US economy adds 295,000 jobs in February

[evanovitch]

The US economy added 295,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate fell to 5.5% from 5.7%, according to Labor Department figures.
It was the 12th month running that the economy added more than 200,000 jobs, the longest such run since 1994.
The stronger-than-expected jobs figure led to a jump in the value of the dollar.
Markets are now speculating that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates in June this year.
Continue reading the main storyUS Dollar v Euro

LAST UPDATED AT 06 MAR 2015, 18:10 ET*CHART SHOWS LOCAL TIME

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The Labor Department figure showed there were job gains in a number of sectors including construction, health care, and transportation.
There were also job gains in food and drinks outlets, professional and business services, and warehousing. However, employment in mining was down over the month.
The figure for the number of jobs created in January was revised down from 257,000 to 239,000.
In February, average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose by 3 cents to $24.78, with earnings up by 2% over the year.
The labour force participation rate fell to 62.8% from 62.9%, as more people made themselves available for work.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31768388

[My Looh]

But I thought Obamacare is sucking the life out of the economy?

[lonewolf]

Hmm, why havn't they broken these job numbers down into sectors? It's because they don't want you to know that most of these jobs are low paying non benefit jobs.

Telling only a part of the story is as good as telling a lie. The above numbers deceive. Politicians deceive.

The truth is revealed below...and remember the truth will set you free.



Behind the US jobs report: Low wages and persistent mass unemployment
By Gabriel Black
7 March 2015
The US economy created 295,000 new jobs in February, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Friday. The percentage of the population officially unemployed shrank by 0.2 percentage points to 5.5 percent.

The report sent tremors throughout Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 1.5 percent. Investors fear that any slacking of the jobs crisis could lead the Federal Reserve to scale back on its policy of ultra-low interest rates that has formed the basis of financial speculation in recent years.

Media outlets have celebrated the jobs report as a sign of the US economy’s growing strength. However, some have been confused with the question, voiced by the New York Times, “So Why Aren’t Wages Rising More?”

Behind the headline figures of February’s report lie two underreported facts. First, the fall in the official unemployment rate is largely fictional. Second, new jobs are concentrated in lower-paying sectors, while the overall wages of workers throughout the economy are under sustained attack.

While February was the 60th straight month of job growth in the private sector, it was also the 11th straight month in a row that the labor participation rate—a more accurate measure of unemployment—remained below 63 percent. The figure fell 0.1 percentage points to 62.8 in February, the lowest level since 1978. The contrast between the extremely low labor participation rate and the ostensibly recovering official unemployment rate arises from the fact that millions of unaccounted laborers in the official statistics cannot find suitable work.

Indeed, more than two-thirds of the drop in the jobless rate was due to workers leaving the workforce, not workers finding jobs. In February the number of people reported as being unemployed shrank by 274,000. Of those, 178,000 left the work force and 96,000 gained jobs.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), there were 5,970,000 unemployed workers missing from the official statistics in this month’s job report. Were they to be added to the unemployment rate, it would stand at 9 percent. These missing workers “are people who would be either working or looking for work if job opportunities were significantly stronger.” The EPI notes that more than half of these missing workers are in their prime age of working, between the ages of 25 and 54.

There are several signs that the jobs market is entering a renewed downturn. The number of Americans who filed new claims for unemployment benefits rose sharply last week, by 7,000, to a seasonally adjusted 320,000.

Meanwhile, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the consultancy firm that tracks mass layoffs, reported yesterday that US employers announced 103,620 planned layoffs in the first two months of 2015, up nearly 20 percent from the same period last year.

As for wages, they remained stagnant for non-supervisory and production workers, the bulk of the workforce. Wages for all workers rose slightly, by $0.03.

One commentator on National Public Radio noted, “We’re adding most of our jobs at or slightly above minimum wage, and as long as that’s the case, you’re not going to get a whole lot of upward pressure on wages.”

A report released last April by the National Employment Law Project, “The Low-Wage Recovery,” found that unlike previous recessions and post-recession recoveries, the current “recovery” has been dominated by low-wage growth. The authors wrote, “We find that low-wage job creation was not simply a characteristic of the first phase of the recovery, but rather a pattern that has persisted for more than four years now. Deep into the recovery, job growth is still heavily concentrated in lower-wage industries.”

The largest industry to gain workers in February was in “food services and drinking places,” which saw 59,000 new jobs, or about a fifth of all gains. Professional and business services increased by 51,000 jobs, retail by 31,000, construction by 29,000 and health care by 24,000. Part-time workers stood unchanged at 6.6 million people.

