Unreported: Full-Time Employment Barely Up Since Recession Ended
See-no-evil economic reporting during the Obama years has "somehow" missed a number of developments in the makeup of the American workforce which I believe would not have been missed (or deliberately overlooked, take your pick) if a Republican or conservative were in the White House. One of them relates to full-time employment.
Did you know that seasonally adjusted full-time employment in September 2011 was lower than it was when the recession officially ended in June 2009, and that this was the case for 26 of the first 27 post-recession months? What's more, the economy had over 8.7 million fewer full-time workers in November 2011 than it did when full-time employment peaked four years earlier in November 2007. Proof from the Bureau of Labor Statistics follows the jump.
Here it is:
Full-time employment finally surpassed the June 2009 level for two consecutive months in October and November. Hopefully it will keep going up, but the economic policy barriers to continued improvement are quite substantial, as has been noted elsewhere by yours truly and so many others. For those who are wondering, during the first 29 months after November 1982, the official end of the Reagan-era recession according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, full-time employment increased by almost 8 million:
Currently, the economy has 417,000 more full-time workers than it did when the recession officially ended in June 2009. Readers will also see that the increases in the number of full-timers continued to climb after that. By the end of 1986, over 11 million more Americans (almost 14%) were working full-time than were doing so at the end of that era's recession.
President Obama said in Kansas on December 6 that what Reagan did, followed by similar but less aggressive moves under President Clinton (with prodding from a GOP-controlled Congress) and Bush 43 "doesn’t work. It has never worked."
Really? Then what would you expect a nonpartisan observer to say about the policy prescriptions employed during the past three years?
If the economy under a Republican or conservative president had utterly failed to create full-time employment for so long, we'd be hearing about it constantly. But we've heard something between absolutely nothing and barely anything from the lapdog establishment press.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
The 'recession' ended?? Did I
Submitted by killa37 on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 1:20am.
The 'recession' ended?? Did I miss something??? Are things any better now than they were when it 'officially ended'??? I don't believe a word of it - I think that the workforce that has thrown in the towel, and the number of jobs that have disappeared probably have something to do with the government being able to 'cook the books' so that they can tell everybody that the 'recession ended'.............but I doubt if anyone who is on the negative end of this whole situation will believe it. How else can you explain the fact that full-time employment hasn't increased???
It's more lies lies lies (remember that rockin' Knickerbocker song call 'Lies'???) from the Obama REGIME!!!
The technical definition of recession is ...
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 1:41am.
... driven primarily by economic growth (i.e., GDP), though the NBER in its IMO somewhat politicized way looks at other factors.
Based strictly on the GDP definition (two or more quarters of contraction) the recession began in July 2008 and ended in June 2009. Reported growth has been positive though pathetic for a so-called recovery since then. The GDP definition is "clean" (though growth figures are revised over a period of several years), because it's objective. The economy either did or didn't grow.
You raise a good point when it comes to how the NBER does things, because their guidance on employment (see the third FAQ) makes no distinction between FT and PT employment. Given that FT employment dropped by almost 2.3 million during the six months after the recession as they subjectively define it ended (1.8 million during the first four months), while the number of PT workers actually increased by about 300,000 during the same six months, you could make a case that they called the end of the recession as they subjectively define it too early. This is especially true because 3Q09 growth was only an annualized 1.7%, and they said we were in a recession during 2Q08 when growth was an annualized 1.3%.
That "growth" in GDP has been
Submitted by robert108 on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 2:55am.
That "growth" in GDP has been entirely in govt spending, not real economic activity. The recession continues, and for a very obvious reason: obama's war on our private sector.
You have to accept their rigged numbers.
Submitted by Avitar on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 2:02am.
First you have to accept that inflation includes the cost of buying a neew place to live every year. The drop in the value of everyones homes draggs down the deflation factor from every else going up in cost.This kicks the GDP up when in fact it went down.
Second the official population has officially shrunk and is only the people who the Government recognizes as looking for work. Since they don't recognize people who they don't pay those people disappear from the numbers and Happy Days Are Here Again.
The actual population has gone up and the private sector work force, recorded since 1928, as a percentage of the actual population in 2010 dipped below the bottom it reached in the Great Depression and is not up at all in 2011,
This is the Greater Depression.
