PBS says obama economy better than when he took office

False.

Month - Total jobs - Change
Nov 2008 135.471M -765,000
Dec 2008 134.774M -697,000
Jan 2009 133.976M -798,000
Feb 2009 133.275M -701,000
Mar 2009 132.449M -826,000
Apr 2009 131.765M -684,000

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

Job losses stayed in the 700-800,000 per month range from November 2008 through April 2009, and the worst month for loss of jobs was March 2009. In June we started seen significant drops in job losses and by Jan 2010 we were gaining them back.

9.8 million additional private sector jobs, with 54 straight months of private sector job growth, to be more precise.

 

The irony is that most of the cherry picked data in the OP measures just as poorly for Bush and even Reagan. The economy is said to be worse because the debt is higher and labor force participation is lower. The same was true during the Bush presidency, notwithstanding the fact that he inherited a surplus. And for that matter, Reagan, despite inheriting a debt that was at a post war proportionate low; almost tripled the debt during his tenure.

It's easier to be a conservative when you have double standards.

 

LPR doesn't take into account demographics. It only looks at the number of people working versus the available labor pool. Age is irrelevant in that calculation outside of the fact that you have to be at least 16, but there is no upper age limit. They determine who is in the labor pool by who actively sought jobs. In normal circumstances an aging population would affect the LPR but since more older American's are working or seeking employment than before that wipes out that variable.

Even if you separate it out by age the number of young unemployed is at historical highs as well so that alone shoots down the lame theory that its just an aging population.

Using SS payments as a measure is not a good yardstick as you can still claim SS and work part time. In fact many seniors are putting off retirement for a variety of reasons from the obvious financial ones to simply not wantint to be idle. Most of the retired people I know hold part time job or spend a lot of time volunteering.

http://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boomers-work-longer-delay-retirement-2014-1

 

Yes many conservatives have double standars when it concerns debt since they did go along with Bush spending increase. The LPR was going down under Bush but it was going down significantly slower than under Obama where it has taken a nose dive.

 

As would be expected in a recession and with the baby boomers hitting retirement age.

Why, in your opinion, is the LFPR such a big deal?

 

The very fact that you can't adjust the LPR for demographics, even though demographics have a great effect on the LPR, is why the LPR is such a lousy economic indicator and why it was never used for any other president. But when you have nothing you will grasp at anything.

Even though there are more older people still working past retirement age, up from 15% 10 years ago to 18% now, there are so many Boomers that even with more working longer they are also retiring in record numbers.

Young people are unemployed at higher numbers, but their total entering the workforce is decreasing which combined with the increasing number of older people working longer is exactly why the labor force is aging.

 

You can factor variable into the LPR as I said normally an aging population would detract from the number but more and more people that usually retire are not retiring and continue to work which offsets the shift in age population.

Long-term unemployment became such a large problem that the BLS had to actually change how they calculate it form a max of 2 years to a max of 5 years.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-12-28-1Ajobless28_ST_N.htm

Now this is in 2010 and we are not as bad as back then but manipulation of numbers even for good reasons makes it difficult to compare today's numbers with the past. In 2020 how are they going to be able to compare long term unemployed with 1980 when one has a limit of 2 years and the other has 5 years? I actually don't disagree with the change but there is going to be a lot of fudging of numbers and if there is one thing I have learned in my statistics class is that there are many ways to fudge numbers namely changing your confidence z values or picking mean over median etc or how you deteremine outliers.

With the LPR it is a very straight forward calculation and isn't as easy to manipulate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/05/america-youth-unemployment_n_3219671.html

In 2000, the United States had the lowest non-employment rate for 25- to 34-year-olds among countries with large, wealthy economies. By 2011, America had one of the highest youth non-employment rates compared to its peers, according to a New York Times op-ed by David Leonhardt, the paper’s Washington bureau chief.

Keep in mind that the US is competing with countries that have even lower birth replacement rates than we do so all things being the same we have an advantage in that area still.

The fact is that this White House has been catostrophic in their dealing. They past legislation that cost hundreds of thousands per new job created. It would literally have been cheaper to just pay the salaries of new workers hired by companies. Instead the stimulus bill was a pork laden filled piece of crap. Just as the ACA was a blatant give away to insurance companies.

 

I tend to agree. I would say the growth has been real slow and that slowness, some or a lot of it may have been cause by Obama's policies. I am not sure if the number of jobs created has kept pace with the number of new folks going into the job market. But I do think the economy is better than when the president first took office. How much, that can be debated.

 

It doesn't change the status of the person and so it doesn't change whether they are considered employed or unemployed or in the labor force. It just changes the data field so they could capture data on how long long term unemployed have been out of work.

The change involves the form used for the bureau's Current Population Survey, based on interviews with thousands of the unemployed. Currently, no matter how much longer than two years someone has been out of work, the form allows interviewers to check off only "99 weeks or over." Starting next month, jobless stints of "260 weeks and over" can be selected on the response form.

