America embraces new paradigm: English is permitted, & it's okay to be white again!
Are you ready to revisit a blast from the past?
I suspect most Americans will remember the campaign slogan often credited with vaulting the 42nd President to an upset of Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush on election eve November 3, 1992.
"It’s the economy, stupid!" was used ad nauseam to remind Clinton’s base, along with independents able to identify with the brash, back-woods liberal progressive that an entry level recession had slowed the incumbent’s economy following historic growth during the Reagan years. Never let it be said either Bill or Hillary Clinton shied away from triggers meant to manipulate an audience’s emotions. In spite of the seeming insult and today’s young progressives’ riotous demands for safe spaces and complaints about triggers, two decades ago the charge worked as intended.
Now, at a time the economy should be a determining issue, the tale woven by Obama’s Labor Secretary, Thomas Perez, has surprisingly clouded the impression many have over the longest, inarguably slowest, most miserable recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. Four years of woeful workforce shrinkage, then paralysis, saw Barack Obama reelected with the worst job counts of any President returned to Office for a second term since the Depression. In November 2012, the Employment & Training Administration (ETA), which utilizes employers’ payroll records for a comprehensive nationwide count rather than survey estimates like the CPS and CES, showed Obama’s dreadful economy more than 5.7 million workers down from the 133,886,830 inherited from George Bush in January 2009. By January 2013, across the entirety of Obama’s first term, the workforce debacle showed 5,272,917 fewer jobs than were counted when the 44th President was inaugurated.
I’ve written prior analyses about the stunning, immediate changes in workforce counts from the first week of Perez’ installation as Obama’s Labor Secretary back on July 23, 2013. Without having counted fewer than 300,000 new registrants for job loss claims during a single five-day work week across Hilda Solis’ 237 weeks as Labor Secretary, the ETA magically posted ten straight weeks below that figure from Perez’ first day. After counts above the 300,000 new claimant threshold reappeared for the final three months of 2013 and first half of 2014, an impressive string of sub-300,000 claims began in July 2014, which was interrupted only a handful of times before starting the current unprecedented string the Administration boasts about from March 7, 2015 onward. Yes there have been a dozen weeks of not seasonally adjusted claims far above the 300,000 count, but the seasonally adjusted figure released to the public has remained below that reference figure for an eye-popping 87 weeks straight, according to Perez’ conveniently adjusted counts.
What’s conspicuously missing have been anything approaching corresponding gains in jobs added to the economy, which have always appeared in concert with drops in job loss claims in the past. Instead, I’ve charted a significant drop in job hiring activity from 2013 onward, which fell all the way from 21,393,036 across 2012 to just 17,260,464 last year. The drop in new hires nationwide hit an eye-popping 4,132,572 fewer newly employed counted by the Labor Department in 2015 than were recognizable ahead of Perez’ installation. With just over seven weeks ‘til the end of 2016, the current year’s activity has continued the downward trend to a pace soon to become a millennium and longer, decades’ low of fewer than 16 million hires across Obama’s final year in Office.
The stunning record drop in hiring is hardly good news for the 94,609,000 Americans relegated to Not in Labor Force (NiLF) counts on Friday’s Employment Situation Report (ESR/Empsit), which posted October’s latest CPS and CES workforce figures. What left leaning sycophants dismissively cite regarding the 14 million spike from early 2009 is that it’s not arguable as a valid concern, because they’re virtually all adolescents or retired seniors over 65. Instead, the latest ESR identifies 55,402,000 of the 94.6 million ranging in age from 16 to 64. Fully 55.4 million, or 58.7% of the NiLF are classified as normal employment age adults who’ve mysteriously vanished from gainful employment, as well as Labor Department unemployment counts. Together with the 7,447,000 recognizably unemployed and 1,700,000 more marginally attached to the labor force, the BLS recognizes 103,756,000 not participating, while 64,549,000 are considered eligible, working age individuals, many of whom still want and need work.
The 94.6 million NiLF and 64,549,000 eligible working age non-participants should concern every American, but the reality regarding who’s been hired and who’s garnered the lions’ share of meager job gains over the past eight years is more disturbing yet.
It’s hardly necessary to be a math wizard, PhD or post-grad numbers wonk to recognize details in the October ESR that showed more worrisome trends last month. Yes, it’s necessary to look at more than Thomas Perez’ and Labor Department appointees’ politicized release material, suggesting all is well. That’s just one more smoke and mirrors attempt to suggest what Americans are expected to believe by an Administration transfixed by its own laser lights display, or whatever distraction serves best to obfuscate the transparency promised when Obama entered Office.
Before addressing the all-important not seasonally adjusted counts posted in Friday’s ESR for last month, along with 2016 thus far, it’s probably appropriate to offer a few preliminaries to help readers understand how recent counts compare to workforce numbers from the past. Afterward, potentially eye-opening results for racial, ethnic, age, and education attainment groupings represented in the CPS will be posted across Obama’s 94 months in Office thus far, for those who read on.
Understanding the birth/death cycle recision adjustment initially instituted mid-year 2003 is key to recognizing one of the central elements in the deception being perpetrated on the American public. Economists Madison Lau and Kerry Leslie, while serving as information officers for the Division of Current Employment Statistics within the Bureau of Labor Statistics, along with like-minded economists Mary Bowler and Teresa Morisi have written materials describing the change in modeling for the second-half of 2003 as the most notable shift in employment calculations in half-a-century. After recognizing the 1994 survey redesign as major, where the survey questionnaire was overhauled and rewritten to facilitate incorporation of computer assisted interviewing methods, six new metrics categorizing groupings of the unemployed from U1 to U6 were introduced as part of the change. Barely a decade later, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) redesign implemented in June 2003 was seen as more significant yet for how the change impacted monthly ESR figures released to the public. The CES sample design switched to using the birth/death cycle model, which altered total non-farm and total private counts by including final employment numbers from shuttered, bankrupt businesses, and non-reporting establishments assumed closed in key counts for two calendar quarters or longer.
The theory behind the birth/death cycle recision (literally cancellation) stems from an assumption that in a "dynamic" economy there are always more businesses opening than there are business closures nationwide. Not only are all closed businesses’ employees counted as if their jobs still exist for at least half-a-year, the birth/death model assumes tens of thousands of new businesses open without fail throughout the year, a portion of which are envisioned, if you will, to boost critical CES figures each and every month. The result of the birth/death model in practice has been to gift around 200,000 jobs or more semi-regularly to monthly counts released to, then willingly reported by the media, based upon the assumption and unsubstantiated determination that in a "dynamic" economy the workforce and American businesses exhibit impressive perpetual growth. Never mind that a range of indicators, high-level economists, and all-important tax records have shown business closures have outnumbered new businesses opening across much of Perez’ tenure as Labor Secretary, the birth/death cycle recision adjustment gifts from many tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of jobs to the reported total non-farm employment and total private employment counts each month in figures reported on Establishment Data Table B-1 in the Employment Situation Report.
Similarly important to identifying which figures are most meaningful, it’s necessary to recognize seasonally adjusted data is less reliable and less accurate than not seasonally adjusted figures according to Labor Department statisticians whose weighting of CPS and CES monthly survey estimates correctly identifies the original data as superior. From BLS materials, the following gives partial explanation. Seasonal adjustment "estimates not directly derived from the sample survey counts or statistical modeling are subject to errors resulting from the estimation process used, as well as the limitations of the data sources [selective sample] used. The error structure associated with these estimates is complex, and information on the magnitude of these errors is unavailable." Published materials from the Labor Department, and several emanating from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, makes it abundantly clear all BLS and USCB employees engaged in the process of gathering and reporting the data understand the originally collected not seasonally adjusted data is the more accurate figure by which a given month’s actual employment results should be measured.
