People Not In Labor Force Soar By 522,000

[brotherplanet]

People Not In Labor Force Soar By 522,000, Labor Force Participation Rate Lowest Since 1981


It is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record. The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.

Labor force participation Rate:






http://www.zerohedge.com/news/people-no ... owest-1981

[Skate4RnR]

Wait, this is biased. That chart is for American employment right? What about Chinese and Indian employment huh smart guy?

[DEATH ROW JOE]

It is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record.

Brotherdunce strikes again!

You fucking idiot. The number of people not in the labor force increases almost every month. Which means almost every month is "the highest on record".



The participation rate graph you posted hides the improvement that has taken place in the economy.

Participation rate = Civilian labor force/Civilian noninstitutional population

Civilian noninstitutional population always increases.

Due to Bush's recession, the civilian labor force fell 1.2 million between Jan 2009 to Jan 2011. The labor force has been growing since 2011 and is back where it was in Jan 2009. You need to separate the data to see that the economy is improving. The ratio is falling because even though the labor force is growing again, it is not growing as fast as civilian noninstitutional population. Civilian noninstitutional population grew 1.5% this past year, labor force grew .95%



During the economic expansion from Dec 2001 to Dec 2007, the labor force grew 1.1%/year. Now it's growing .96%/year.

Dec 2007: 154 million
Dec 2001: 144 million = increases 1.12%/year

April 2011: 152.898 million
April 2012: 154.365 million = increased .96% this past year

Those numbers come from the labor dept. The 152.89 in April is not shown in that graph.

Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

So it's growing at a slightly slower pace but expect it to pick up this year. Conservatives are distorting what is going on in the labor market using the participation rate. The labor force is growing about as fast as during "The Bush Boom."

The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.

You fucking moron. The unemployment rate fell to 8.1% because 130,000 jobs were added to the private sector. It would be lower but the public sector shed 15,000 jobs.

Let's look at Obama's job record to date:

Private Sector Employment:
Jan 2009: 110.985 million
April 2012: 111.020 million
35,000 jobs added to private sector under Obama. In contrast, the private sector shed 1 million jobs during a similar period under Bush. It was called "The Bush Boom."

Govt jobs:
Jan 2009: 22.576 million
April 2012: 21.969 million
607,000 govt jobs lost

So all the private jobs lost during the first year have been recovered while the public sector has contracted. Cutting govt spending has slowed the economy and kept the unemployment rate from falling faster.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/people-no ... owest-1981

You just got trolled you moron. Zerohedge is a bullshit site just like shadowstats.

Funny that all over the internet today conservative bloggers who do not understand the participation rate are trying to explain it to the world. Notice this blogger says

"The Labor Force Participation Rate shows what percentage of people are working, looking for a job and not looking for a job. It is a better yardstick to measure the workforce in America than is the usually cited "unemployment rate" which doesn't count people who are so frustrated they stopped looking for a job."

The unemployment rate shows exactly the same info as the participation rate since unemployment rate = 1 - (Employment-population ratio/Participation rate)

Another clueless moron just like brotherdunce.

[SmokingGun]

Dec 2007: 154 million

April 2012: 154.365 million = increased .96% this past year

Considering the amount of people employed has remained pretty much the same, how much has the population grown since 2007?

[brotherplanet]

Wait, this is biased. That chart is for American employment right? What about Chinese and Indian employment huh smart guy?

Damn you for making me look up more stuff!!!!

[brotherplanet]

Dec 2007: 154 million

April 2012: 154.365 million = increased .96% this past year

Considering the amount of people employed has remained pretty much the same, how much has the population grown since 2007?

I don't know if they're counting 5 year olds in the employment figures.

[SmokingGun]

Dec 2007: 154 million

April 2012: 154.365 million = increased .96% this past year

Considering the amount of people employed has remained pretty much the same, how much has the population grown since 2007?

I don't know if they're counting 5 year olds in the employment figures.

Do you seriously see nothing wrong with 5 year olds with an entitlement complex dependent on handouts from the nanny state?

What are you, a socialist?

[Luminiferous]

Dec 2007: 154 million

April 2012: 154.365 million = increased .96% this past year

Considering the amount of people employed has remained pretty much the same, how much has the population grown since 2007?

I don't know if they're counting 5 year olds in the employment figures.

Newt Gingrich would...

5 years old is old enough to scrub the school's toilets..

[SmokingGun]

Participation or unemployment figures getting you down? There's an easy way to fix that. Change the parameters, cook the books, fudge the figures and allow people an easier transition into the disability category, taking the heat off the unemployment stats.