The Obama administration’s “recovery,” characterized by high stock prices for the rich, stagnating or declining wages for the majority, and long-term unemployment, is not a policy accident. Starting with the bailout of the auto companies, which cut in half the wages for new hires, the administration has led the charge in “wage restructuring” and “downsizing” in order to make American workers more easily exploitable. Meanwhile, the bailout of the banks and Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program have ensured record profits and stock prices for the super-rich.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/07/econ-m07.html

[lonewolf]

February Bureau of Labor Statistics Report Excludes the Obvious: Not Enough Jobs
By Joe Guzzardi
CAPS Senior Writing Fellow. Guzzardi's Op-eds about California social issues have appeared in newspapers throughout California and elsewhere for 27 years.

March 6, 2015
Here are three things to keep in mind before getting too excited by the February Bureau of Labor Statistics’ predictably cheery jobs report. BLS announced that the economy added 295,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate declined to 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent.


February BLS report shows improvement in low-paying food service jobs.
First, review the Gallup Chief Executive Officer Jim Clifton’s exposé of the inherent deception in how BLS calculates the unemployment rate. Unemployed Americans who haven’t looked for a job in four weeks aren’t counted as unemployed, even though they could not possibly be more unemployed. Clifton, who said that the jobs market for adults is the worst that it’s been in 30 years, called BLS’s fraud “the big lie.” Subsequently, Clifton, joking that he didn’t want to “suddenly disappear,” softened his statement.
The Center for Immigration Studies found that for every job created since President Obama took office (9.3 million), two immigrants, legal and illegal, have come to the United States (18 million). Since, during that period, natural population growth plus immigration has fallen far short of job creation, the number of working Americans in the labor force age 16 to 65 has diminished from 77 percent in 2000 to 72 percent in 2014. Between two-thirds and three-fourths of the 18 million new immigrants arrived legally which means they are work authorized. More immigration – especially the sustained, high levels of immigration the U.S. has experienced for the last five decades – puts downward pressure on wages for those lucky enough to land a job.

Larry Summers, Clinton administration Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President from 2001-2006, indirectly identified one of the core problems in President Obama’s stalled executive action that would give 5 million unlawful immigrants work permits. Speaking to a panel about the future of work in America, Summers said: “There aren’t enough jobs, and if you help some people, you can help them get the jobs, but then someone else won’t get the jobs. And unless you’re doing things that are affecting the demand for jobs, you’re helping people win a race to get a finite number of jobs, and there are only so many of them.”

To be clear, Summers wasn’t talking about Obama’s executive action, but his insights apply. If Obama’s legalization/work permit plan helps illegal immigrants get scarce jobs, American citizens won’t get them.

Other takeaways from the February statistics: the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.8 percent from 62.9 percent, the employment-population ratio held steady from January at 59.3 percent with average hourly earnings up 3 cents to $24.78, paid out over an average 34.6-hour workweek. Low paying food service, construction and health care jobs accounted for much of the job growth.

http://www.capsweb.org/blog/february-bureau-labor-statistics-report-excludes-obvious-not-enough-jobs

[My Looh]

So is the fact that most jobs being created now are contract, part time, with no benefits are President Obama's fault. This is happening all around the world. Even in countries with conservative governments.

[RichD]

the expected parsing

i found this funny and timely...

Here Come the Employment Truthers

MARCH 7, 2015 6:47 AM March 7, 2015 6:47 am 68 Comments

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Ben Casselman reads an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and declares,

It is, without exaggeration, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. And I read Zero Hedge.

I’d say that he doesn’t get out enough — you can get much, much dumber. Still, the piece in question is a diatribe against seasonal adjustment, and is so amazingly ignorant that you might wonder how it got published in the Journal. You might wonder, that is, if you didn’t understand what’s happening: we’re witnessing the coming of the employment truthers.
When Obama and the Fed began their efforts to rescue the economy from the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, the right knew, just knew, what was going to happen. Inflation was going to soar thanks to money-printing and deficits; private employment would stagnate because of Obamacare, and also because Obama was hurting the feelings of job creators.
When inflation failed to take off, in came the inflation truthers, insisting that the official numbers were wrong and probably a deliberate fake.
Now, how’s that employment prediction doing? Witness the terrible effect of a socialist who trash-talks capitalism:

Photo
Credit

Hence the eagerness to publish any argument claiming that the numbers are somehow fake. Expect more dumbness.

[RichD]

...Larry Summers, Clinton administration Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President from 2001-2006, indirectly identified one of the core problems in President Obama’s stalled executive action that would give 5 million unlawful immigrants work permits. Speaking to a panel about the future of work in America, Summers said: “There aren’t enough jobs,

so I wonder are these 5 million illegal immigrants are there living on unemployment? whe dem doing to eat?

[Tuff Gong]

so I wonder are these 5 million illegal immigrants are there living on unemployment? whe dem doing to eat?