As a result, readers here will find not seasonally adjusted data, unless seasonally adjusted counts are offered for a specific reason. Since seasonally adjusted counts are virtually all that reach the public in published written or broadcast material, occasionally I’ll include figures that are most recognizable to the public for that reason alone. Typically, they’ll be compared and contrasted to the originally collected data reported on the surveys as not seasonally adjusted. Over a ten to twelve month stretch, and most assuredly over the 94 months Obama has served as president, there’s no advantage to seasonally adjusting figures that are simply a method for smoothing anomalous results and survey responses which differ noticeably from what statisticians within the BLS have anticipated based on historic data or some sort of recognizable event otherwise expected to alter results.
Now, back to October’s Employment Situation Report figures, which serve as the last snapshot of the nation’s employment and economic condition heading into an historic election.
Missing from all media reports and Perez’ observations analyzing the ESR figures, with the commentary providing a blueprint for what reaches the public, were job losses on the total private employment count of 402,000 on Establishment Data (ED) Table B-1, and a seasonally adjusted loss of 43,000 on total employment reported on Household Data (HD) Table A-1. The prior three months leading up to the not seasonally adjusted total private job count loss in October reported paltry gains of 43,000 jobs on September’s Establishment Data, after just 33,000 in August, preceded by 88,000 in July. Over the four month stretch leading up to the election, the not seasonally adjusted result was a 238,000 net loss, or about 60,000 jobs lost monthly on average.
Since October became the fourth month in 2016 showing not seasonally adjusted job losses, one might wonder what happened to July’s painful 999,000 loss on total non-farm employment ED Table B-1, or August’s 633,000 drop in total employment on HD Table A-1. The former was mostly recovered in October’s count with an 899,000 gain, while total private employment seemed to contradict that bounce back with the 402,000 loss last month. In January, a post-holiday job loss of 666,000 on the HD Table A-1 employed count was seasonally adjusted to an impressive gain of 615,000, apparently based on historic data statisticians apply to reframe anticipated job losses.
Other adjustments boosting real workforce loss counts to a 275,000 gain in July, rather than the reported 999,000 – million worker, not march -- loss, and the marginally acceptable 142,000 gain posted in October whitewashing the initial 402,000 survey loss, were accomplished with a combination of the birth/death cycle monthly gift and statisticians’ recognition of a pattern worth adding hundreds of thousands of phantom jobs to a refigured seasonally adjusted estimate. Since the recession was said to have ended in July 2009, the birth/death cycle, which is intentionally withheld during recessionary periods, was restored after an 18-month absence. In concert with the birth/death cycle restoration, statisticians answerable to political appointees at the Bureau were given unprecedented leeway to morph survey figures into increasingly favorable seasonally adjusted estimates. Let me remind everyone that seasonally adjusted estimates are all that have appeared in media reports since early in the Obama Presidency. They’re all that make the cut now.
Is there reason to suspect bias on the part of individuals whose jobs depend on Obama appointees’ approval? Never mind that federal employees typically lean left in percentages approaching the nation’s teachers and professors, journalists and broadcast media personalities, and traditional labor union members. There’s no doubt the Justice Department and IRS have become little more than an extension of Obama’s supposedly progressive regime, weaponized to punish and exact costs from any and all perceived opposition. Does anyone believe there’s evidence of the transparency Obama promised in the current Administrations’ activities? At this point we’re exposed to a barrage of additional transparency claims from Hillary Clinton, often just minutes apart on the airwaves, as the Democrat nominee tries to enter the White House as Obama’s term number three by all appearances.
Janet Yellen in a statement describing the Fed’s impression of the economy and workforce numbers said recently that we need to average about 80,000 to 90,000 jobs monthly to break even with newcomers entering the labor force. It’s hard to imagine how such a claim could be more disingenuous or delusional, unless it’s blatantly political to influence votes on Election Day. Keep in mind, Donald Trump has indicated in a number of speeches he intended to replace her over what’s widely considered mishandling of the institution’s central bank function and less than skillful efforts by the Fed to stimulate the economy with monetary policy, if elected.
Yellen is almost right with regard to our home-grown, native citizen offspring, who the Digest of Education Statistics shows are entering the workforce at about 110,000 monthly. In too many cases where the blind lead the blind to predictably poor results, among the groups Yellen has obviously overlooked are the 315,000 to 320,000 H1-B visa recipients we’ve added for four years consecutively now at a pace of about 26,000 jobs each month. Since they’re contractually guaranteed jobs for three years on the State Department’s H1-B visa to fill employer’s needs once they’ve petitioned for foreign workers based upon claims Americans aren’t available for the jobs, that number is concrete. The State Department also issues about 1.1 million green cards annually to foreign newcomers who are gaining employment at percentages considerably above our native born, including the college educated with bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees.
Hispanic males lead the nation with a workforce participation rate of 80.6%, while the foreign born are close behind at 76.8%. The foreign born stood at 78.4% a year ago and 79.0% as recently as July. Hispanic males were employed at 81.2% and 81.0% rates in July and August, respectively. By comparison, our best educated graduates entering the workforce with bachelor’s, master’s and even doctorate credentials lag behind the foreign newcomers with a relatively respectable 74.3% participation rate. Including increasing numbers of refugees and asylees who often have jobs prearranged in the communities they’re resettled in by the likes of Catholic and Lutheran Social Services, another 80,000-plus newcomers are unleashed on the job market monthly year-round from a mixture of mostly tracked and documented newcomers.
Instead of the understated 80,000 to 90,000 the Fed claims it believes should suffice to incorporate newcomers into the workforce, the real figure, according to Digest of Educations Statistics, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, and United States Census Bureau (USCB) figures ranges somewhere between 200,000 and 220,000 to employ newcomers ready and available for gainful employment monthly. Amazingly, the rate at which we’re now churning out college graduates requires an even higher monthly number, since the 2.8 million annual graduates with bachelor’s and higher degrees are double their counterparts from the Baby Boom generation exiting the workforce for retirement. Additionally, today’s annual rate of 2 million associate’s and state-based professional degrees awarded from other than four-year higher education programs is triple the number recorded in the Digest of Education Statistics for retiring Baby Boomers holding comparable credentials. The H1-B visa program requires education attainment comparable to four-year degrees here, so there’s another 26,000 additional higher education newcomers who must be accounted for along with our college graduates leaving academia ready to transition into self-sufficient, full adulthood. The numbers entering the workforce with higher education credentials means the economy must find a place for 225,000 to 250,000 monthly to keep up with the influx of college trained newcomers.
On the other end of the scale, high school graduates with no college education amount to just a third of the same high school graduates’ grouping of Baby Boomers whose education took place around the end of the 60s into the early 70s. Those who haven’t completed so much as a high school diploma are a tougher group to estimate, because many left school before junior or senior years where they were reasonably likely to be recognized in counts, but the Labor Department’s least educated category is producing just a fraction of the number and percentage today compared to their older counterparts leaving the workforce. The result suggests the least educated categories of newcomers with less than a high school education, and high school graduates with no college training, should be dropping like a rock on the Employment Situation Report’s HD Table A-4. Unfortunately, that’s not at all the case, with high school graduates alone gaining the most jobs of the four distinct categories counted by the BLS at 1,549,000 since January 2016. More education attainment figures will be revisited later after important race, ethnicity and age-specific demographics are reviewed for who’s surviving and who’s maybe even thriving in Obama’s painfully slow, snail’s pace virtual recovery.