A Recession Officially Ends When We Hit Bottom.
Submitted by Avitar on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 9:15pm.
Even a dead cat bounce like we have had under Obama officially ends a recession. Still we need a new name for bouncing off the walls as we fall further down.
The problem is that if you wait until the economy recovers to previous levels it may never end. For example the Great Depression has never ended because the 1928 per capita private sector income has never recovered. It came within 7% in 1963 but has not been in the same town since LBJ's Great Society turned things down for the individual family.
Do you have ....
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 9:58pm.
... a graph, chart, or link for that?
This Whole Set of Figures Depend on Lies
Submitted by Avitar on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 1:47am.
If inflation were as low as the Government claimed some of this would be true but the cable channels have all been telling us that their Thanksgiving grocery basket is up 11% for this year and Christmas is up 8% to 10% year to year both of which include cloths and family travel and make good dipsticks. The official Government inflation figure on the other hand includes the price of homes and is officially 3%. You deflate the GDP by the minimal 8% instead of the fictional but official 3% and 2011 was another depression year.
During Bill Clinton's last years in office his administration changed the calculation of inflation. The changed reduced the growth of GDP during Bush 41 and has increased the reported GDP during Obama's administration. It made Bush 41 look bad and Obama look better.
In fact six months after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007 the economy turned down and has not turned up since. The Cost of houses scrambles the inflation figure but there are now 8.1 million fewer people working than when the Democrats took over and the population has grown.
As long as you look at only consistent numbers we are now in the fifth year of the great DNC Depression.
The 'recession' ended my ass
Submitted by Dave. on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 3:57am.
It is only deepening, and unless Obama is run off and his policies reversed, it will deteriorate still further.
Eventually, even the dullest of the American sheeple are going to turn off American Idol, Survivor, maybe even put down their People Magazines, and notice the falsely inflated home sales numbers.
I am guessing the downward pressure on real estate prices will only increase, and real estate has been the underpinning of our economy through thin, thick, and thicker.
We no-longer have that cushion.
Pull your heads out of your asses, people, because our economy, along with our country, is dying.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
One word:
Submitted by HockeyKid on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 7:34am.
Obysmal.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
But Tom.....but Tom......!!
Submitted by motherbelt on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 8:06am.
Didn't someone just say the other day that unemployment was DOWN from where it was this time in 2009????
Oh, it probably is ...
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 9:10am.
... because so many people have given up.
Not just that
Submitted by jon_torlin on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 10:36am.
But wasn't it said that the government doesn't like to factor private sector jobs into the unemployment and that the government jobs are the ones that tell the tale of employment in the country?
-Jon
I don't think that's it ...
Submitted by Tom Blumer on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 11:14am.
... instead, what DC dems are trying to do is claim that the private sector is just fine and that it's the government sector which is really suffering, which is a load of rubbish.
Makes sense
Submitted by jon_torlin on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 12:45pm.
in a twisted way anyway. Overfill/overload the government jobs(especially redundant ones) and then if there's a threat to cut them(as they should be), make it look like they are trying to save jobs.
I wish the private sector were really fine, but of course, they aren't, not even close. It illustrates not just the lack of common sense, but the lack of morals about doing what's right to help these private businesses flourish, instead, you have to beat them down in order to pursue a communist ideal. Real hard not to get angry about this.
-Jon
But.........but............bu
Submitted by killa37 on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 1:50pm.
But.........but............but............Harry 'the weasel' Reed SAID himself, in that high-pitched, wimpy-assed voice of his, that the private sector is doing well, and it's the public sector that is under pressure and having a hard time - and he knows a LOT more about these matters than we do!!!
Unemployment Is Down If 8 Million People Have Died
Submitted by Avitar on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 9:19pm.
Since they disappeared from the official record of the Working Populations they must have. Just like the Official Obama voting rolls includes people back from the dead.
An ideological animus toward the free-enterprise system
Submitted by thestalkinghorse on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 9:00am.
His approach to health care told me everything I needed to know about President Obama. A top-down system can not provide the pricing mechanisms needed to lower costs (the purported reason for Obama-care) and improve quality.
It is not a double-dip recession, it is one continous economic funk because the market does not trust this president and his ideas.