American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[QUOTE=WorldTravel69;438895]Will you look at that.

The level is lower than when he first took office.

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000[/URL][/QUOTE]Agreed. But that doesn't take into account people who are no longer looking for work, because they've given up on finding a job. They are not counted as unemployed. The additional 1.7 million people who have gone on social security disability since Obama became president are not counted as unemployed. I believe the majority of these individuals are suffering from back injuries and mental problems like depression.

6.7% unemployment 5 years into a recovery is nothing to brag about. It's consistent with what I wrote, that Obama is bringing the USA more in line with European levels of long-term unemployment.

Also, please look again at the time series I linked to: [URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000[/URL].

Some argue that demographic changes account for lower employment. That is, more people are retired. This doesn't make sense to me, given the pattern in the graph. Employment fell off like a stairstep during the recession and recovery to date is minimal. Also, given that we can't afford social security and medicare burdens, older people are going to have to continue working later in life or the country will go bankrupt. The percentage of people over 16 that are employed should be higher than 63% (the level around 2007) by now.

The reports always did the same thing with all Presidents.

Doesn't take into account people who are no longer looking for work.

Doesn't take into account people who are no longer looking for work.

Doesn't take into account people who are no longer looking for work.

Doesn't take into account people who are no longer looking for work.

Wake Up, Now it is the Republicans that do do want to Hire anyone.

They want a third world economy in the USA.

More Profit for the ONE percent.

I hope you are not one of the Not So Fortunate!!


[QUOTE=Tiny12;438896]Agreed. But that doesn't take into account people who are no longer looking for work, because they've given up on finding a job. They are not counted as unemployed. The additional 1.7 million people who have gone on social security disability since Obama became president are not counted as unemployed. I believe the majority of these individuals are suffering from back injuries and mental problems like depression.

6.7% unemployment 5 years into a recovery is nothing to brag about. It's consistent with what I wrote, that Obama is bringing the USA more in line with European levels of long-term unemployment.

Also, please look again at the time series I linked to: [URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000[/URL].

Some argue that demographic changes account for lower employment. That is, more people are retired. This doesn't make sense to me, given the pattern in the graph. Employment fell off like a stairstep during the recession and recovery to date is minimal. Also, given that we can't afford social security and medicare burdens, older people are going to have to continue working later in life or the country will go bankrupt. The percentage of people over 16 that are employed should be higher than 63% (the level around 2007) by now.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=WorldTravel69;438897]...Wake Up, Now it is the Republicans that do do want to Hire anyone.

They want a third world economy in the USA.

More Profit for the ONE percent...[/QUOTE]WT, as usual you're not making any sense.

First, businesses hire employees when they need them to meet an increase in demand for their products or services, period. It has nothing to do with their political beliefs.

Second, I'm pretty sure that business ownership in the USA is more or less proportional across all political parties, and thus it's ridiculous to assume that the Republican business owners are making all of the hiring decisions in the entire country.

Third, why exactly would any investor want to destroy the 1st world economy that is making him rich, in favor of a 3rd world economy that would barely pay any returns on his investments? I know you think it's logical, but the reality is that you have no idea how business or investing works.

Fourth, given that approximately 40% of Americans consider themselves to be Republican, so it's absurd to suggest that 39% of them are going to sit around and allow 1% to destroy the American economy from which we all benefit.

Thanks,

Jax.

WT69, Esten et al argument regarding a dropping unemployment rate is a red herring and meaningless when it ignores the labor force participation rate. Below is the definition of participation rate and it's importance when looking at unemployment figures. Next is the DOL's official participation rates for 01/2009 – 12/2013. I have included the links to both.

It is obvious the unemployment rate is much lower than the actual number of those unemployed as the participation rate has fallen from 65.7% 01/01/2009 to 62.8% 12/31/2013.

Definition of 'Participation Rate'.

A measure of the active portion of an economy's labor force. The participation rate refers to the number of people who are either employed or are actively looking for work. The number of people who are no longer actively searching for work would not be included in the participation rate. During an economic recession, many workers often get discouraged and stop looking for employment, as a result, the participation rate decreases.

Investopedia explains 'Participation Rate'.

The participation rate is an important metric to note when looking at unemployment data because unemployment figures reflect the number of people who are looking for jobs but are unable to secure employment.

The participation rate is important in analyzing the unemployment rate. Those who have no interest in working are not included in the participation rate but are included in the unemployment rate. An aging population can have both a positive and negative effect on the participation rate, through retirement and new people entering the workforce. The participation rate and unemployment data should be observed in tandem to give a better understanding of the overall employment status.

[URL]http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/participationrate.asp[/URL]

Department of Labor Participation rates.