The breakdown of eight age-based demographics’ movement and success, or lack thereof, in the workforce is interesting, especially in light of several paired measures from part time and full time job gains on HD Table A-9. In a previous installment, I mentioned that the 1,550,000 jobs gained by teens age 16 to 19 dominated all employment gains from January through July, and 20 to 24 year olds managed to claim the next highest count at 737,000 seven months into 2016. Seniors over 65 counted another 396,000 through July, after dominating all age-based job reentrants with 498,000 during the three month period from February through April. What was obvious and inarguable through July was no adult breadwinner jobs were added across the year’s first seven months. This is mentioned because the return to school of many of the 2.3 million 16 to 24 year olds, combined, was predictable at the close of summer. But while the exodus of school age youth from jobs seemed promising for availability of jobs for more experienced adults, part time and full time counts reported on Table A-9 suggest that while adults claimed thousands of jobs vacated by teens and college age early 20-somethings, the jobs filled have been overwhelmingly part time and hardly what could be considered breadwinner jobs.
Seniors over 65 years of age have had four very successful months since January, including September when the super seniors added 106,000 jobs following a modest gain of 10,000 in August to their total through July. After reaching 512,000 jobs gained through the end of the third calendar quarter, October saw the 65+ workforce reentrants slip 10,000 back to 502,000, or just over half-a-million. The 502,000 count stands as the second most jobs gained by any of the decade’s long, full adult counts.
After returning to school en masse in late summer, teens age 16 to 19 dropped to 310,000 jobs gained through the end of October. Table A-9 further breaks those figures down to 16 and 17 year olds, who nearly equaled their more senior teen counterparts with 144,000 jobs gained, while 18 to 19 year olds claimed 166,000 additional jobs through the end of last month. The next youngest demographic by age also dropped at the end of summer as significant numbers of the 20 to 24 group headed back to college. 20 to 24 year olds now hold 226,000 more jobs than they were working back in January 2016. Combined, the nine year grouping of teens and early 20-somethings from 16 to 24 grew by 536,000 through October.
Together with seniors over 65, the youngest and oldest demographics included in BLS counts added 1,038,000 jobs ten months into 2016, which accounts for more than half of all jobs reported on ED Table B-1 total non-farm and total private employment counts this year. Similarly, the seasonally adjusted total employment count on HD Table A-1 since January recorded just 1,381,000 growth in sum. The establishment counts on Table B-1 fared better with total non-farm employment showing 1,664,000 since January on seasonally adjusted counts, while the not seasonally adjusted figure was more respectable at 1,816,000. It’s hard to know how much the birth/death cycle adjustment boosted monthly counts through October, but a partial picture should be released next March when benchmark figures are applied from Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages (QCEW) counts. The QCEW data is used to correct and fine tune the birth/death model adjustment figures applied to monthly counts across prior years. Without the anticipated tens of thousands of businesses cropping up above and beyond business closures, which have reportedly spiked across 2016, the boost could be responsible for half or more of the roughly 1.8 million jobs shown on Table B-1. The closely related total private job count increased 1,461,000 on seasonally adjusted figures since January, while the not seasonally adjusted growth showed 1,171,000 private sector jobs added since the start of the year.
The most successful age-based demographic during 2016 has been what most experts say they’d expect. The 25 to 34 year old age group, generally ready to jump both feet into the workforce and maybe even an entry-level career, garnered 919,000 jobs since January. There’s at least a modest caveat here, because almost half, 400,000 of those jobs, were added in August and September when high school and college students left mostly part time jobs to return to the classroom. For the year, workers age 45 to 54 added a respectable 450,000 jobs, although they trailed teens to early 20-somethings and super seniors both on jobs gained through October. While the 35 to 44 age group would likely have been expected to be amongst the top two or three demographics for jobs gained, the reality was they fared second worst with 392,000 jobs added through October’s figures.
The lone remaining age group not addressed thus far maintained its place as the least successful demographic in search of employment and reentry to the workforce. Potential workers age 55 to 64, who were among the hardest hit across 2009 and 2010, continue their longsuffering struggle with just 326,000 jobs added. At least that’s a better than average year for over 50 workers who were purged in record numbers in the Great Recession, then continued a slower exodus for several years in what was supposed to be its aftermath. As a group, the late career, soon-to-be seniors apparently were seen as too experienced, too educated, and, as a result, generally too costly to be welcomed back into the workforce in anything like the numbers purged across Obama’s first term.
While young progressives love to complain and heap blame upon Baby Boomers, the group born around the middle of the demographic from 1946 to 1964 have fared little better than they did across at least four prior recessions. The mid-Baby Boomers who were among the best educated, having pursued advanced credentials during earlier economic downturns, have suffered surprisingly like millions of college graduates released into an unforgiving, massive labor force bubble during Obama’s first five years In Office. If there’s a difference, it may be that the middle and trailing near-middle Baby Boomers suffered recessions under Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, along with a modest recession under Bill Clinton, before experiencing an unprecedented senior purge in the massive, seemingly endless Great Recession that entered its infancy in the final months of George W. Bush’s Presidency.
The past three months which saw adult workers from 20 to 64 gain jobs for the first time since spring this year found the workforce facing a seismic shift from full time to part time work in back-to-back months. While the 25 to 34 age group grew by 400,000 jobs since August, a modest 385,000 full time jobs gained in August for all workers and part time positions dropping by 1,018,000 from students’ return to school brought a glimmer of encouragement before adults needing breadwinner jobs found there were none. After teasing applicant hopefuls with the boost of 385,000 jobs, September slashed 1,164,000 full time jobs before October saw 140,000 more disappear. Over the three month stretch, an abysmal 919,000 full time jobs were downsized or removed altogether. That showed a loss of about 306,000 jobs monthly. At the same time, loss of a million part time jobs during students’ return to school in August was answered with 1,338,000 part time jobs added in September. The hiring spree of part time, underemployed serf workers then extended into October with 497,000 more part time jobs added to employers’ payrolls. The three-month gain from the end of summer showed 817,000 part time jobs added, while more than that disappeared with the corresponding three-month loss of 919,000 full time jobs. The shift is traceable to where it appears only around a quarter to a third of the 400,000 entrants who gained jobs from the 25 to 34 age group actually secured full time work. In spite of that demographic being expected to benefit the most on job gains, given their status as young career hopefuls, the jobs appear little more than millions upon millions have found under Obama’s celebrated economic recovery.
Does the phrase jobless recovery ring a bell? Get used to saying no breadwinner jobs for Americans, including the nation’s best educated, under economy destroying, self-serving progressive elite regimes.
Stay with me just a bit longer for some of the most telling demographic figures.
The racial and ethnic demographics counted by the BLS identify a few striking, albeit worrisome patterns for the nation’s majority. It would be almost impossible to counter the left’s manipulative, seemingly hate filled white privilege meme any better than the Household Survey does in numbers showing mind numbing futility for white job seekers across the duration of Obama’s Presidency. Let’s start with the lottery winners for jobs, who, by all accounts, have experienced little to no trouble securing income for a chance at a normal, self-sufficient adult life. Keep in mind, with 153,270,000 distinct first time claimants for unemployment after job losses since Obama’s first week in Office, statistically 114.5% of the ETA’s recognized workforce of 133,886,830 inherited by the President in January 2009 have lost their jobs. Yes, the 153 million figure is accurate and was bested for the first time late in the day Friday, October 21, 2016.
I’ve charted and summarized every week, along with graphs and analysis that suggests something quite different from the Administration’s boastful claims of recovery for millions still reeling from life-changing workforce separation since Obama took Office. The summary data and charts are found under multiple pages linked across the banner at RockyMountainPerspective.com. Of course not every American has lost his or her job during Obama’s reign of futility, but it’ not much of a stretch to imagine the majority have.