Since mid-2010, precisely the time millions of US citizens used up all of their 99 week of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million. Those on disability are not counted in the workforce and are not considered unemployed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-0 ... force.html

Disabled Americans Shrink Size of U.S. Labor Force

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... e-mid.html

The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

The participation rate -- the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one -- was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.

Unemployment insurance requires that applicants search for job opportunities, while disability insurance requires they be unable to work.

.........

Record Applications

The number of people collecting disability surged as the economy contracted, with the share of the U.S. population between the ages of 25 and 64 on SSDI climbing to a record-high 5.3 percent in March from 4.5 percent in 2007. Applications per 1,000 working-age people rose to 18 last year from 8 in 1990.

The gain follows a pattern typical of recessions because Social Security requires that claimants be unable to “engage in any substantial gainful activity,” a stipulation more easily satisfied when jobs are scarce and wages get cut, according to Virginia Reno, vice-president for income security policy at the National Academy of Social Insurance in Washington.

.....

Lax Screening Procedures

Less-stringent screening procedures, more attractive benefits and a waning need for less-skilled workers have bolstered SSDI rolls.

In addition, “difficult-to-verify disorders,” including muscle pain and mental illness, more easily qualify for SSDI under program reforms, [David] Autor [economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology] wrote in a 2011 paper.

Based on current trends, 7 percent of the nonelderly adult population could be receiving disability benefits by 2018, Richard Burkhauser and Mary Daly wrote in the spring issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. That’s two years after the SSDI program will run through its trust fund, according to an April report by the Social Security trustees.

Costs Increase

Costs have increased with the rolls: The program spent $132 billion last year, more than twice as much as in 2000.

From the site:


I did some calculations in the above link and this is what it looks like with a mere 10% rate of fraudulent claims.

Unemployment Rate with 10% Fraud

10% of 27.5 million is 2,750,000.
The civilian labor force would rise to 157,145,000 from 154,395,000
The number of unemployed would rise to 15,508,000 from 12,758,000
The resultant unemployment rate would be 15508/157145 = 9.9%


Is there anyone who thinks disability fraud is less than 10%?(ed: especially if the number of claimants have just skyrocked due to a) increasingly lax rules; b) disabillity benefits being more attractive; c) unemployment funds running out and; d) a lack of jpbs) If not, then the unemployment rate would be at least 9.9% assuming those in fraudulent claims started looking for work.

[brotherplanet]

The number of people collecting disability surged as the economy contracted, with the share of the U.S. population between the ages of 25 and 64 on SSDI climbing to a record-high 5.3 percent in March from 4.5 percent in 2007. Applications per 1,000 working-age people rose to 18 last year from 8 in 1990.

There was a report on the news that people who have run out of unemployment checks and still can't find a job have turned to collecting disability out of desperation.

[Constantine]

The number of people collecting disability surged as the economy contracted, with the share of the U.S. population between the ages of 25 and 64 on SSDI climbing to a record-high 5.3 percent in March from 4.5 percent in 2007. Applications per 1,000 working-age people rose to 18 last year from 8 in 1990.

There was a report on the news that people who have run out of unemployment checks and still can't find a job have turned to collecting disability out of desperation.

Hope and Change?

Yes we can!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqALdkTArqs

At one point he says thanks Satan and hear from the grandma.

Well do you know his grandma died 2 weeks after saying she was present at Obamas birth in Kenya. Im not saying I believe this but it is pretty creepy after we saw all the Evil he did in the last several years. And listent closely to his voice, he sounds sinister as fuck!!!

[Danzig in the Dark]

The number of people collecting disability surged as the economy contracted, with the share of the U.S. population between the ages of 25 and 64 on SSDI climbing to a record-high 5.3 percent in March from 4.5 percent in 2007. Applications per 1,000 working-age people rose to 18 last year from 8 in 1990.

There was a report on the news that people who have run out of unemployment checks and still can't find a job have turned to collecting disability out of desperation.

Hope and Change?

Yes we can!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqALdkTArqs

At one point he says thanks Satan and hear from the grandma.

Well do you know his grandma died 2 weeks after saying she was present at Obamas birth in Kenya. Im not saying I believe this but it is pretty creepy after we saw all the Evil he did in the last several years. And listent closely to his voice, he sounds sinister as fuck!!!

Reverse speech? Xenu help us all.

http://skepdic.com/reversespeech.html