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet[/URL]

[QUOTE=Tiny12;438896]6.7% unemployment 5 years into a recovery is nothing to brag about. It's consistent with what I wrote, that Obama is bringing the USA more in line with European levels of long-term unemployment.[/QUOTE]Actually the US trend is significantly divergent from that of Europe: US trending down to 6.7% and Europe trending above 12%. Look at the chart Tiny, you're so far off it's ridiculous.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]29040[/ATTACH]

Euro zone unemployment at 12%, while USA Improving
[URL]http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/08/news/economy/us-europe-unemployment/[/URL]

Coming down from the 10's to the 6's after the deepest recession since the Great Depression is a respectable achievement. We are not in the 5's yet because of two macro-trends: government job losses and corporate lean efforts. But remember, conservatives said Obama was going to destroy the US economy, and that the ACA was a big part of it. A decade ago they also said tax cuts were going to be a big job creator, but the statistics show otherwise. Was it lies or ignorance? Either way, they've been wrong on the big issues, time and time again. And now that's it's clear they don't have better policies (they certainly don't have the data to prove it), they are stuck with an agenda of attack and negativity, even within their own party.

Thanks Esten. Then you agree that your post about job growth, without mentioning population growth, was a red herring?

You are right. Instead of just mentioning unemployment, which applies just to people who are actively seeking work, I should have said Obama and other Democrats are bringing us more into line with European unemployment and UNDEREMPLOYMENT, as explained in Doppelganger's post about participation rate. As Doppel's link appears to be broken, I'll post that again here:

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000[/URL]

And you are again right -- instead of 6.7%, the unemployment rate should be in the 5's, maybe even the 4's, five years after the end of the recession. This "Europeanization" of the United States is attributable to policies favored by Obama et al like long term government assistance to people who are not working but could, over-regulation of business, pandering to certain constituencies (example: holding up the Keystone pipeline), and encouraging American corporations through tax regulations to keep their money overseas instead of bringing it back home and investing it. Have corporations (and unincorporated businesses) become leaner as you say, or is government discouraging them from investing in America? In any event, the percentage of working-aged people employed is lower because of Obama and other Democrats.

I also agree with you that Obamacare has probably not significantly effected employment, yet. However, the Congressional Budget Office projects that's going to kick in after 2016, and Obamacare will result in 1.5% to 2% fewer hours worked in 2017 to 2024.

There indeed has been a fall off in employment during the 13 years after the Bush tax cuts, which did not cut the 35% federal tax rate on corporations, and which were left in place by Obama for everyone except the 1% of the population that he villianizes. Is there cause and effect? No. Tax cuts have a positive effect on employment in the private sector. The 2008/2009 recession, Obama's policies, and 9/11 are the culprits. And 9/11 and 2008/2009 are long gone. I'd also point blame towards wasteful government spending and deficits under Obama and Bush, but believe that only effects employment adversely in the long term. One of the solutions implied in your post, more government employees, doesn't make sense to me given that government is already 40% of the economy. Yeah, we could go out and hire lots more teachers, regulators, people in the armed services, etc., and in the short term that would increase the number of the employed. It's not a wise course for the future though.

Finally, we're both remiss in not adding globalization, free trade and technology to the equation. I believe these are good btw, even though they may decrease employment in a country where the government isn't pursuing sound (i.e. neoliberal) economic policies.

Tiny, you are closer to the truth than Esten, he only uses numbers that agree with his bias.

Europe's stats more closely follow what we call the U6 unemployment rate.

While the Obama administration was trumpeting DOL's reported 6.7% unemployment rate the U6 was almost twice that rate at 12.6%.

Esten's comparison of the U3 to European unemployment rates is apples to oranges. Our U6 rate more closely mirrors European calculations for unemployment so we do look a lot like Europe with a U6 of 12.6%.

Very interesting, Thanks for that Doppelganger. That confirms to me that the % employed (or participation rate) is more meaningful than "unemployment". I did figure that measuring unemployment the way the USA Government does would be difficult. How do you figure when someone has stopped looking for work? Why are certain people without jobs considered unemployed and others not? But I didn't consider that when you start comparing the figure between countries, you run into differences in how the numbers are calculated.

[B]Esten's Disinformation Headline:[/B] "[I]Coming down from the 10's to the 6's after the deepest recession since the Great Depression is a respectable achievement.[/I]"

[B]LIV's Impression:[/B] "[I]Wow, the unemployment rate under President Obama has dropped from 10% to 6%. That's really good! I heard those nasty Republicans were lying all along, always trying to fuck things up for the rest of us.[/I]"

[B]The Facts:[/B] Job growth hasn't even kept up with the population growth. In addition, anybody who understands this subject knows that the only real employment barometer is the percentage of citizens who actually have jobs, not the so called "unemployment rate" which can and is manipulated by the entirely subjective determination of who is and is not looking for work.