So, along with the 153,270,000 registrants for claims after job losses and the 94,609,000 NiLF, the millennium as well as decades’ low job hiring pace of less than 16 million this year should offer perspective for just how tough it’s been for many frustrated, out of work, marginally attached or fully banished to not in labor force job seekers. All the while, Obama’s Labor Secretary and minions for the Administration echo the claim that we’re experiencing something akin to full employment.
Let’s look again. The most important figure for each demographic will be the 94 month total jobs gained since the President was inaugurated, but the past year and a pattern of recent months can have meaning, as well.
If you’ve read any of my prior material, or followed the economy with anything more than a cursory glance, you already know who the real lottery winners have been. Hispanics gained another 116,000 jobs last month on the not seasonally adjusted count, and since January have added 891,000 jobs. The 94-month total across Obama’s time in Washington has rewarded Hispanics like Saudi oil baron sheikhs with 6,029,000 jobs. They counted 25,482,000 last month after the BLS recognized 19,453,000 employed in January 2009. While the last census showed Hispanics representing 16.3% of the nation’s populace, the fastest growing demographic, along with Asians, at 43% over the first decade of the millennium, make up just a fraction of the nation’s majority demographic at 22.5%, with whites showing 72.4% on the census count. Hispanic males rarely have trouble finding work and are more consistently employed than any other group, holding the highest workforce participation rate at 80.6% of any demographic represented in the Employment Situation Report. Typically, Hispanic males have held between a 6% and 7.5% advantage over the nation’s best educated college graduates with bachelor’s master’s and even doctorate degrees.
With the release of the first Employment Situation Report for the year on February 5, 2010, a new category appeared for the first time in January’s data counts. The foreign born were added as a distinct new metric, and at 25,965,000 in October, the newcomers have fared next best with 4,875,000 jobs gained, in spite of some laboring without citizenship or fully documented status. In January 2010, 21,090,000 held jobs, according to the Labor Department. During both August and September, the foreign born topped 5 million jobs gained, before experiencing a rare drop of 181,000 employed in October. Across 2016 thus far, the foreign born have gained 637,000 jobs, which is especially impressive for their numbers and percentage in the populace. Foreign born males have found employment easy to come by with the second highest participation rate of all demographics surveyed by the BLS at 76.4%. A year ago they enjoyed a 78.4 participation rate, and as recently as July counted 79.0% The 2.3 million H1-B visa recipients shown favor and signed to three-year contracts for employment via the State Department during Obama’s tenure appear in both college educated and foreign born categories, adding two-plus million new job entrants to each count.
Black or African American working age individuals have fared next best. The 54,000 jobs gained in October was solid, if unspectacular, and the 620,000 jobs added since January represented solid growth for the nation’s second largest minority at 12.3%. The 18,222,000 employed in October counted fully 2,948,000 more than the 15,546,000 recognized by the BLS in Obama’s first month in Office. When weighted for numbers and percentage in the populace, black employment would approach 3,906,700 in direct comparison to Hispanics, which would mean the largest minority holds about a 3-2 advantage over Blacks for securing employment. Both hold a considerable advantage over white Americans in search of work, in spite of the left’s insistent white privilege meme.
Asians, at just 4.8% of the American population on the 2010 census managed to gain 2,805,000 jobs since 2009. They’re now considered the fastest growing minority in the nation by percentage, and last month’s 9,393,000 represented a healthy 43,000 employment gain in October over September. The Asian workforce at the start of the year was 8,821,000, which calculates to an impressive 572,000 growth in employment across 2016. January 2009 showed 6,588,000 Asians employed, which represented the fastest job growth, as well, for relative numbers and percentage in the country at 2.8 million, outpacing both Hispanics and Blacks for comparative gains in the populace.
Last but not least, representing 72.4% of the U.S. population, the white majority demographic suffered nearly six-and-a-half years with fewer jobs than were recognizable early in the New Year, 2009, before coming back to reach a positive count for the first time in spring of 2015. Last month, whites added 202,000 jobs, after consecutive losses of 663,000 and 12,000 in August and September, respectively. July’s gain of 357,000 still left ready and available white workers down 115,000, on the heels of teens and 20-somethings dominant job gains through the first seven months of 2016.
White women age 20 and above spiked the last three months’ gains with 754,000 newly employed, which counted about half of whites’ best year for employment under the Obama/Perez regime. The October count, at 119,677,000, was 1,520,000 more than was recognizable at the start of January, which showed 118,157,000 at the turn of 2016. Although it’s tough to draw definitive conclusions, white women’s three-quarters-of-a-million jobs gained during months which added 1,835,000 part time jobs, while full time employment counts nosedived to the tune of 1,304,000 jobs lost, it’s reasonable to assume white women secured mostly part time jobs, rather than finding middle class breadwinner employment.
The Depression-like failure over locating opportunities for reentry to the workforce across almost seven years is magnified by white college graduates’ numbers ballooning the majority’s presence in the labor force. While college enrollments have shown whites underrepresented on campuses nationwide at 62 to 64 percent for the entirety of Obama’s Presidency, courtesy of liberal social engineering and the Administration’s commitment to social justice, graduation rates have more nearly approached whites’ presence in the populace at 69%. Since there have been more than 38 million graduates churned out with bachelor’s degrees and above, along with less than four-year professional credentials and associates degrees, it’s necessary to note more than 26 million young adult, white majority credentialed graduates spiked the ranks of newly ready job seekers. That it took so long for whites to return to positive numbers of employed Americans should be shocking to anyone who’s not a hard core progressive ideologue stuck on the left’s white privilege meme.
The actual number of jobs gained by whites since breaking even in 2015 reached 2,268,000 with October’s 119,677,000 count. The count of whites employed in early January 2009 was 117,409,000. In comparison to Hispanics’ sizable job gains, balancing numbers and percentages found in the U.S. populace shows Hispanics hired at a 12 to 1 rate over anyone recognizable as part of the nation’s white majority. At least that’s down from the 16 to 18 times advantage Hispanics held just about two years ago. Perhaps surprising, an unemployed black in search of work has maintained a nearly 8 times greater likelihood of securing employment than a competing unemployed white. Adding to the woeful disparity, it’s believed upwards of three-quarters-of-a-million H1-B newly employed identify as white, and many South American newcomers with European heritage self-identify as white on a range of government documents. It’s unlikely to surprise anyone that Russians and newcomers from across Europe consider themselves white. As a result, it’s hardly a stretch to believe native born whites may have gained no more than a million jobs, in spite of the 26 million college educated newcomers and another 12 to 13 million white labor force entrants without higher education credentials seeking employment over the last eight years.
I believe the numbers are stunning and precisely why Donald Trump stands a better chance at the presidency than the mainstream media give him credit for. It’s amazing how many media personalities and celebrities have been unabashed, vocal supporters of Hillary Clinton. A win for Donald Trump stands to clarify just how much influence once powerful media conglomerates from the New York Times to the Washington Post, and most of the alphabet broadcast news networks have ceded over their insistence no one else’s opinions matter. They’ll simply promote their own patronizing, politically [in]correct, aberrant progressive views others are expected to buy into in hopes whatever remaining audience they can generate is moved by the foolishness.
Perhaps Bill Clinton’s message 24 years ago is still a worthy reminder this election. Yes, "it’s the economy, stupid!!" And never let it be said the oft insulting, disbarred former President doesn’t know his constituents.
Of course, it’s the economy in 2016. Probably even more so than it was back in 1992 when Bill Clinton got just 43% of the popular vote, which sufficed at the time for a plurality and an electoral victory.
