Has the Obama Job Market Really Improved?

Before President Obama and the Democrats get too smug about the new unemployment rate it is important to recognize how the numbers lie.

The actual unemployment rate in the United States is in excess of 22%, that’s one in five Americans who are without meaningful labor.

Having added a net of 120,000 new jobs with 315,000 job-seekers falling off the radar and stopped looking for work in November is not a stellar record to go around thumping your upper torso.

In actuality we lost ground and the 8.6% unemployment rate that will be highly touted by the Administration and Congressional Democrats is a fallacy. Going from to 8.6% from 9%, is a gift that looks nice under the tree but is a little disappointing when the wrapping comes off.

It would take about 150,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth, and it is mathematically impossible for the 120,000 created this month to have reduced the U.S. unemployment rate, let alone generate one of the largest one-month declines in history.

What the lower rate really means is that 315,000 people left the workforce, which outnumbered the 278,000 who actually found work.

In a healthy labor market, the number of people working and the labor force would be growing respectively.

Considering this is the Holiday season, it’s a little too early to celebrate as many of these jobs created are only part time positions are seasonal related and will disappear after the first of the year. The word is temporary.

More than 13 million Americans are officially counted as unemployed. Workers who dropped out of the labor market aren’t counted as part of the unemployed because they no longer collect benefits, and therefore are no longer part of the labor force. About one-third, or approximately 3 million, of those who lost their jobs during the recession have recovered or are on their way to recovery.

Only 7 percent of those who lost their jobs were able to find another job that allowed them to maintain the financial situation and lifestyle they had before becoming unemployed. 

In the second quarter of 2011, unemployment claims in Middlesex County, NJ alone, were 35,761. Included in those numbers were 7,000 searching for work that have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and were part of those 35,761 claims. Out of that total 6,632 residents of Middlesex County exhausted all of their unemployment insurance.

The economy will continue to grow at the same pace through the rest of 2011 and all of 2012, indicating that a sustained recovery still hasn’t started, more than two years after the end of the Great Recession.

Even with a job market rebound, the non-recovery recovery continues as those who recently found work will hang on to their money, buying only essentials needed. On the flip side, those of us fortunate enough to have work or not been out of work, last month was a pretty good month.

In 2003 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized job creation as “Far From Enough.” “The slight increase in jobs last month is wonderful news for 57,000 Americans. But the 2.1 million Americans who have been actively looking for work for more than two years … know that it is far from enough.”

In 2004, Sen. Dick Durbin claimed Bush “Created a Climate … Where the Number of Jobs Is Not Growing.” Stating “This President has created a climate in this country where the number of jobs is not growing. It did not have to be that way.”

In 2005, Pelosi called job creation numbers “Anemic.” “Today’s anemic jobs numbers confirm that President Bush has still failed to create a single new private-sector job since he became President.”

And again in 2006, Pelosi claimed Bush policies “favored the privileged few at the expense of America’s working families, claiming “Democrats will restore the Economic Security of America’s working families.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 5.7 million jobs had been created under Bush.

While in 2008 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed Bush had a “shameful history of losing American jobs.”

In February 2009, Obama pledged that his Stimulus Plan would create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. ‘We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time.’

At the end of 2010, 2.8 million jobs were lost, since Obama signed his $787 billion 'Stimulus',. after saying it would create 3.5 million jobs.

Obama had said in 2008, “The Yardstick should be … Am I Creating These Jobs?”

As Pelosi's spewed her tirade of “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs … We will measure our success in that way; and hopefully the American people will, too, in the next election.”

Democrats needed to create 6.3 million jobs in 2010 to meet their own standards.

It is now 2011, the jobs climate is not any better and the outlook does not look any brighter.

Improvement in the economy the job market won’t happen until consumer confidence begins to build. As long as the threat of tax increases with excessive regulations continue being put forward by this administration there will be a hindrance to real growth.

Things may look good on the surface, especially when government cheerleaders push the ‘hope and change’ optimism to unsuspecting kool-aiders around the country. In reality, not much has changed. The unemployment numbers remain abysmal and our economy is teetering on the threshold of a complete collapse.

The Titanic is sinking and the BLS plays on, hoping we won’t notice our socks are getting wet.