Unemployment shot up to an official 9.2% as Barack Obama failed to magically create millions of new jobs via Twitter the other day. The real rate, depending on which real rate you like, is somewhere between 11% and 25%. So, no jobs for anyone, ever. The stock markets reacted by briefly going into freefall, but then investors realized it doesn’t much matter to them if one-tenth or even one-third of the workforce is unemployed forever, so stocks recovered most of the losses by afternoon. Twitter, meanwhile, is now valued at something like SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS, so hooray?
As a result of the latest exodus from the labor force, the participation rate fell to a 27-year low of 64.1%. The employment-to-population ratio fell to 58.2, from 58.4, matching the lows set in December 2009 and then November 2010. The upshot is that exactly two years after the recovery began, broad labor market conditions haven’t improved at all.
{ 98 comments }
Someone's lying. Santorum said Hopey created 240 million jobs on TV so it must be official.
Clearly the president is at fault for not cutting the top marginal tax rate and rescinding any government regulation ever imposed. And don't even get me started on the job killing effects of Obamacare..
Looks like Wal Mart coutourers still have jerbs, though.
Has Michelle weighed in on the nutritional value of hobo beans yet?
Needs more tax cuts for wealthy job creators.
CUT MOAR TAXES AND LESS ABORTIONS!!!! That will solve it.
TAX ABORTIONS. Then everybody's happy!
Hey, if any of ya'll can afford to go to McDonald's, could you bring me back an application, please.
Bring me back a large McApplication w/cheese, hold the onions. Oh, and a Diet Koch, por favor. Oh, and two Crapple pie. Also.
Don't worry, the extension to the Bush tax cuts will take effect in 3… 2…
Is Glenn Beck still unemployed?
Yes, beck is unemployed. Didn't you see him on Rt 66 with his chalkboard sign "will work for Prozac?"
No, that was Mitt Romney you saw. He's unemployed, too. He even bragged about it, the slacker.
Neither Beck nor Mittens is cool enough to be anywhere near Route 66.
Also, I don't want them to get their kicks.
I've already arranged to sell my internal organs to the chineeeze for food money.
If you sell your stomach, you won't need to buy food. Problem solved.
It's a trap! An hour later, you're hungry again…
In Communist China, internal organs sell you.
It's not like you'll need them for that long anyway.
So, like that O. Henry short story?
Second Amendment remedy: Get your gun, go to the nearest corporate HR office, and yell "Hire me, biotch!! Now!!"
l like it! Will try Monday.
Trust me. That actually doesn't work as well as FlownOver makes it sound.
Yeah, they just give you a shitty office in the janitor's closet, and fire you the next day.
Sheeeeeeyit, if that worked, I'd skip the middlemen, and go directly to the banks.
Of course, then you miss out on the beneficial effect of ridding the world of a few evil HR assholes (pardon the redundancy).
Reagan raised taxes, why can't Obama?
Because he's near.
Would it be better if he was far?
Because he's halfrican.
/fixed
You forgot OKIYAR rule. Also skin color rule. Also Reagan used his charisma to make Repubicans stop blowing him and "raise the damn taxes you cocksuckers."
Reagan was a rich, white Republican.
Mmmmmmkay?
Because if he did, the richest 1% would have a screaming, pants-wetting, foaming at the mouth tantrum like the spoiled brats that they are, and they'd hate him forever and ever infinity plus one.
Then they'd arrange for him to "die in his sleep".
And the predictable lie from the repubs: "Now it just does not make sense for Americans to suffer under higher taxes in an economy like this," said Cantor, R-Va.
Of course, the unemployed aren't the ones being taxed, it would be the rich folks who are busy profiting by taking their factories, etc, overseas…
But Orrin Hatch already said Teh Poorz need to do more!
I pay taxes on my fucking unemployment checks. You try living on less than $24,000 a year. Of course the alternative for me is what? The second amendment solution? Begging at the freeway offramp?
if everyone stops looking for jobs we can get the unemployment rate down to 0%.
Holy shit, my aim sucks. I meant to UPfist you.
I am become downfister, the destroyer of pee.
:-(
I upfisted for you.
And I for you.
Probability factor of one to one…we have normality, I repeat we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.
That only works if we also devour each other when we get hungry. Otherwise you just have a lot of hungry Poorz sitting around annoying the Richez.
"oh boo hoo, people are unemployed, wah. i wish i didn't have to work. you think i like coming into the office every day? no way, i'd rather be on welfare or whatever like those millions upon millions of lucky bums out there. i mean, not literally of course – you get what i'm saying. i despise the poor, is what i'm saying. phi delt!"