I suspect most Americans will remember the campaign slogan often credited with vaulting the 42nd President to an upset of Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush on election eve November 3, 1992.
"It’s the economy, stupid!" was used ad nauseam to remind Clinton’s base, along with independents able to identify with the brash, back-woods liberal progressive that an entry level recession had slowed the incumbent’s economy following historic growth during the Reagan years. Never let it be said either Bill or Hillary Clinton shied away from triggers meant to manipulate an audience’s emotions. In spite of the seeming insult and today’s young progressives’ riotous demands for safe spaces and complaints about triggers, two decades ago the charge worked as intended.
Now, at a time the economy should be a determining issue, the tale woven by Obama’s Labor Secretary, Thomas Perez, has surprisingly clouded the impression many have over the longest, inarguably slowest, most miserable recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. Four years of woeful workforce shrinkage, then paralysis, saw Barack Obama reelected with the worst job counts of any President returned to Office for a second term since the Depression. In November 2012, the Employment & Training Administration (ETA), which utilizes employers’ payroll records for a comprehensive nationwide count rather than survey estimates like the CPS and CES, showed Obama’s dreadful economy more than 5.7 million workers down from the 133,886,830 inherited from George Bush in January 2009. By January 2013, across the entirety of Obama’s first term, the workforce debacle showed 5,272,917 fewer jobs than were counted when the 44th President was inaugurated.
I’ve written prior analyses about the stunning, immediate changes in workforce counts from the first week of Perez’ installation as Obama’s Labor Secretary back on July 23, 2013. Without having counted fewer than 300,000 new registrants for job loss claims during a single five-day work week across Hilda Solis’ 237 weeks as Labor Secretary, the ETA magically posted ten straight weeks below that figure from Perez’ first day. After counts above the 300,000 new claimant threshold reappeared for the final three months of 2013 and first half of 2014, an impressive string of sub-300,000 claims began in July 2014, which was interrupted only a handful of times before starting the current unprecedented string the Administration boasts about from March 7, 2015 onward. Yes there have been a dozen weeks of not seasonally adjusted claims far above the 300,000 count, but the seasonally adjusted figure released to the public has remained below that reference figure for an eye-popping 87 weeks straight, according to Perez’ conveniently adjusted counts.
What’s conspicuously missing have been anything approaching corresponding gains in jobs added to the economy, which have always appeared in concert with drops in job loss claims in the past. Instead, I’ve charted a significant drop in job hiring activity from 2013 onward, which fell all the way from 21,393,036 across 2012 to just 17,260,464 last year. The drop in new hires nationwide hit an eye-popping 4,132,572 fewer newly employed counted by the Labor Department in 2015 than were recognizable ahead of Perez’ installation. With just over seven weeks ‘til the end of 2016, the current year’s activity has continued the downward trend to a pace soon to become a millennium and longer, decades’ low of fewer than 16 million hires across Obama’s final year in Office.
The stunning record drop in hiring is hardly good news for the 94,609,000 Americans relegated to Not in Labor Force (NiLF) counts on Friday’s Employment Situation Report (ESR/Empsit), which posted October’s latest CPS and CES workforce figures. What left leaning sycophants dismissively cite regarding the 14 million spike from early 2009 is that it’s not arguable as a valid concern, because they’re virtually all adolescents or retired seniors over 65. Instead, the latest ESR identifies 55,402,000 of the 94.6 million ranging in age from 16 to 64. Fully 55.4 million, or 58.7% of the NiLF are classified as normal employment age adults who’ve mysteriously vanished from gainful employment, as well as Labor Department unemployment counts. Together with the 7,447,000 recognizably unemployed and 1,700,000 more marginally attached to the labor force, the BLS recognizes 103,756,000 not participating, while 64,549,000 are considered eligible, working age individuals, many of whom still want and need work.
The 94.6 million NiLF and 64,549,000 eligible working age non-participants should concern every American, but the reality regarding who’s been hired and who’s garnered the lions’ share of meager job gains over the past eight years is more disturbing yet.
It’s hardly necessary to be a math wizard, PhD or post-grad numbers wonk to recognize details in the October ESR that showed more worrisome trends last month. Yes, it’s necessary to look at more than Thomas Perez’ and Labor Department appointees’ politicized release material, suggesting all is well. That’s just one more smoke and mirrors attempt to suggest what Americans are expected to believe by an Administration transfixed by its own laser lights display, or whatever distraction serves best to obfuscate the transparency promised when Obama entered Office.
Before addressing the all-important not seasonally adjusted counts posted in Friday’s ESR for last month, along with 2016 thus far, it’s probably appropriate to offer a few preliminaries to help readers understand how recent counts compare to workforce numbers from the past. Afterward, potentially eye-opening results for racial, ethnic, age, and education attainment groupings represented in the CPS will be posted across Obama’s 94 months in Office thus far, for those who read on.
Understanding the birth/death cycle recision adjustment initially instituted mid-year 2003 is key to recognizing one of the central elements in the deception being perpetrated on the American public. Economists Madison Lau and Kerry Leslie, while serving as information officers for the Division of Current Employment Statistics within the Bureau of Labor Statistics, along with like-minded economists Mary Bowler and Teresa Morisi have written materials describing the change in modeling for the second-half of 2003 as the most notable shift in employment calculations in half-a-century. After recognizing the 1994 survey redesign as major, where the survey questionnaire was overhauled and rewritten to facilitate incorporation of computer assisted interviewing methods, six new metrics categorizing groupings of the unemployed from U1 to U6 were introduced as part of the change. Barely a decade later, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) redesign implemented in June 2003 was seen as more significant yet for how the change impacted monthly ESR figures released to the public. The CES sample design switched to using the birth/death cycle model, which altered total non-farm and total private counts by including final employment numbers from shuttered, bankrupt businesses, and non-reporting establishments assumed closed in key counts for two calendar quarters or longer.
The theory behind the birth/death cycle recision (literally cancellation) stems from an assumption that in a "dynamic" economy there are always more businesses opening than there are business closures nationwide. Not only are all closed businesses’ employees counted as if their jobs still exist for at least half-a-year, the birth/death model assumes tens of thousands of new businesses open without fail throughout the year, a portion of which are envisioned, if you will, to boost critical CES figures each and every month. The result of the birth/death model in practice has been to gift around 200,000 jobs or more semi-regularly to monthly counts released to, then willingly reported by the media, based upon the assumption and unsubstantiated determination that in a "dynamic" economy the workforce and American businesses exhibit impressive perpetual growth. Never mind that a range of indicators, high-level economists, and all-important tax records have shown business closures have outnumbered new businesses opening across much of Perez’ tenure as Labor Secretary, the birth/death cycle recision adjustment gifts from many tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of jobs to the reported total non-farm employment and total private employment counts each month in figures reported on Establishment Data Table B-1 in the Employment Situation Report.
Similarly important to identifying which figures are most meaningful, it’s necessary to recognize seasonally adjusted data is less reliable and less accurate than not seasonally adjusted figures according to Labor Department statisticians whose weighting of CPS and CES monthly survey estimates correctly identifies the original data as superior. From BLS materials, the following gives partial explanation. Seasonal adjustment "estimates not directly derived from the sample survey counts or statistical modeling are subject to errors resulting from the estimation process used, as well as the limitations of the data sources [selective sample] used. The error structure associated with these estimates is complex, and information on the magnitude of these errors is unavailable." Published materials from the Labor Department, and several emanating from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, makes it abundantly clear all BLS and USCB employees engaged in the process of gathering and reporting the data understand the originally collected not seasonally adjusted data is the more accurate figure by which a given month’s actual employment results should be measured.
