Harry Reid: Private sector employment is ‘fine’

The irresponsible leader of the irresponsible Democrat majority in the US Senate:

James Sherk clarifies:

Senator Reid is not just mistaken; he has his facts exactly backwards. If the recession has barely touched one sector of the economy, it is government. Since the recession began in December 2007 the private sector shed 6.3 million net jobs, while government payrolls are down by just 392,000.

That amounts to a 5.4 percent drop in private sector employment, while government employment has slipped only one-third as much (1.8 percent). Education-related government jobs have fallen even less, down 1.4 percent.

The majority of the American unemployed, those not employed by the public sector, will be glad to know that their Senate leaders are completely clueless about what’s going on in the real world.

August NFP report shows net zero growth in jobs, the “great goose-egg economy”

It’s a brutal print:

A dismal labor report Friday showed the economy added zero net workers in August, intensifying pressure on President Obama to unveil a major jobs initiative during his speech to Congress next week.

The Labor Department report showed the unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010.

Meanwhile:

In a nutshell, this is the great goose egg economy — a big zero, a big nothing — and this better be one hell of a speech next week.  There is a plethora of bad news. You have what is going on in Greece, you have lawsuits potentially coming today or Tuesday against the banks. You have the Fed in a Wall Street Journal article overnight asking Bank of America if they are going to be OK if things get really bad.  There are a lot of confidence issues in the marketplace, the jobs number only made things worse and people wonder about this jobs number and its correlation with Philly Fed.  That is scary.”

June’s employment report is not so good, smells like recession and…QE3 coming?

There was nothing good in June’s job report released this morning.  The unemployment rate inched up to 9.2% and the economy added about 18,000 jobs for the month.  And what’s that odor  in the air?

It’s the foul stench of recession:

The U.S. economy generated just 43,000 jobs in the last two months, perhaps taking the world’s largest economy skating closer to recession territory.

It was difficult to find a bright spot in the U.S. Labor Department report. Many key labor market signals deteriorated, and the jobless rate rose unexpectedly to 9.2 percent even though the work force actually shrank.

Shaun Osborne, senior currency strategist at TD Securities, summed it up: “The number stinks.” Watch for forecast revisions to second half U.S. gross domestic product.

The Obama administration has run out of silver bullets, as the Democrats perverse experiment with Keynesian economics has failed miserably.

So what to do?  The experts are leaving the door open for the Fed to fire up the printing presses again:

[The Labor Department's report] could raise questions about whether the Fed should take additional actions to support growth.

Yes.  Because it’s worked so well with QE1 and QE2.

Politically, the Obama campaign administration has got to be in full panic mode now.  Time is of the essence, but even over a year away from the election, the economy will have to show some strong monthly employment gains to bring that rate down.  Some broad tax cutting would be in order to accomplish that, along with some bold moves to cut spending.  But I wouldn’t bet on that coming from this White House.

Speaking of panic, the President is holding a press conference to speak about this morning’s employment report at 10:30 this morning.

Democrats’ Christmas gift to us

A reminder of what happens when Democrats have control:

Payrolls decreased in 28 U.S. states and the unemployment rate climbed in 21, showing most parts of the world’s largest economy took part in the November labor- market setback.

North Carolina led the nation with 12,500 job cuts last month, followed by Massachusetts with 8,600 dismissals, and Ohio with 7,800, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Joblessness increased most in Georgia and Idaho, while workers in Nevada faced the highest rate in the country at 14.3 percent.

The report is consistent with figures on Dec. 3 that showed unemployment increased last month for the first time since August. The Federal Reserve’s pledge to buy an additional $600 billion of Treasuries by June and the $858 billion bill passed by Congress extending all Bush-era tax cuts for two years may help boost growth and cut unemployment.

Let’s keep in mind that the Pelosi/Reid Democrats have controlled Congress for the better part of four years.  And let’s not forget that tax-cuts for the middle class was bitterly held back in the name of Democratic class-warfare.  These facts need to be remembered and screamed from the rooftops by every so-called conservative Republican over the next two years.  How many conservatives Republicans will be willing to do that on our side?

Unemployment claims at 452,000 last week

Hot off the presses:

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell last week to a level that’s consistent with little improvement in the labor market.

Initial jobless claims declined by 23,000 to 452,000 in the week ended Oct. 15, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The prior week’s figures were revised up by 13,000, to the highest level since late August.

The pace of firings has persisted since the start of the year, indicating it will take longer to reduce an unemployment rate that’s near a 26-year high. A Federal Reserve report yesterday showed the economy is growing at a “modest pace” with companies still hesitant to hire, a reason central bankers may ease monetary policy.

Claims are “still consistent with a sluggish labor market,” said Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse in New York. “We’ve been stuck in a range for most of the year. It doesn’t tell you that the layoff trend has improved dramatically this year.

Any number over 450,000 will not get the unemployment rate to decrease.  The trend over the past several months has been hovering around this mark or higher.  Bad news going into the new year.

“Recovery Summer” crawls along

This morning’s job report was ugly:

The economy is looking bleaker as new applications for jobless benefits rose last week to the highest level in almost six months.

It’s a sign that hiring remains weak and employers may be going back to cutting their staffs. Analysts say the increase suggests companies won’t be adding enough workers in August to lower 9.5 percent unemployement rate.