[B]The Result:[/B] Esten's Disinformation Headline wins again, because that's the only thing the LIV read.

Thanks,

Jax.

The long=term chart is more interesting than the ten-year chart.

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LNS11300000_1948_2014_all_period_M03_data.gif[/URL]

I do not think that labor participation is good metric on which to evaluate a president. You might think Jimmy Carter was the best! At least that is where the curve is at its steepest slope.

BLS thinks the fall is do to the the following factors:

"The BLS lists the following factors as primary drivers of the decline in the LFP rate since 2000: (1) the aging of the baby boomer cohort; (2) the decline in the participation rate of those 16-24 years old; (3) the declining LFP rate of women (since its peak in 1999), and (4) the continuous decline of the LFP rate of men (since the 1940's). The main factors that keep the aggregate LFP rate from falling further are the increase of the LFP rate of those 55 and older and the strong attachment to the labor force of Hispanic and Asian people, who constitute the main share of the immigrant population.".

The Fed thinks that the fall in the rate is mainly due to the composition of the labor force.

"The BLS-projected change in the aggregate LFP rate between 2010 and 2020 can be broken into two components: (1) the change in the age composition of the population, and (2) the change in the LFP rates of different age groups. We found that the change in the age composition of the population accounted for most (2.18 out of 2.20 percentage points) of the decline in the aggregate LFP rate over the period. Specifically, this 2.18-percentage-point contribution to the LFP rate decline was mostly driven by a 3-percentage-point decrease in the population share of those 45-54 years old. In contrast to the 2.18-percentage-point decline in the LFP rate that resulted from changes in the age composition of the population, the change in the aggregate LFP rate due to the changes in the LFP rates of different age groups is almost zero on net. It is important to note that this value is the result of dissimilar dynamics of individual groups rather than consistent behavior of the population. For example, the largest contributions to the increase in the aggregate LFP rate are posted by those 55-64 years old (0.63 percentage points) and 65-74 years old (0.65 percentage points). Yet the increases in the LFP rates of these older workers are almost completely nullified by the decreases in the LFP rates of those 16-19 years old (–0.55 percentage points) and 20-24 years old (–0.44 percentage points).".

I think this issue was known problem in 2000 but nobody that I read or heard speak had the decline going this fast.

[QUOTE=Doppelganger;438903]Tiny, you are closer to the truth than Esten, he only uses numbers that agree with his bias.

Europe's stats more closely follow what we call the U6 unemployment rate.

While the Obama administration was trumpeting DOL's reported 6.7% unemployment rate the U6 was almost twice that rate at 12.6%.

Esten's comparison of the U3 to European unemployment rates is apples to oranges. Our U6 rate more closely mirrors European calculations for unemployment so we do look a lot like Europe with a U6 of 12.6%.[/QUOTE]Alas, the legendary King of Crapola strikes again. This is completely false. Both the US and Europe follow a definition set forth by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), with small differences. These differences have been estimated to have an effect of less than 1%. If this were not true, then all these articles you see in the media (including Fox News) showing the higher European unemployment rates would all be guilty of this apples vs. Oranges comparison. Surely someone would have called this out before. But in fact, the comparisons are valid, and Doppel is simply spreading disinformation again, like he did last week by denying there were grandfather provisions for healthcare plans in 2010 ACA regulations.

OK, I've gone to the BLS definitions ( [URL]http://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm[/URL]) and re-read Doppelganger's post. As Doppelganger clearly explained, but as I failed to understand, the Labor Force Participation Rate consists of people classed as employed, plus people classed as unemployed who by definition must looking for jobs.

So the labor force participation rate suffers from the same weakness inherent in the "unemployment rate". In the words of Jackson, the labor force participation rate "is manipulated by the entirely subjective determination of who is and is not looking for work.".

The unadulterated "best" set of data to look at is the one I presented IMHO, being the employment population ratio. Here it is, using a longer time scale, like what Big Boss Man used:

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LNS12300000_1963_2014_all_period_M03_data.gif[/URL]

The pattern I see is a long-term, upward trend in employment rate, probably mostly related to greater participation by women in the work force, until the 2008-2009 recession and the Obama administration, at which time it fell off a cliff and stayed where it fell. Consider that there were recessions in 1970,1974, 1980-1982,1991, 2001, and 2008-2009. Note that employment was bouncing back within a couple of years of the end of each recession, except the last, and maybe also the 2001 recession.

In response to Big Boss Man's post.

[QUOTE=BigBossMan;438903]I do not think that labor participation is good metric on which to evaluate a president. [/QUOTE]You may be right. A decline in the labor force participation rate would mean there are more people like housewives, retirees, students without employment, people who can't work, people who are sitting on their asses and don't won't to work, and people who have totally given up on finding work because the economy sucks. So it's broad at the same time that it suffers from Jackson's observation.