It doesn't fudge anything.

Why is it any different? The LFPR depends on a categorization of whether someone is in the labor force, or not, which depends on whether they are actively looking for a job. What would that by any less difficult to "manipulate"?

That is not a "fact" at all. It is regurgitated RW propaganda.

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Which of Obama's policies do you contend have been the cause of the slowness, and why?

 

The only thing you could manipulate with the LPR is to change the amount of time "between looking for jobs" which would be so blatantly obvious that anyone would catch it. Other than that it is a very simple ratio with a clearly defined nominator and denominator.

Take a statistics class and be amazed at how easy it is to manipulate data. Its scary to the point that I don't trust ANY statistics until I see the p values the n factor.

The fact that the government and all the big insurance companies lined up in support of the ACA would be red flags for normal people. If the government sponsored a bill and big oil was behind it you would be screaming bloody murder. But big insurance which your side has constantly complained about for years gets behind a piece of legislation and I hear virtually nothing from the left about it because your guy is behind it. You are being extremely selective in your outrage and willfully ignoring a huge giveaway to insurance companies. For crying out loud the ACA was written to cover the losses of any insurance companies...........how is that not corporate welfare.

More proof that it isn't an aging population. This is a breakdown by age. In general you see an increase in the ratio of nonemployed people increasing from 2007 to 2010 EXCEPT in the 65 and older group where it actually DECREASED. Meaning that more people over the age of 65 actually became employed.

http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2011/0211/01labmar.cfm

 

Manipulating the status of whether someone is deemed to be looking for employment would be no more difficult than the classification of whether they are employed or not.

I've taken a few.

Not sure what your rant has to do with anything I said, but I'm all for a single payor system and was from the get go.

 

Why in your opinion is the LFPR so important?

 

I just said why like three times now. When it comes to measuring outcomes the simplest is sometimes the best. You can adjust for population changes etc. with the LFPR and as I just showed you can break it down by age to show exactly where the slowdown is coming from. From that data it is not coming from the old farts because that is the one group that actually decreased in nonemployment.

When people talk about unemployment rates you get into arguments about which numbers to use. Do you use the U1, U2 numbers or the U5 numbers like some do? There are valid arguments for using both but most people just stick with which ever one makes their argument look good. There is no separate category for LPR like with the U rates. You can break down the overall category into age groups and what not but either people are woking or they are not which makes it very hard to fudge.

 

So what? What makes it so important? I can point out that the population number is a number that is hard to fudge. That doesn't make it particularly important for employment issues.

People stick to U3 because that has been the standard for many decades.

 

Have you paid attention to the forums? People that use the 6.7 or whatever it is now number are using U2 or U3 but people using the 10% unemployed are clearly using the U5 numbers. If people can't agree to consensus on that issue then its is pretty pointless.

How can you say that the LPR is not important. If 40% of the working population was employed versus 60% of the population that would be a huge difference. The bulk of the nonemployed people have come from people in the working age group under 30. The one group that saw and actual increase in LPR was the 65 and older farts. Check out the graphs for women and for white men.

From the article

"In summary, the lowest U.S. labor participation rate since the mid-1980s is being driven by lower participation across all demographic groups, and especially by those under 29. The biggest exception is older men, whose labor force participation rate has actually increased since the beginning of the recession."

 

We've had a consensus using U3 for many decades.

The only ones who try to pretend U5 or U6 is the unemployment numbers are usually fringe right or RW propaganda seeking to deceive people.

That is assuming that people who left the work force would otherwise be unemployed.

But so what if the LFPR is declining?

 

If you are 29 and no longer in the workforce it isn't by choice. 99% of 29 year olds and younger do not have enough to retire on. Even if they decide to go to college virtually every college student I know has a job of some kind. If they are not part of the workforce then it is because they cannot find a job.

Just look at the employment numbers. You have to add 250,000 jobs every month just to keep up with population growth. At point in the last few years can I recall them ever even matching that in a month. Usually its 120, or 140k which is well under the minimum necessary.

 

It isn't?

What is the evidence of that? How many inherit a bunch of money? How many are going to school? How many are married and staying home?

No, if they are not part of the workforce it is because they are not looking for a job.

If they are looking for a job, they are part of the labor force. It's part of the easy calculation that's difficult to fudge you've been arguing.

I think your number is *way* off. 250,000 a month would be 3 million a year, or 24 million over 8 years. By that measure, even Clinton, with the best job creation record by far at 23 million additional jobs and saw the UR drop from 7.8% to 3.8%, didn't even keep up with population growth.

Shoot, it would be hard to fathom how far in the negative that would put Bush, who ended up with a net creation of about a million jobs (and all those were additional government jobs and then some).

 

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You can be in college and still be in the workforce. They are not mutually exclusive.

Regarding marrying and staying home that is actually one of the issues. More women are opting out of getting a job if they are married than previously which most people that want women to participate in the workforce would think is a bad idea.