-some dumb douchebag whoremonger guy
TPM says this: The private sector accounted for 57,000 new jobs, but the total was dragged down by 39,000 public sector layoffs.
Which is odd, because John Boehner has been saying for several years now that government jobs aren't real jobs — so if they didn't count when they were being added, how come they count when they're being taken away? Anyway, the conservative plan to boost the economy by slashing state budgets has — um — caused even more pain, so mission accomplished?
What's really odd, is that the Republiklans have been bitching that the problem isn't that people aren't taxed enough, it's that government spends too much. You cut government spending, employees are going to get laid off. Are the Republiklans going to start giving Obama credit for cutting government spending?
Yep, better to lose employment, if it's government employment, they say. Neglecting that many public jobs do not pay as well as private sector jobs requiring the same amount of education, experience and training.
I went to a seminar once where the presenter said it's a much tougher job to be a public employee because the average citizen is your boss. In other words, you have a hella lot of bosses, none of which wants to know anything but, "What are you going to do for me? My taxes pay your salary."
it's a much tougher job to be a public employee because the average citizen is your boss
In other words, instead of just having one idiot boss, you have 320 million of them?
Just like I heard Michael Steele say this afternoon that 51 percent of taxpayers don't pay any taxes. It's all very simple.
That must be their new meme, I heard Orrin Hatch say the same thing the other day. I make around $28K/yr in pensions, and I pay income taxes on it. Are they suggesting that 51% of us make less than me? If so, we're even more fucked than I thought.
"Anyway, the conservative plan to punish the poor and gut what's left of the middle class by slashing state budgets"
fxd
And still we wait for that invisible hand (what-30 years now?) and all of those great ideas like trickle down and tax cuts that will crank up the wealthy into job spawning saviors of the american dream. Hmmmm. Sitting on plenty of available capital, but there's no demand for stuff. Maybe it's because the grifting bastards have rendered us collectively broke? Nahhh, jus the *right* tax cuts, that will get us there…
Yep, that steady "trickle down" was actually smaller and smaller paychecks for the working class. No argument makes me madder than the one that the filthy rich millionaires are building infrastructure and creating jobs. Far more of them are playing the market, feathering their nests, endowing their offspring with more swag and bling than you and I have ever dreamed of and hiding their wealth in offshore banks.
The invisible hand is giving us the finger.
Invisible (down)fist.
you'd think Twitter would be hiring.
Why hire anybody when everybody generates all your content for free? The whole thing is probably a couple of kids in the basement with Dell servers and a T1 line.
Between Santorum's number and these numbers I'm confused. Am I unemployed or do i have 1.5 jobs???
Based on all the downsizing, you probably have 4 jobs, what with taking one for the team and helping the company through this bad economy, no raises this year either. heh.
Seriously, I just heard a talking head on the radio say, that despite the fact that the stock market is going up and companies are awash with cash, the reason companies aren't hiring is because of the uncertainty of taxes going up and Obamacare.
And I ask again, you've had tax cuts for the last ten years, WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
But those tax cuts could end some day. If they use their cash reserves on normal payroll and have to maybe pay $3.25 in taxes in 2017, where would the golden parachute and executive bonus money come from?!? Tragic and disastrous stuff.
In China?
And yet, Kortney still has her job.
Kortney loves her job. And I love Kortney.
That job is recession proof. Always has been.
Dear GOP,
bring more MISSLE KRUSHER DONGLE
we're bored with your current line of bullshit, thanks
Excuse me while I go to the bathroom and show my toilet how Trickle down economics works.
This news is gonna get Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum more pumped up and high on their horses than Hans and Franz at a YMCA lock-in.
The reason we have this situation is because the President never signed a pledge to actually create more jobs. When one signs a pledge, the problem magically goes away.
Really? In that case, I pledge the Republican party.
One million upfists for you, good sir or madam.
If I get a couple of more part-time "jobs" it will add up to an actual job and then I'm sure we'll all be in clover.
The current estimate, based on present progress, is this will take 15-18 years.
Having been unemployed for a year and a half, I'd give my left nipple for ONE part-time job.
When the private sector and the public sector fail to create jobs, there's always the pubic sector.
Not after you sign the Family Leader Pledge.
Really? There's still a market for porn? Who knew?
I want Kortney's job w/ veggies.
You could actually make a fine career out of caring for David Vitter's diapers and diaper rash.
I'd rather be Lewis Black's ball washer. He said the job comes with a fabulous benefits pkg.
But who would you rather pay money to see in concert? Lewis Black or David Vitter?
Wonkette Jr.'s getting depression as hell; are we sure this one isn't really Ken in disguise?