[QUOTE=BigBossMan;438903]"The BLS lists the following factors as primary drivers of the decline in the LFP rate since 2000: (1) the aging of the baby boomer cohort; (2) the decline in the participation rate of those 16-24 years old; (3) the declining LFP rate of women (since its peak in 1999), and (4) the continuous decline of the LFP rate of men (since the 1940's). The main factors that keep the aggregate LFP rate from falling further are the increase of the LFP rate of those 55 and older and the strong attachment to the labor force of Hispanic and Asian people, who constitute the main share of the immigrant population." [/QUOTE]My translation: More young people, more women and more men are both not working and not looking for work. There are more people around retirement age but they are working longer.

[QUOTE=BigBossMan;438903]"The Fed thinks that the fall in the rate is mainly due to the composition of the labor force. [/QUOTE]This is the Fed's interpretation of the BLS's forecast of the change in the labor force participation rate between 2010 and 2020. I'd question whether this is relevant to the discussion and would also ask who specifically made this statement and when they made it.

[QUOTE=Esten;438910]Alas, the legendary King of Crapola strikes again. This is completely false. Both the US and Europe follow a definition set forth by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), with small differences. These differences have been estimated to have an effect of less than 1%. If this were not true, then all these articles you see in the media (including Fox News) showing the higher European unemployment rates would all be guilty of this apples vs. Oranges comparison. Surely someone would have called this out before. But in fact, the comparisons are valid, and Doppel is simply spreading disinformation again, like he did last week by denying there were grandfather provisions for healthcare plans in 2010 ACA regulations.[/QUOTE]Hmm Esten, I look at this, kick out the outliers like Greece, Spain, Norway and Switzerland, and unemployment rates from 2009 to 2012 in the USA Look pretty similar to Europe:

[URL]http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS[/URL]

Not to say that proves anything. Big Boss Man and Jackson have convinced me that "unemployment" and "labor force participation rates" aren't as meaningful as I had thought.

Tiny, thank you for your effort at some balance. Though we still disagree on quite a bit. I do not think that quoting the U3 is a red herring or disinformation, it is the standard, historical benchmark to judge and compare the US unemployment rate. Other metrics are available, but then one must look at the trends in these metrics over time.

Look at the trends in the chart I posted. Clearly, the US is heading one direction and Europe the opposite direction. If you switch to a U6 metric the trends will be the same, just offset. Either way, the data contradicts your claim that Obama is taking the US in the direction of Europe.

I am glad to see you agree that the ACA has probably not significantly affected employment (yet).

IMO the centerpiece of Bush's presidency were his two rounds of significant tax cuts. The failure of his presidency to produce significant job growth is a failure of tax cuts to produce significant job growth. In fact, it was even worse, because keeping the unemployment rate down increasingly depended on a growing real estate and construction bubble. I'll agree tax cuts have [I]potential[/I] to increase hiring, but you need underlying [I]demand[/I]. This brings us back to the old supply (Republican) vs. Demand (Democrat) argument. Corporate America has gone through significant lean efforts that it seems you may not be aware of. These have allowed companies to do a lot more, with less. This is a huge trend that you probably won't hear much about in the right wing media, because they are too busy blaming Obama for everything. Not only do I have some knowledge about this, in fact I have signed off paperwork to approve projects that have eliminated headcounts. The corporate buzzword for this is "improved operational efficiency". When you look at these proposals you pretty much can't argue with them, as they are very compelling on the bottom line.

[QUOTE=Esten;438910]Alas, the legendary King of Crapola strikes again. This is completely false. Both the US and Europe follow a definition set forth by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), with small differences. These differences have been estimated to have an effect of less than 1%. If this were not true, then all these articles you see in the media (including Fox News) showing the higher European unemployment rates would all be guilty of this apples vs. Oranges comparison. Surely someone would have called this out before. But in fact, the comparisons are valid, and Doppel is simply spreading disinformation again, like he did last week by denying there were grandfather provisions for healthcare plans in 2010 ACA regulations.[/QUOTE]Esten, go look at the composite of European unemployment figures, it includes under employed, unemployed, etc. Very similar to our U6, one of the reasons it's higher. As Jackson has pointed out over and over, you just want to splash a propaganda headline regardless if there is any evidence to support it.

So according to Esten we have all these wonderful "grandfather clauses" in Obamacare, so why did over 3 million private policies get cancelled in 2013? Why are several multiples of this number about to be cancelled for company plans in 2014? The only "grandfather" I saw was all the Democrat waivers handed out to their friends, I guess some groups are "more equal" than others. If these "grandfather clauses" were there then why did the state insurance commissioners, including California, refuse to reinstate all those cancelled and about to be cancelled policies?

The last bastion of the liberal, make accusations and call names when you lose the argument.