You are the one suggesting that people are leaving by choice the onus is on you to prove it. I am simply showing the statistics and debunking hyperbole from histerical Obama supporters who grow more and more desparate with each passing day. People in the 2000s just didn't decide all of a sudden that they don't need a job.

There is no fudging the data anymore. Even liberals acknowledge that Obama has been a failure and his ratings continue to plummet. Even Bush is looking good compared to Obama now and that is saying a lot right there. The LPR drop is faster than even demographic projections predicted as well.

 

Agree, but then you can be in college and not in the workforce, because you don't have a jobs and aren't looking for one.

That is a debatable issue. Some think women should stay home for their kids.

If people are leaving the workforce not by choice it is because they are "discouraged workers." That is, people who say they want a job, have looked for a job in the past 12 months, but are not currently looking for one because they don't believe they will find one.

The number of discouraged workers shot up to about 6 million during the recession in 2009, but has stayed at about that level since then.

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm

In other words, the growth of people not in the labor force since 2009 is not because there has been a big increase in discouraged workers.

I'm sure the recession had some effect on it. Here's an article discussion some of the trends: http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/136...or-Force-Participation-Rate-Has-Been-Dropping

o Economy that was tanking at a -9% rate and shedding 700,000+ jobs a month turned around
o 54 straight months of private sector employment growth.
o 115% increase in the stock markets since taking office
o Halved the deficit in 4 years.
o Got Osama bin Laden.
o Saved 2-3 million jobs with stimulus package
o First decrease in spending in a year in decades - 3 times.
o Stock markets up 160% since bottom of the recession in 2009
o Over 9.7 million additional private sector jobs created since Jan 2010
o Oil production increasing for the first time in decades.
o Ousted Muamar Kadaffi at 1/1000 the cost of the Iraq war
o Deficit reduced by a then record $212 billion, down 16%, in 2012.
o Deficit reduced by a new record $408 billion, down 37%, in 2013
o Record corporate profits
o Passed health care reform that will provide coverage to tens of millions of Americans
o 4 straight years of GDP growth
o Unemployment rate dropped from 10% to 6.1%
o U.S. becomes world's top petroleum and energy producer
o Passed financial regulation reform to prevent another housing bubble fiasco.
o Diplomatically coerced Syria to give up WMD without war or loss of single American life.
o Recovered all jobs lost in the worst recession in 80 years
o Lowest rate of spending increases of any president in modern history
o On-budget deficit has decreased every full fiscal year he's been in office.
o US domestic oil use decreasing
o Net creation of millions of people employed despite inheriting a economy losing 700,000+ jobs a month.

If Obama had been a white Republican, conservatives would be hailing him as savior.

Obama gets tagged because of the Great Recession and Austerity, neither of which are his doing. I'll be happy to stack Bush up against Obama anytime.

 

I responded to that cut and paste weeks ago. Its nice to see that you removed some of the multiple mentions though. Now if you can remove the ones that Obama had nothing to do with like oil production since that happened on private land and not federal land where oil production actually dropped in part because of that idiotic moratorium. Ooops. I take it back you are still padding the list with double mentions.

I see you are trying to pull over a semantics game. Discouraged workers are only workers that have looked for the past 12 months. Beyond 12 months they are not considered discouraged anymore. The group has grown substantially are the ones past 12 months.

 

And I see you are still baselessly claiming Obama is a failure.

Reagan did nothing either but conservatives credit him for things like bringing down inflation and revitalizing the economy.

You want to say that Presidents are overrated in what they actually accomplish? Fine. But then don't use a double standard.

That's a fair point. But if someone hasn't looked even once for a job for an entire year, you have to ask whether they really want one and therefore should be in the labor force.

 

That number is grossly out of date. Now it is only around 85,000 per month.

 

That number was never in date. It was never even close to that number. I'm sure it was from some fabrication on an RW propaganda cite that RBJ picked it up from.

 

Just googled it and you are correct. 80,000 is the low estimate from a Chicago paper but other sources say around 140,000. Either way all the sites agree that current job growth is tepid at best and still too low to get us back to a normal rate of unemployment anytime soon. My info was from Freddie Mac but appears to be an outlier and thus not reliable. Thank you for the info.

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It came from Freddie Mac. Is that now considered Right Wing propaganda? You have a habit of opening up your yap and spouting clueless nonsense quite a bit.

http://www.housingwire.com/articles/12749-recovery-mandates-250000-new-jobs-month-freddie-mac

"The U.S. economy needs to add more than 250,000 jobs each month for a sustained recovery. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac"

You mean like you copy/paste list that is full of bull(*)(*)(*)(*). And you most recent attempt at using "discouraged workers" which you know damn well aren't in the same category as long term unemployed. At least I admit when my info is wrong you still haven't admitted to any of your bull(*)(*)(*)(*) yet and in fact you keep doubling down on it.