First-time claims for jobless benefits edged up by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 484,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the highest total since February. Analysts had expected claims to fall.

Initial claims have now risen in three of the last four weeks and are close to their high point for the year of 490,000, reached in late January. The four-week average, which smooths volatility, soared by 14,250 to 473,500, also the highest since late February.

[...]

Claims fell steadily last year from their peak of 651,000, reached in March 2009. But they have mostly leveled out this year at or above 450,000. In a healthy economy with rapid hiring, claims usually drop below 400,000.

Seeing the endless stream of bad economic news over the past several months, and especially the weak jobs situation, I can’t help but think about the early days of the Obama administration, and their push for the trillion dollar $800+ stimulus package.

Remember the boasts made by both the administration and congressional Democrats, about the number of shovel-ready jobs that were lined up, waiting for federal funding?  And how those jobs would set in motion this miraculous economic recovery rooted in Keynesian economics?  And how not one Republican representative voted for that monstrosity in the House?

Me too.

The ball’s in the American people’s court this November–hold the politicians accountable for the lies.

Shocker: Unemployment benefits encourage unemployed to stay, um…unemployed

Michigan landscapers are coming across an unexpected phenomenon. Who would’ve thought?

In a state with the nation’s highest jobless rate, landscaping companies are finding some job applicants are rejecting work offers so they can continue collecting unemployment benefits.

[...]some seasonal landscaping workers choose to stay home and collect a check from the state, rather than work outside for a full week and spend money for gas, taxes and other expenses, raises questions about whether extended unemployment benefits give the jobless an incentive to avoid work.

Members of the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association “have told me that they have a lot of people applying but that when they actually talk to them, it turns out that they’re on unemployment and not looking for work,” said Amy Frankmann, the group’s executive director. “It is starting to make things difficult.”

Business owners are stunned:

Chris Pompeo, vice president of operations for Landscape America in Warren, said he has had about a dozen offers declined. One applicant, who had eight weeks to go until his state unemployment benefits ran out, asked for a deferred start date.

“It’s like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Pompeo said. “It’s frustrating. It’s honestly something I’ve never seen before. They say, ‘Oh, OK,’ like I surprised them by offering them a job.”

And yet another shocker…taxes are a deterrent against working:

Some job applicants are asking to be paid in cash so they can collect unemployment illegally, said Gayle Younglove, vice president at Outdoor Experts Inc. in Romulus.

“Unfortunately, we feel the economy is promoting more and more people and companies to play the system and get paid or collect cash money so they don’t have to pay taxes,” Younglove said.

Something tells me that stories like this suit the Obama administration just fine.  Nothing spells second term better than millions of unemployed but eligible voters sucking at the government teat.

The bad news for whatever’s left of the producing class in the USA is that we’re looking more and more like Greece every day.

White House: We can’t create more jobs and it’s all President Bush’s fault

What happened to all of those “shovel-ready” jobs anyway?

March 16 (Bloomberg) — U.S. employers won’t hire enough workers this year to lower the jobless rate much below the level of 9.7 percent reached in February, three Obama administration economic officials said today.

The proportion of Americans who can’t find work is likely to “remain elevated for an extended period,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, White House budget director Peter Orszag and Christina Romer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in a joint statement. The officials said unemployment may even rise “slightly” over the next few months as discouraged workers start job-hunting again.

This a startling admission from a White House that is big on illusory messaging.  The message here is two-fold.  First, it’s actually a smart move as it acknowledges that Democrats are really, really toast come November (it will be interesting to see how the healthcare vote plays into this).  After Scott Brown’s victory in January, the administration said it was pivoting towards jobs as opposed to pushing the Obama-legacy agenda.  Besides a placebo jobs bill that was signed today, the administration’s efforts on jobs creation is invisible.

Lastly, this is essentially an acknowledgement that the stimulus bill was a waste of time.  Sure there will be wailing and lamentations from the left that $800 billion wasn’t big enough or that it wasn’t spent “correctly” or even that it hasn’t been spent at all.  The fact is that the majority of the expenditures in the stimulus was used to plug in state budget holes and to fund safety net programs and these are hardly job-stimulating endeavors.

But of course, no acknowledgement of an Obama failure would be complete without some Bush bashing:

The officials put the greatest blame for the high budget deficits on “years of poor decisions” during the administration of George W. Bush, citing enactment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit and income-tax cuts without corresponding budget savings to pay for them.

You see, when President Bush added to the deficit (and I agree that the spending policies of the Bush years were outrageous)  it severely inhibits the ability of future Presidents to stabilize the economy.  When President Obama does it, it’s for our own good.

Democrats: “Hey its great that only 36,000 people lost their jobs”

Democrats are strange.

Up is down. Black is white.  Good is bad.

Summers tries to preempt potentially bad unemployment report

There’s really no other way to frame this one:

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Summers said on Monday winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday.

“The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends,” Summers said in an interview with CNBC, according to a transcript.

Like I’ve said before, watch the average number of unemployment claims week over week for a clearer picture, and there’s a possibility that unemployment may be revised downward.  

But seriously, there’s also the chance that this could be an ugly report.  Maybe not enough to push the unemployment rate over 10%, but still ugly. 

The reality is that if they saw anything positive coming from this report, they’d say nothing at all.

[Via JWF]