Sunday, May 4, 2014

In Space, No One Considers You Unemployed


I have been silent too long.  The signs were everywhere, and I ignored them. 
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To the few of us left behind, please know...
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The aliens have returned
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Over the past several months I watched and hoped I was wrong, but to my great dismay, I knew the truth, and still I did nothing.  I am complicit in the lives cut short by this current hostile alien threat.
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I am sorry.
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In reviewing the major news headlines of last week I learned that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the U.S. unemployment rate fell from 6.7% to 6.3%.  Knowing that current economic conditions were unlikely to yield such a dramatic increase in employment, I did what I normally do, I went cruising the Internet for...  
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The Rest of the Story.
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Here's the headline from the Huffington Post, May 2, 2014:
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Yay!  Super!  Mission accomplished! Perhaps the President should go on another vacation?!?!? 

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There's only one teeny, weeny little problem with the above headline - there was much more data in associated A/P reporting which was NOT included in major Media coverage.  
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I found some of it at CBSlocal.com
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WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Despite the unemployment rate plummeting, more than 92 million Americans remain out of the labor force.

 .The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent in April from 6.7 percent in March, the lowest it has been since September 2008 when it was 6.1 percent. The sharp drop, though, occurred because the number of people working or seeking work fell. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not count people not looking for a job as unemployed.

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The bureau noted that the civilian labor force dropped by 806,000 last month, following an increase of 503,000 in March.


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The amount (not seasonally adjusted) of Americans not in the labor force in April rose to 92,594,000, almost 1 million more than the previous month. In March, 91,630,000 Americans were not in the labor force.

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...
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The White House posted on its blog that businesses have added more than 9.2 million jobs over the past 50 months.

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And yet, almost 92 MILLION Americans ceased looking for work so they are NO LONGER COUNTED as unemployed.  This means that while the President is taking credit for the creation of 9.2 Million jobs, for every job HE claims he created, 10 'other' Americans are no longer looking for work.  They are the forgotten men and women of the U.S. Economy.  From a purely statistical perspective, they have ceased to 'be'.  

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Since President Obama took office, the Labor Participation Rate HAS held a steady, robust, trajectory (in this case, 'steady' can best be described as 'down' and to the 'right') as illustrated in this chart I just accessed at BLS.gov:
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There will be those who say that, "You cannot blame the current President for the lackluster performance of recovery following the Great Recession".  They'll say that, "You cannot fault the President for the 92 MILLION Americans who have given up on their search for the American Dream."
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To them I say, if I cannot blame the President's Economic policies, only one other plausible explanation for the number of people out of the American workforce remains...
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Alien Abduction

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I'm sure it's the prior Administration's fault, but Dude, seriously, that was like five years ago. Plus under Bush, when things were 'bad', 66.1% of Americans were in the work force.  
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Today, when things are 'good' only 62.8% of Americans consider themselves 'employable'.  
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That 3.3 percentage spread between then and now?  
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Yeah, I'm thinking it's 'Aliens'...  What other logical explanation remains?  If you've got another theory, lemme know, but do it quickly, while I'm still here.
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