrated in a relatively small number of occupations, including retail sales, cooks, food and beverage servers, janitors and housekeepers, personal care and service workers (such as child care workers and patient care assistants), and various administrative positions.

Well Bernie Sanders is resurgent in the polls and among Democratic candidates he is the strongest, most unabashed champion of policies that would help the lowest-paid workers. So if he wins the nomination, the general election will be the truest test of whether the electorate wants theses policies. 

RealityForAll said:

nohero said:

FYI re: thread topic.

Is this chart not the definition of cherry picked data (almost certainly as this chart was prepared by the Clinton dominated Center for American Progress (aka "CAP"))?

No.  It gives a cite to the source of data, and uses a commonly-recognized source and measurement.  It's providing the actual reported numbers.  Except for the use of some arithmetic, there's no fancy mathematical mumbo-jumbo, which is often used in order to "lie with statistics".

Also, if the argument is that the data is "cherry-picked", talking about who made the chart instead of the data in the chart doesn't prove anything. 

All the JOBS, JOBS, JOBS created in the last 10 years have evaporated.

Wonder what AJC thinks of that...