As a result, readers here will find not seasonally adjusted data, unless seasonally adjusted counts are offered for a specific reason. Since seasonally adjusted counts are virtually all that reach the public in published written or broadcast material, occasionally I’ll include figures that are most recognizable to the public for that reason alone. Typically, they’ll be compared and contrasted to the originally collected data reported on the surveys as not seasonally adjusted. Over a ten to twelve month stretch, and most assuredly over the 94 months Obama has served as president, there’s no advantage to seasonally adjusting figures that are simply a method for smoothing anomalous results and survey responses which differ noticeably from what statisticians within the BLS have anticipated based on historic data or some sort of recognizable event otherwise expected to alter results.
Now, back to October’s Employment Situation Report figures, which serve as the last snapshot of the nation’s employment and economic condition heading into an historic election.
Missing from all media reports and Perez’ observations analyzing the ESR figures, with the commentary providing a blueprint for what reaches the public, were job losses on the total private employment count of 402,000 on Establishment Data (ED) Table B-1, and a seasonally adjusted loss of 43,000 on total employment reported on Household Data (HD) Table A-1. The prior three months leading up to the not seasonally adjusted total private job count loss in October reported paltry gains of 43,000 jobs on September’s Establishment Data, after just 33,000 in August, preceded by 88,000 in July. Over the four month stretch leading up to the election, the not seasonally adjusted result was a 238,000 net loss, or about 60,000 jobs lost monthly on average.
Since October became the fourth month in 2016 showing not seasonally adjusted job losses, one might wonder what happened to July’s painful 999,000 loss on total non-farm employment ED Table B-1, or August’s 633,000 drop in total employment on HD Table A-1. The former was mostly recovered in October’s count with an 899,000 gain, while total private employment seemed to contradict that bounce back with the 402,000 loss last month. In January, a post-holiday job loss of 666,000 on the HD Table A-1 employed count was seasonally adjusted to an impressive gain of 615,000, apparently based on historic data statisticians apply to reframe anticipated job losses.
Other adjustments boosting real workforce loss counts to a 275,000 gain in July, rather than the reported 999,000 – million worker, not march -- loss, and the marginally acceptable 142,000 gain posted in October whitewashing the initial 402,000 survey loss, were accomplished with a combination of the birth/death cycle monthly gift and statisticians’ recognition of a pattern worth adding hundreds of thousands of phantom jobs to a refigured seasonally adjusted estimate. Since the recession was said to have ended in July 2009, the birth/death cycle, which is intentionally withheld during recessionary periods, was restored after an 18-month absence. In concert with the birth/death cycle restoration, statisticians answerable to political appointees at the Bureau were given unprecedented leeway to morph survey figures into increasingly favorable seasonally adjusted estimates. Let me remind everyone that seasonally adjusted estimates are all that have appeared in media reports since early in the Obama Presidency. They’re all that make the cut now.
Is there reason to suspect bias on the part of individuals whose jobs depend on Obama appointees’ approval? Never mind that federal employees typically lean left in percentages approaching the nation’s teachers and professors, journalists and broadcast media personalities, and traditional labor union members. There’s no doubt the Justice Department and IRS have become little more than an extension of Obama’s supposedly progressive regime, weaponized to punish and exact costs from any and all perceived opposition. Does anyone believe there’s evidence of the transparency Obama promised in the current Administrations’ activities? At this point we’re exposed to a barrage of additional transparency claims from Hillary Clinton, often just minutes apart on the airwaves, as the Democrat nominee tries to enter the White House as Obama’s term number three by all appearances.
Janet Yellen in a statement describing the Fed’s impression of the economy and workforce numbers said recently that we need to average about 80,000 to 90,000 jobs monthly to break even with newcomers entering the labor force. It’s hard to imagine how such a claim could be more disingenuous or delusional, unless it’s blatantly political to influence votes on Election Day. Keep in mind, Donald Trump has indicated in a number of speeches he intended to replace her over what’s widely considered mishandling of the institution’s central bank function and less than skillful efforts by the Fed to stimulate the economy with monetary policy, if elected.
Yellen is almost right with regard to our home-grown, native citizen offspring, who the Digest of Education Statistics shows are entering the workforce at about 110,000 monthly. In too many cases where the blind lead the blind to predictably poor results, among the groups Yellen has obviously overlooked are the 315,000 to 320,000 H1-B visa recipients we’ve added for four years consecutively now at a pace of about 26,000 jobs each month. Since they’re contractually guaranteed jobs for three years on the State Department’s H1-B visa to fill employer’s needs once they’ve petitioned for foreign workers based upon claims Americans aren’t available for the jobs, that number is concrete. The State Department also issues about 1.1 million green cards annually to foreign newcomers who are gaining employment at percentages considerably above our native born, including the college educated with bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees.
Hispanic males lead the nation with a workforce participation rate of 80.6%, while the foreign born are close behind at 76.8%. The foreign born stood at 78.4% a year ago and 79.0% as recently as July. Hispanic males were employed at 81.2% and 81.0% rates in July and August, respectively. By comparison, our best educated graduates entering the workforce with bachelor’s, master’s and even doctorate credentials lag behind the foreign newcomers with a relatively respectable 74.3% participation rate. Including increasing numbers of refugees and asylees who often have jobs prearranged in the communities they’re resettled in by the likes of Catholic and Lutheran Social Services, another 80,000-plus newcomers are unleashed on the job market monthly year-round from a mixture of mostly tracked and documented newcomers.
Instead of the understated 80,000 to 90,000 the Fed claims it believes should suffice to incorporate newcomers into the workforce, the real figure, according to Digest of Educations Statistics, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, and United States Census Bureau (USCB) figures ranges somewhere between 200,000 and 220,000 to employ newcomers ready and available for gainful employment monthly. Amazingly, the rate at which we’re now churning out college graduates requires an even higher monthly number, since the 2.8 million annual graduates with bachelor’s and higher degrees are double their counterparts from the Baby Boom generation exiting the workforce for retirement. Additionally, today’s annual rate of 2 million associate’s and state-based professional degrees awarded from other than four-year higher education programs is triple the number recorded in the Digest of Education Statistics for retiring Baby Boomers holding comparable credentials. The H1-B visa program requires education attainment comparable to four-year degrees here, so there’s another 26,000 additional higher education newcomers who must be accounted for along with our college graduates leaving academia ready to transition into self-sufficient, full adulthood. The numbers entering the workforce with higher education credentials means the economy must find a place for 225,000 to 250,000 monthly to keep up with the influx of college trained newcomers.
On the other end of the scale, high school graduates with no college education amount to just a third of the same high school graduates’ grouping of Baby Boomers whose education took place around the end of the 60s into the early 70s. Those who haven’t completed so much as a high school diploma are a tougher group to estimate, because many left school before junior or senior years where they were reasonably likely to be recognized in counts, but the Labor Department’s least educated category is producing just a fraction of the number and percentage today compared to their older counterparts leaving the workforce. The result suggests the least educated categories of newcomers with less than a high school education, and high school graduates with no college training, should be dropping like a rock on the Employment Situation Report’s HD Table A-4. Unfortunately, that’s not at all the case, with high school graduates alone gaining the most jobs of the four distinct categories counted by the BLS at 1,549,000 since January 2016. More education attainment figures will be revisited later after important race, ethnicity and age-specific demographics are reviewed for who’s surviving and who’s maybe even thriving in Obama’s painfully slow, snail’s pace virtual recovery.