This is like Christmas in July for the Repubicans. "Obama's high taxes are killing jobs." Which reminds me that back when it was Christmas in December the Repubicans got Bush's tax cuts extended. That worked out real well, didn't it?
I think we're seeing the first vibrations of the deficit default earthquake. Businesses and markets are uncertain if, when or how the debt ceiling will play out. Inflation, high borrowing costs, lack of consumer confidence, slowdown as spending decelerates — all those risks are on the horizon. I wouldn't hire right now either.
Maybe once we start seeing protests on American streets like Greece is having, companies are going to start wondering if holding on to all that money was a great idea?
This is too easy. Listen, Barry. You declare unemployment as "Personal Career Transition Services" and reclassify everyone as an independent contractor. Shazam! You just created eleventy-million jobs and made the unemployment rate 0.0%!
No, it's cool. You don't need to thank me or anything–this one's on me.
Will show my wiener for food.
Here's your jerb strategy in a nutshell. Legalize weed and prostitution, let the magic of the marketplace do its work. Happy days are here again!
This would make the Invisible Hand very happy! And, what's good for the Invisible Hand is good for U.S. America.
Ron Paul?
Is that you?
Ron Paul would never utter the phrase "happy days" in any context. In fact, right after he got through talking about weed and prostitution legalization he'd go off on some tangent about UFOs and the gold standard and building your own private highway.
Out of everything I've been reading….is there ANYONE who REALLY knows what the hell is going on????
This jerbs newz has the Retugs greasing their fundaments for a new, and louder round of jerbeling.
Jerbeling, for the uninitiated, is when you take some labor statistics, well any stats at all really, and use them for furious buttsechs. The result is immediate metafiscal rapture and you start raving that any and all gubberment infrastructure spending must stop and all taxes that rich people pay be cut. This will lead to jerbs for all real 'Muricans.
Jerbeling, what the Conservetards do best.
Unemployment goes up when you layoff public sector employees, what Republican would have guessed that?
A1: None of them Katie, because they're dumbasses.
A2: All of them Katie; it's a deliberate part of their fiendish plan.
Well.
That's it.
I am never posting my sexy sexy pic's on the net again.
EVER.
PS. I like my smiley face outfit.
*sings*
You can leave your hat on!
"Shot up"? You mean like a whole tenth-of-a-percent?
BTW, why isn't anyone in the media making note that the net job gain was so week because Republicans and/or their ideology was responsible for the gutting of tens-of-thousands of local and state government jobs, last month? The private sector job growth was still way weaker than it should be, but the 18,000 net jobs wouldn't have looked so bad were it not for the suicidal public sector job cuts we're becoming accustomed to expecting.
Sorry about the lack of snark, but I'm tired of Obama getting blamed because Stupid (Real) America has an economic death wish. But, if Obama wants to keep dicking around and not saying much about public sector cuts, then he should be blamed. In all actuality he should be pressing states not to cut. Hell, he should be pushing for a massive public works program. Fuck public teabagger sentiment. They are going to blame him, anyway. This is an emergency; just pull the trigger, already. If your re-election is meant to be, it'll happen.
The real problem was that President Obama said that with the Stimulus spending, we could keep unemployment around 7%.
He didn't plan on the financial sector being as bad as it really is, nor did he plan on companies refusing to hire people in retribution for voting for a Black man to be our President.
That whole idea of rounding up conservatives and locking them away in FEMA built concentration camps sounds better every day.
Either that, or setting their houses on fire and gunning them down in cold blood when they come out.
The private sector is undoubtedly weak, but believe it or not, a lot of folks are hiring, particularly in manufacturing. But, so long as we stick to this belief that public sector jobs aren't "real" jobs so it doesn't matter if we cut them, that's going to overshadow any jobs gained in the private sector. We need to stop indiscriminately sacrificing public workers to the deficit god.
My city just layed off dozens of firefighters and police for the first time in the history of the city, because some teabaggers narrowly defeated a slight millage increase for public safety. This shit has got to stop. These are real people, with real jobs, who spend real fucking money in the community.
BTW, the stimulus didn't work like it was supposed to because some ridiculous fucking amount of it was nothing but tax cuts and tax relief. An embarrassingly small amount of it actually got spent on infrastructure and other things that, you know, create jobs. Lest we forget, the stimulus actually included within in the biggest general tax cut in American history. It wasn't really much of a stimulus, at all. And, this was all because the president keeps folding to Republicans.
I wonder what would happen if a Country had divided Government and one half of it was furiously working to make its economy fail and the other half was preoccupied with lining up blowjobs and raking in campaign contributions? Oh, right.
In the spirit of bipartisanship, the repubs say no way, but likely the demos will give in anyway…
Comments on this entry are closed.