The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the United States gained 288,000 jobs in June, and Barack Obama couldn’t have been happier.
“Make no mistake,” he gloated. “We are headed in the right direction.”
What a crock! A closer look at the numbers proves that instead of the economy getting better, it is a disaster for people who lack a job and want one.
First, about those so-called job gains: It turns out the economy actually lost 523,000 full-time jobs last month. That’s an absolute tragedy! The only way the Obama Administration could claim any gains was because of an increase of 811,000 part-time jobs. And this is the “victory” that Obama wants to celebrate?
There are two reasons why employers are offering more than three times as many part-time jobs today as full-time ones. The first is because of Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act mandates that anyone working 30 hours a week or more must be provided with company-paid-for health insurance. More and more employers are hiring part-time workers to keep from falling under that legislation’s dictates.
The second reason for a decline in full-time jobs is nerves. Or maybe I should say a total lack of confidence that the Obama Administration will adopt policies that will help this economy get growing again. Of course, taxes are too high; but Obama wants to make them even higher. Of course, regulations are too onerous; yet the Obama Administration keeps adding more and more.
Under the circumstances, if you were the CEO of a company, would you tell your shareholders that this is the time to invest, expand and take on more risk? I very much doubt it.
Faced with all of this, how is that, then, that the unemployment numbers continue to decline? Let’s assume for a moment that they’re not being fudged (which many of us are convinced they are) and that unemployment, at least the way the government calculates it, did decline to 6.1 percent last month. Is this any reason to cheer?
Not on your life! The fact of the matter is that the number declined because 2.4 million Americans have become so discouraged they’ve stopped even bothering to look for a job. They’re no longer counted as part of the workforce.
Heck, the way the unemployment numbers are calculated, the best thing that could happen in this country would be for every unemployed person to stop looking for a job. If that were to happen, the unemployment rate would be zero. Just imagine how excited Obama would be to trumpet that news!
The grim reality is that the proportion of adult Americans in the workforce has fallen to 62.8 percent. That’s the lowest it’s been in the past 36 years. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 91 million Americans over the age of 16 don’t hold any sort of job today, full time or part time. That’s the highest that number has ever been. It means there are nearly 10 million fewer jobs in America today than there were when Obama first became President.
What we’re seeing is the weakest post-recession recovery in the nation’s history. The employment numbers won’t get much better until one more person joins the unemployment line — and that’s the guy presently occupying the White House.
Until next time, keep some powder dry.
Chip Wood was the first news editor of The Review of the News and also wrote for American Opinion, our two predecessor publications. He is now the geopolitical editor of Personal Liberty Digest, where his column appears regularly. This article first appeared in PersonalLiberty.com and has been reprinted with permission.