The breakdown of eight age-based demographics’ movement and success, or lack thereof, in the workforce is interesting, especially in light of several paired measures from part time and full time job gains on HD Table A-9. In a previous installment, I mentioned that the 1,550,000 jobs gained by teens age 16 to 19 dominated all employment gains from January through July, and 20 to 24 year olds managed to claim the next highest count at 737,000 seven months into 2016. Seniors over 65 counted another 396,000 through July, after dominating all age-based job reentrants with 498,000 during the three month period from February through April. What was obvious and inarguable through July was no adult breadwinner jobs were added across the year’s first seven months. This is mentioned because the return to school of many of the 2.3 million 16 to 24 year olds, combined, was predictable at the close of summer. But while the exodus of school age youth from jobs seemed promising for availability of jobs for more experienced adults, part time and full time counts reported on Table A-9 suggest that while adults claimed thousands of jobs vacated by teens and college age early 20-somethings, the jobs filled have been overwhelmingly part time and hardly what could be considered breadwinner jobs.
Seniors over 65 years of age have had four very successful months since January, including September when the super seniors added 106,000 jobs following a modest gain of 10,000 in August to their total through July. After reaching 512,000 jobs gained through the end of the third calendar quarter, October saw the 65+ workforce reentrants slip 10,000 back to 502,000, or just over half-a-million. The 502,000 count stands as the second most jobs gained by any of the decade’s long, full adult counts.
After returning to school en masse in late summer, teens age 16 to 19 dropped to 310,000 jobs gained through the end of October. Table A-9 further breaks those figures down to 16 and 17 year olds, who nearly equaled their more senior teen counterparts with 144,000 jobs gained, while 18 to 19 year olds claimed 166,000 additional jobs through the end of last month. The next youngest demographic by age also dropped at the end of summer as significant numbers of the 20 to 24 group headed back to college. 20 to 24 year olds now hold 226,000 more jobs than they were working back in January 2016. Combined, the nine year grouping of teens and early 20-somethings from 16 to 24 grew by 536,000 through October.
Together with seniors over 65, the youngest and oldest demographics included in BLS counts added 1,038,000 jobs ten months into 2016, which accounts for more than half of all jobs reported on ED Table B-1 total non-farm and total private employment counts this year. Similarly, the seasonally adjusted total employment count on HD Table A-1 since January recorded just 1,381,000 growth in sum. The establishment counts on Table B-1 fared better with total non-farm employment showing 1,664,000 since January on seasonally adjusted counts, while the not seasonally adjusted figure was more respectable at 1,816,000. It’s hard to know how much the birth/death cycle adjustment boosted monthly counts through October, but a partial picture should be released next March when benchmark figures are applied from Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages (QCEW) counts. The QCEW data is used to correct and fine tune the birth/death model adjustment figures applied to monthly counts across prior years. Without the anticipated tens of thousands of businesses cropping up above and beyond business closures, which have reportedly spiked across 2016, the boost could be responsible for half or more of the roughly 1.8 million jobs shown on Table B-1. The closely related total private job count increased 1,461,000 on seasonally adjusted figures since January, while the not seasonally adjusted growth showed 1,171,000 private sector jobs added since the start of the year.
The most successful age-based demographic during 2016 has been what most experts say they’d expect. The 25 to 34 year old age group, generally ready to jump both feet into the workforce and maybe even an entry-level career, garnered 919,000 jobs since January. There’s at least a modest caveat here, because almost half, 400,000 of those jobs, were added in August and September when high school and college students left mostly part time jobs to return to the classroom. For the year, workers age 45 to 54 added a respectable 450,000 jobs, although they trailed teens to early 20-somethings and super seniors both on jobs gained through October. While the 35 to 44 age group would likely have been expected to be amongst the top two or three demographics for jobs gained, the reality was they fared second worst with 392,000 jobs added through October’s figures.
The lone remaining age group not addressed thus far maintained its place as the least successful demographic in search of employment and reentry to the workforce. Potential workers age 55 to 64, who were among the hardest hit across 2009 and 2010, continue their longsuffering struggle with just 326,000 jobs added. At least that’s a better than average year for over 50 workers who were purged in record numbers in the Great Recession, then continued a slower exodus for several years in what was supposed to be its aftermath. As a group, the late career, soon-to-be seniors apparently were seen as too experienced, too educated, and, as a result, generally too costly to be welcomed back into the workforce in anything like the numbers purged across Obama’s first term.
While young progressives love to complain and heap blame upon Baby Boomers, the group born around the middle of the demographic from 1946 to 1964 have fared little better than they did across at least four prior recessions. The mid-Baby Boomers who were among the best educated, having pursued advanced credentials during earlier economic downturns, have suffered surprisingly like millions of college graduates released into an unforgiving, massive labor force bubble during Obama’s first five years In Office. If there’s a difference, it may be that the middle and trailing near-middle Baby Boomers suffered recessions under Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, along with a modest recession under Bill Clinton, before experiencing an unprecedented senior purge in the massive, seemingly endless Great Recession that entered its infancy in the final months of George W. Bush’s Presidency.
The past three months which saw adult workers from 20 to 64 gain jobs for the first time since spring this year found the workforce facing a seismic shift from full time to part time work in back-to-back months. While the 25 to 34 age group grew by 400,000 jobs since August, a modest 385,000 full time jobs gained in August for all workers and part time positions dropping by 1,018,000 from students’ return to school brought a glimmer of encouragement before adults needing breadwinner jobs found there were none. After teasing applicant hopefuls with the boost of 385,000 jobs, September slashed 1,164,000 full time jobs before October saw 140,000 more disappear. Over the three month stretch, an abysmal 919,000 full time jobs were downsized or removed altogether. That showed a loss of about 306,000 jobs monthly. At the same time, loss of a million part time jobs during students’ return to school in August was answered with 1,338,000 part time jobs added in September. The hiring spree of part time, underemployed serf workers then extended into October with 497,000 more part time jobs added to employers’ payrolls. The three-month gain from the end of summer showed 817,000 part time jobs added, while more than that disappeared with the corresponding three-month loss of 919,000 full time jobs. The shift is traceable to where it appears only around a quarter to a third of the 400,000 entrants who gained jobs from the 25 to 34 age group actually secured full time work. In spite of that demographic being expected to benefit the most on job gains, given their status as young career hopefuls, the jobs appear little more than millions upon millions have found under Obama’s celebrated economic recovery.
Does the phrase jobless recovery ring a bell? Get used to saying no breadwinner jobs for Americans, including the nation’s best educated, under economy destroying, self-serving progressive elite regimes.
Stay with me just a bit longer for some of the most telling demographic figures.
The racial and ethnic demographics counted by the BLS identify a few striking, albeit worrisome patterns for the nation’s majority. It would be almost impossible to counter the left’s manipulative, seemingly hate filled white privilege meme any better than the Household Survey does in numbers showing mind numbing futility for white job seekers across the duration of Obama’s Presidency. Let’s start with the lottery winners for jobs, who, by all accounts, have experienced little to no trouble securing income for a chance at a normal, self-sufficient adult life. Keep in mind, with 153,270,000 distinct first time claimants for unemployment after job losses since Obama’s first week in Office, statistically 114.5% of the ETA’s recognized workforce of 133,886,830 inherited by the President in January 2009 have lost their jobs. Yes, the 153 million figure is accurate and was bested for the first time late in the day Friday, October 21, 2016.
I’ve charted and summarized every week, along with graphs and analysis that suggests something quite different from the Administration’s boastful claims of recovery for millions still reeling from life-changing workforce separation since Obama took Office. The summary data and charts are found under multiple pages linked across the banner at RockyMountainPerspective.com. Of course not every American has lost his or her job during Obama’s reign of futility, but it’ not much of a stretch to imagine the majority have.