By Joe Guzzardi

To be clear, Summers wasn’t talking about Obama’s executive action, but his insights apply. If Obama’s legalization/work permit plan helps illegal immigrants get scarce jobs, American citizens won’t get them.

http://www.capsweb.org/blog/february...ot-enough-jobs

You asked the perfect question. Lying Joe admits that Larry Summers was not talking about Barry's EAoI but he went ahead and used it anyway to prove his non-arguments.
Most of the 11 Million Illegal Immigrants are already hunting and gathering for themselves.
Giving them status will likely allow them to expand their business, reduce costs in their current arrangements and with more change in their pockets allow them to spend more money on goods and services.

POTUS EAoI will actually prove Larry Summers right by providing more opportunities for those vying for scarce finite jobs to go after newly created jobs i an expanded economy.
As for falling and stagnant wages this is a pillar of the Republican/Conservative/Tea Bagger Movement. The idea that wages and taxes represent a costs that must be eliminated or at least driven down. Ask Scott Walker in Wisconsin who is about to sign a Right To Work Legislation engineered by the State Republicans.

[lonewolf]

So is the fact that most jobs being created now are contract, part time, with no benefits are President Obama's fault. This is happening all around the world. Even in countries with conservative governments.

The president takes credit for the economy when it's good, so why should he not get the blame when it's bad?

And, it's not so much of where blame should be placed, it's that they have the audacity to dress these numbers up as if they are of any significance to the American worker. It's nonsense, and once more we are bieng lied to and being told how well we are doing by this administration, when it is just not true.

[lonewolf]

so I wonder are these 5 million illegal immigrants are there living on unemployment? whe dem doing to eat?

LOL Rich, this is the USA, not Canada, welfare, how else? Once Juan knocks up Juanita they have a little anchor baby. The welfare checks start to roll in with an independance card for food...all paid for by the American taxpayer.

Cost of Illegal Immigrants - FactCheck.org

https://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/Cached

SimilarApr 6, 2009 ... Q: Do illegal immigrants cost $338.3 billion dollars a year? More than ... $11
Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year.

LA County to pay $650 million in welfare benefits to illegal immigrants
dailycaller.com/.../report-la-county-to-pay-650-million-in-welfare-benefits-to-illegal-immigrant-parents/Cached
SimilarSep 17, 2013 ... Los Angeles county officials believe that by the end of 2013 illegal immigrant
parents will have received $650 million in welfare benefits for their ...
L.A. County welfare to children of illegal immigrants grows - Los ...
articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/05/.../la-me-illegal-welfare-20100906Cached
SimilarSep 5, 2010 ... Welfare payments to children of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County
increased in July to $52 million, prompting renewed calls from one ...Welfare Tab for Children of Illegal Immigrants Estimated at $600M in ...

https://www.foxnews.com/.../welfare-tab-children-illegal-immigrants-estimated-m-la-county/Cached

SimilarJan 19, 2011 ... Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America's largest
county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official ...

[PDF] Costs of Illegal Immigration to Illinoisans - Federation for American ...

https://www.fairus.org/site/DocServer/Illinois_Cost_Study.pdfCached

Similarillegal alien population amount to an estimated $340 million a year. ... programs
used by the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, or welfare benefits for American ...
Retreating on illegal immigration - Chicago Tribune
articles.chicagotribune.com/.../sns-201402031900--tms--cthomastq--b-a20140204-20140204_1_5-percent-cis-hispanic-immigrantsCached
SimilarFeb 4, 2014 ... ... for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants who have overstayed ... As a
great many illegals are poor, their strain on the welfare, health ...

To be clear, Summers wasn’t talking about Obama’s executive action, but his insights apply. If Obama’s legalization/work permit plan helps illegal immigrants get scarce jobs, American citizens won’t get them.

It just boggles the mind as how you guys don't see that as relevant.

[RichD]

LOL Rich, this is the USA, not Canada, welfare, how else? Once Juan knocks up Juanita they have a little anchor baby. The welfare checks start to roll in with an independance card for food...all paid for by the American taxpayer.





It just boggles the mind as how you guys don't see that as relevant.

so why do they hang out at home depot hoping for work and why are they willing to come cut your lawn for a few dollars? or is that just the bridge til they can produce a little anchor baby?

[lonewolf]

so why do they hang out at home depot hoping for work

To make more money to add to their welfare. The men don't sign up for welfare, the women do, but the men benefit because they combine their money together with the women...Quite the scheme, ain't it?

and why are they willing to come cut your lawn for a few dollars?

So, you think just because I'm white, I can afford to have someone to cut my lawn? Are you stereo typing?

I cut my own lawn, I can't afford to pay someone to cut my lawn, and if I could it it would be an American citizen and not an illegal, or a Canadian.(just kidding on the last part)

or is that just the bridge til they can produce a little anchor baby?

Both...

[RichD]

To make more money to add to their welfare. The men don't sign up for welfare, the women do, but the men benefit because they combine their money together with the women...Quite the scheme, ain't it?

i thought one of the big arguments against welfare was that it discourage work since benefits were cut back if you worked? don't they check on who is living where and look at household income or is that only applicable to legal residents? or is that just TV misinformation?