The September Jobs Horror Story - As Dismal as Dismal August

In September, 204,000 fewer people were employed than in August.  In August, 215,000 fewer people were employed than in July 2010.  Meanwhile, the working age population has been growing.  The September working age population grew by 223,000 people compared to August, at least 60% of whom want jobs.  Yet the usually stated seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained about the same as it has been for several months.  This is because the number of people the government thinks want work shrank by 619,000 people in September compared to August.  In August the number of people supposed wanting work shrank by 378,000 compared to the number looking for work in July.  As always in a long recession or depression, the shrinking numbers of people known to be looking for work do not mean that more people are not looking for work or wanting work which is hopelessly unavailable.  Obama's promised change has brought an end to the hope for employment.  Many people, especially many of the young people who are coming into the working age now or recently, face horrible odds in finding a job.  They should be attributing this to Obama's transformation of America.  His many anti-business attitudes have certainly had destructive consequences.

The table below presents the jobs numbers taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment report for September 2010.  The important ones are that the working age population is growing and so many new jobs need to be created for the majority of that increased number who want a job.  The next number of great importance is the number of people employed.  That needs to increase greatly simply to keep up with the population growth.  When it is falling, that is a disaster.  As noted above, it fell badly in both August and September.  The so-called unemployment percentage is not very meaningful in a long recession.  What is meaningful is the calculation of the number of jobs needed so that as large a percentage of the working age population has jobs as had jobs when the economy was in much better shape, such as in January 2000 when 67.49% of the work age population had jobs or were actively looking for them.  The unemployment rate then was only 4.04%, which was a figure with some meaning in those circumstances.  Of course some of the unemployed then were actually transitioning from one job or career to another and were anything but the long-term unemployed who dominate today's Obama World.

During this recession, the number of missing jobs grew until it reached a maximum number of 23,108,000 jobs in January 2010.  The number of missing jobs then started to decrease and reached a minimum in July of 20,418,000 jobs.  Since then, the number of missing jobs has grown to 21,129,000!  The % Missing Jobs number is less important because that has a similarity to the usual unemployment number: it depends upon the number employed plus the number actively known to be looking for work.  It is of some significance however that that number is considerably higher than the usual unemployment number.

Here are a few interesting employment changes from August to September:

• The number of employed men fell by 633,000.
• The number of employed women increased by 461,000.
• The number of white Americans employed fell by 41,000.
• The number of black Americans employed fell by 161,000.
• The number of Hispanic Americans employed grew by 93,000.
• The number of full-time employed Americans fell by 1,123,000!
• The number of part-time employed Americans increased by 919,000.

It is clear that the changes were very unfavorable to full-time employment, to men, and to black Americans.  They were relatively favorable for women and for Hispanic Americans, though it is likely many of their gains were for the increased number of part-time jobs, rather than in full-time jobs.

This is the last jobs/unemployment report before the election.  Obama's, Pelosi's, and Reid's economic policies and anti-business policies have certainly had a transformative impact on employment.  The impact of ObamaCare on business costs has begun.  The cost of doing financial transactions due to the Dodd-Frank legislation is already going up.  We still wait for news on what taxes will be next year, which is already almost immediately upon us.  Will personal income tax rates go up, will capital gains taxes go up, and will the death tax be collected again as a mechanism to destroy businesses?  We know that the EPA wants to put draconian requirements and costs on using energy that generates CO2, but how expensive will that be in the near future and then in the longer term?  Will the Obama administration ever allow drilling for oil and gas again?  There are many, many business uncertainties and hurdles that the Democrat presidency and Congress have created.  The current dismal jobs situation is the very predictable result.

I will point out explicitly that men and black Americans should be especially eager to see the present Democrat tyranny replaced and punished in the up-coming election.  Most white men will do just that.  Someday, one cannot help but believe that black Americans will catch on to the fact that the Democrats are poison to them and understand that the free market is their only real friend.  Meanwhile, Obama continues to tell us that transferring wealth from the private sector to the public, government sector will somehow create more jobs.  How could he be more wrongheaded on this critical issue?  We are now in a situation in which local and state governments are letting their employees go because the private sector cannot supply the taxes it could in better times, before business fell prey to the Democrat super-majority in Congress and to Obama.