So, along with the 153,270,000 registrants for claims after job losses and the 94,609,000 NiLF, the millennium as well as decades’ low job hiring pace of less than 16 million this year should offer perspective for just how tough it’s been for many frustrated, out of work, marginally attached or fully banished to not in labor force job seekers. All the while, Obama’s Labor Secretary and minions for the Administration echo the claim that we’re experiencing something akin to full employment.
Let’s look again. The most important figure for each demographic will be the 94 month total jobs gained since the President was inaugurated, but the past year and a pattern of recent months can have meaning, as well.
If you’ve read any of my prior material, or followed the economy with anything more than a cursory glance, you already know who the real lottery winners have been. Hispanics gained another 116,000 jobs last month on the not seasonally adjusted count, and since January have added 891,000 jobs. The 94-month total across Obama’s time in Washington has rewarded Hispanics like Saudi oil baron sheikhs with 6,029,000 jobs. They counted 25,482,000 last month after the BLS recognized 19,453,000 employed in January 2009. While the last census showed Hispanics representing 16.3% of the nation’s populace, the fastest growing demographic, along with Asians, at 43% over the first decade of the millennium, make up just a fraction of the nation’s majority demographic at 22.5%, with whites showing 72.4% on the census count. Hispanic males rarely have trouble finding work and are more consistently employed than any other group, holding the highest workforce participation rate at 80.6% of any demographic represented in the Employment Situation Report. Typically, Hispanic males have held between a 6% and 7.5% advantage over the nation’s best educated college graduates with bachelor’s master’s and even doctorate degrees.
With the release of the first Employment Situation Report for the year on February 5, 2010, a new category appeared for the first time in January’s data counts. The foreign born were added as a distinct new metric, and at 25,965,000 in October, the newcomers have fared next best with 4,875,000 jobs gained, in spite of some laboring without citizenship or fully documented status. In January 2010, 21,090,000 held jobs, according to the Labor Department. During both August and September, the foreign born topped 5 million jobs gained, before experiencing a rare drop of 181,000 employed in October. Across 2016 thus far, the foreign born have gained 637,000 jobs, which is especially impressive for their numbers and percentage in the populace. Foreign born males have found employment easy to come by with the second highest participation rate of all demographics surveyed by the BLS at 76.4%. A year ago they enjoyed a 78.4 participation rate, and as recently as July counted 79.0% The 2.3 million H1-B visa recipients shown favor and signed to three-year contracts for employment via the State Department during Obama’s tenure appear in both college educated and foreign born categories, adding two-plus million new job entrants to each count.
Black or African American working age individuals have fared next best. The 54,000 jobs gained in October was solid, if unspectacular, and the 620,000 jobs added since January represented solid growth for the nation’s second largest minority at 12.3%. The 18,222,000 employed in October counted fully 2,948,000 more than the 15,546,000 recognized by the BLS in Obama’s first month in Office. When weighted for numbers and percentage in the populace, black employment would approach 3,906,700 in direct comparison to Hispanics, which would mean the largest minority holds about a 3-2 advantage over Blacks for securing employment. Both hold a considerable advantage over white Americans in search of work, in spite of the left’s insistent white privilege meme.
Asians, at just 4.8% of the American population on the 2010 census managed to gain 2,805,000 jobs since 2009. They’re now considered the fastest growing minority in the nation by percentage, and last month’s 9,393,000 represented a healthy 43,000 employment gain in October over September. The Asian workforce at the start of the year was 8,821,000, which calculates to an impressive 572,000 growth in employment across 2016. January 2009 showed 6,588,000 Asians employed, which represented the fastest job growth, as well, for relative numbers and percentage in the country at 2.8 million, outpacing both Hispanics and Blacks for comparative gains in the populace.
Last but not least, representing 72.4% of the U.S. population, the white majority demographic suffered nearly six-and-a-half years with fewer jobs than were recognizable early in the New Year, 2009, before coming back to reach a positive count for the first time in spring of 2015. Last month, whites added 202,000 jobs, after consecutive losses of 663,000 and 12,000 in August and September, respectively. July’s gain of 357,000 still left ready and available white workers down 115,000, on the heels of teens and 20-somethings dominant job gains through the first seven months of 2016.
White women age 20 and above spiked the last three months’ gains with 754,000 newly employed, which counted about half of whites’ best year for employment under the Obama/Perez regime. The October count, at 119,677,000, was 1,520,000 more than was recognizable at the start of January, which showed 118,157,000 at the turn of 2016. Although it’s tough to draw definitive conclusions, white women’s three-quarters-of-a-million jobs gained during months which added 1,835,000 part time jobs, while full time employment counts nosedived to the tune of 1,304,000 jobs lost, it’s reasonable to assume white women secured mostly part time jobs, rather than finding middle class breadwinner employment.
The Depression-like failure over locating opportunities for reentry to the workforce across almost seven years is magnified by white college graduates’ numbers ballooning the majority’s presence in the labor force. While college enrollments have shown whites underrepresented on campuses nationwide at 62 to 64 percent for the entirety of Obama’s Presidency, courtesy of liberal social engineering and the Administration’s commitment to social justice, graduation rates have more nearly approached whites’ presence in the populace at 69%. Since there have been more than 38 million graduates churned out with bachelor’s degrees and above, along with less than four-year professional credentials and associates degrees, it’s necessary to note more than 26 million young adult, white majority credentialed graduates spiked the ranks of newly ready job seekers. That it took so long for whites to return to positive numbers of employed Americans should be shocking to anyone who’s not a hard core progressive ideologue stuck on the left’s white privilege meme.
The actual number of jobs gained by whites since breaking even in 2015 reached 2,268,000 with October’s 119,677,000 count. The count of whites employed in early January 2009 was 117,409,000. In comparison to Hispanics’ sizable job gains, balancing numbers and percentages found in the U.S. populace shows Hispanics hired at a 12 to 1 rate over anyone recognizable as part of the nation’s white majority. At least that’s down from the 16 to 18 times advantage Hispanics held just about two years ago. Perhaps surprising, an unemployed black in search of work has maintained a nearly 8 times greater likelihood of securing employment than a competing unemployed white. Adding to the woeful disparity, it’s believed upwards of three-quarters-of-a-million H1-B newly employed identify as white, and many South American newcomers with European heritage self-identify as white on a range of government documents. It’s unlikely to surprise anyone that Russians and newcomers from across Europe consider themselves white. As a result, it’s hardly a stretch to believe native born whites may have gained no more than a million jobs, in spite of the 26 million college educated newcomers and another 12 to 13 million white labor force entrants without higher education credentials seeking employment over the last eight years.
I believe the numbers are stunning and precisely why Donald Trump stands a better chance at the presidency than the mainstream media give him credit for. It’s amazing how many media personalities and celebrities have been unabashed, vocal supporters of Hillary Clinton. A win for Donald Trump stands to clarify just how much influence once powerful media conglomerates from the New York Times to the Washington Post, and most of the alphabet broadcast news networks have ceded over their insistence no one else’s opinions matter. They’ll simply promote their own patronizing, politically [in]correct, aberrant progressive views others are expected to buy into in hopes whatever remaining audience they can generate is moved by the foolishness.
Perhaps Bill Clinton’s message 24 years ago is still a worthy reminder this election. Yes, "it’s the economy, stupid!!" And never let it be said the oft insulting, disbarred former President doesn’t know his constituents.
Of course, it’s the economy in 2016. Probably even more so than it was back in 1992 when Bill Clinton got just 43% of the popular vote, which sufficed at the time for a plurality and an electoral victory.
