Good Economic News

I dont understand why you would be pissed off over a negative alternate reality that never happened or will ever happen. You liberals fester over the oddest things.

 

Well I truly believe there are people out there who would rather see this country burn than for Obama to have success... He still has to fight the 'good ol boy' network that still exist on both sides of congress and there are black people (like Cornel West) who has a problem with him too.

Considering the obstacles he had to face and being handed a country headed for hell in a handbasket. He's done a great job. And I've never thought that about any president. Even Bill Clinton. If Obama was white with a different name I have no doubt that he would have been able to get a lot more accomplished.

 

The US is once again leading the world economically.

Would be nice if someone else stepped up.

 

People aren't leaving liberal commie bastion California "in droves" anymore either.

Someone should update the Conservative talking point memo on that.

 

im not sure i understand what you are saying im pissed off about.

im annoyed by the fact that the country was in a tailspin when obama took office. i dont know how much of that was bush's fault. but since obama took office things have gotten better. and it seems like people can not admit that.

do you personally think that bush left the country in good shape? do you think that mccain would have the country better off at this point? in my opinion he wouldnt. one of the most important decisions he has ever made in his career was selecting a vice president, and you know the rest.

 

The President continues the work.

Thanks To President Obama, Unemployment Just Did Something It Hasn’t Done In 30 Years



In 2014, this nation saw something that it hadn’t seen since 1984 – a drop in unemployment for every single state in the United States.

Every. Single. One.

 

OMG Mark are you naive if you think unemployment is really dropping. It is dropping because too many people have given up looking for work and no longer are included in the statistics.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louisefron/2014/08/20/tackling-the-real-unemployment-rate-12-6/

Do a little research before posting something like this.

 

How exactly did President Obama fix unemployment? Seriously, I don't understand how politicians can take credit for economic successes or blame the opposing party for downturns. These things are often ambiguous.

 

Because Obama!

 

Well, I don't expect any real substance from mc mark, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt this time.

 

OMG cml, you are uninformed if you actually don't know why the participation rate is dropping. It is dropping because the Baby Boomers are retiring and this rate will continue to drop over the next decade or so as the Boomers continue to age and retire.

Please, for the love of God, take your own advice.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles...-big-part-of-labor-participation-rate-decline

 

I seriously thought his post was sarcastic, but now that you mention it....

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/barc...gend-of-the-labor-market-2012-3#ixzz2ppJVqiRm

Markets More: Unemployment Rate Labor
Barclays Debunks The Greatest 'Urban Legend' Of The Labor Market

Joe Weisenthal

Mar. 2, 2012, 11:28 AM

The unemployment rate has been falling precipitously over the past several months, from 9.1 percent last summer, to 8.3 percent as of the January reading.



There's a good chance it will fall to 8 percent or lower very soon.

But the unemployment rate these days always seems to carry with it an asterisk, because detractors like to point to this number: The Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate.



The number of people involved working or looking for a job just keeps falling as a percentage of the overall population, so they say the unemployment rate is a foul number, distorted by the fact that in this economy, so many people have just given up.

James Pethokoukis at AEI has argued that the "real" unemployment rate is actually 11 percent, a number that would make Obama's economic record look really dismal.

And though Pethokoukis generally writes from a conservative angle, we should note that it's actually not just an anti-Obama thing. Lots of people from across the spectrum worry that the official Unemployment Rate is bunk, and that it's masking a much deeper jobs crisis.

All that being said, people are aware that there are two sides to the question.

Part of it is, as Pethokoukis would argue, is people have given up attempts to find a job completely, and are apparently planting themselves on the couch of a relative, or just burning through their savings or doing whatever they can do to survive without income.

But there's also a demographic component.

Back in December, Bill McBride at Calculated Risk pointed out that Great Recession aside, demographers had already been calling for a decline in the participation rate.

This chart plots the current participation rate against predictions that were made by researchers in 2002 and 2006.



As you can see, the decline in workforce participation was never in doubt, so if you're trying to calculate the "real" unemployment rate simply by holding the participation rate fixed from some point in time, you've already erred.

All of this is a long way of getting to the fact that Barclays economists Dean Maki, Troy Davig, and Peter Newland have a brand new paper called Dispelling An Urban Legend, which blasts the idea that labor force participation is mostly being dragged down by depressed workforce exiles. Instead it's really mostly about the demographics.

Specifically, they write:

Consistent with our view, only a third of the drop in the labor force participation rate is accounted for by those who say they want a job, and only about 15% by those who want a job and are also of prime working age (ie, 25-54). Thus, we view the possibility of a large and sudden return of previously discouraged job seekers to the labor force as remote.

Why are Maki, Davig, and Newland so confident that this is really a demographic story?

A really big part is this chart:



As a share of the total population, those aged 55 or older have jumped by nearly 5 percent in a decade. The big loser demographic was the 35-44 year old cohort, which is the prime working age population, and which saw its share of the population drop 4 percent.

Still, how do we know that the people who have left the workforce don't really want to get back in?

Well, the BLS asks them: DO YOU WANT A JOB? And the vast majority say: NO.

From Barclays again:

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that tracks individuals “not in the labor force” supports our view that structural factors are the primary explanation for the decline in participation, as it suggests that the majority of those not in the labor force do not want a job. Figure 8 illustrates this point (note that all numbers are expressed as a percentage of the civilian population (ie, 16 and over). The labor force participation rate fell by 2.1pp between Q4 2007 and Q4 2011. Of this, 1.4pp reflects those who no longer want a job and 0.7pp who do want a job; this provides a proxy for how much of the decline in labor force participation has been “structural” (ie, permanent) and how much has been “cyclical” (ie, temporary). In turn, of those who no longer want a job, more than half of the increase in the share of those not in the labor force has been in the 55+ age cohort.

Of those who dropped out of the labor force since Q4 2007, only 34.5% are classified as wanting a job, and only 14.7% want a job and are of prime working age (ie, 25-54). We see the 0.7pp rise since Q4 07 in those workers who are not in the labor force, but have said they want a job, as consistent with the current cyclical gap we estimated in the previous section. The fact that the majority of those who fall in the “no longer want a job” category are in the 55+ age bracket suggests a significant move into retirement. This is consistent with the rise in the proportion of the population receiving social security benefits for retired workers.



They go into things a lot more, with all kinds of econometrics, but the bottom line is: There's been a big demographic shift, and most of the people who have left the workforce do not want a job. Yes, the phenomenon of labor force exile is real, but not enough to discount the improvement in the jobs market.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/barc...gend-of-the-labor-market-2012-3#ixzz3TZ6Nl6sX

 

Says the guy who blames Obama when it rains.

 

As much hot air as Obama spews, he probably has affected the weather. He is definitely contributing to global warming.

 

I stopped trying to have rational discourse with the crazies years ago. All I can do is point to facts and reality and let the chips fall where they may. cheers!

 

Claiming that unemployment dropping is "thanks to President Obama" is not a fact, my friend. Of course, if you can provide some data that shows he had an effect, I would love to see it.

 

How can Obama be blamed when the economy is bad but not given any credit whatsoever when it improves? Same for gas prices.

Honest question - why are so many conservatives here so stuck in their views that they're absolutely unwilling to examine things from another point of view? From what I've seen here, by and large, the liberals don't do that.