The waiting game still is not over, but it may be soon.
The nation’s employers added 192,000 jobs in February, up from a gain of 63,000 the previous month, the Labor Department reported on Friday.
...Taken together, the job growth for the first two months of 2011 has not been much better than it was last fall...
...The unemployment rate ticked down to 8.9 percent, falling below 9 percent for the first time in nearly two years. This rate, which comes from a separate survey and is based on the total number of Americans who want to work, has remained stubbornly high in the last year despite payroll growth...
...Economists say the unemployment rate may rise temporarily in the next few months, as stronger job growth lures some discouraged workers back into the labor force. Right now the share of working-age population that is actively involved in the work force — that is, either in a job or actively looking for one — is at 64.2 percent. That is the lowest labor force participation rate in 25 years, an indication that many Americans are waiting for hiring to get better before resuming the job hunt.
Or perhaps they've simply decided to ride 99 weeks of unemployment until they need to work for a living.
Earlier today, economist Mike Shedlock explained the true job numbers. Fortunately for Washington Post cub reporter Ezra Klein, he used very small words.
In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,853,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 312,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,165,000.
In January alone, a whopping 319,000 people dropped out of the workforce. In February (this months' report) another 87,000 people dropped out of the labor force.
Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be over 11%.Given the total distortions of reality with respect to not counting people who allegedly dropped out of the work force, it is hard to discuss the numbers...
...The official unemployment rate is 8.9%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.
While the "official" unemployment rate is an unacceptable 8.9%, U-6 is much higher at 15.9%. Moreover, both the official rate and U-6 would be much higher were it not for huge numbers of people dropping out of the workforce.
Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe.
Of course they are, Ezra. When you have a government that restricts access to energy, dumps thousands of pages of regulations on small businesses, attacks and vilifies industry after industry, takes over vast swaths of the free market, and makes an already byzantine tax code even more complex, you better believe things are getting worse, not better.
Don't believe me. Just ask your neighbors. Unless, that is, you live in Washington, DC.
Hat tip: Memeorandum. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!
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