Ted, just for you. Remember the discussion we had about unemployment a while back? I recently dug this up from Google:
bls.gov
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 108,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.
Why am I bringing this up now? Well, all this talk about employers hiring illegals made me look up the most recent unemployment figures. So now we're at 4.9%? And that's even with the whole illegal immigration problem?
Maybe while we're cracking down on illegal immigration, we should also raise the limits on legal immigration. Too bad the majority of Americans still think unemployment is high and that we've got no room here for anyone else.
Last month, the unemployment rate dropped below 5% for the first time since 2001. And the drop was not due to employment growth but rather people giving up and leaving the workforce. Employment growth has barely kept up with labor force expansion.......that's why we have seen little change in the unemployment rate for so long. Of course, it could be worse......we could be generating so few new jobs that the unemployment rate might be actually growing, and not simply static.
Having said that, during the Clinton years, the unemployment rate at its lowest point was somewhere around 3.8%. So that kind of deflates the Bush argument that the lackluster job growth is some how a reflection of the recovery having started at a higher base. If true, then the recovery's job growth should have been sufficient enough to get us back down to 3.8% in a NY minute instead of being stuck around 5% for over 4 years. It seems to me that if the benefits to be derived by giving tax cuts to the rich/the ruling class were as great as trumpeted by the Bush administration, we should be able to achieve an unemployment rate at least as good as what occurred under Clinton when the wealthy/the ruling class did not get any tax breaks. But then, that's me.
The truth is the unemployment rate ain't going down to 3.8% under this president. Like on so many other issues, they are short on this one as well.
ted |
