More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job
Apr 7, 2013 | Economic Collapse Blog | Michael Synder
The jobs recovery is a complete and total myth. The percentage of
the working age population in the United States that had a job in March
2013 was exactly the same as it was all the way back in March 2010. In
addition, as you will see below, there are now more than 101 million
working age Americans that do not have a job. But even though the
employment level in the United States has consistently remained very low
over the past three years, the Obama administration keeps telling us
that unemployment is actually going down. In fact, they tell us that
the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of 10.0% all the way down
to 7.6%. And they tell us that in March the unemployment rate fell by
0.1% even though only 88,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. But
it takes at least 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with
population growth. So how in the world are they coming up with these
numbers? Well, the reality is that the
entire decline
in the unemployment rate over the past three years can be accounted for
by the reduction in size of the labor force. In other words, the Obama
administration is getting unemployment to go down by pretending that
millions upon millions of unemployed Americans simply do not want jobs
anymore. We saw this once again in March. According to the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics,
more than 600,000
Americans dropped out of the labor market during that month alone.
That pushed the labor force participation rate down to 63.3%, which is
the lowest it has been in more than 30 years. So please don't believe
the hype. The sad truth is that there has been no jobs recovery
whatsoever.
If things were getting better, there would not be more than 101 million working age Americans without a job.
So exactly where does that statistic come from? Well, the following explains where I got that number...
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are
11,742,000 working age Americans that are officially unemployed.
In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are
89,967,000
working age Americans that are "not in the labor force". That is a new
all-time record, and that number increased by a whopping
663,000 during the month of March alone.
When you add 11,742,000 working age Americans that are officially
unemployed to the 89,967,000 working age Americans that are "not in the
labor force", you come up with a grand total of 101,709,000 working age
Americans that do not have a job.
When you stop and think about it, that is an absolutely staggering statistic.
And anyone that tells you that "a higher percentage of Americans are
working today" is telling you a complete and total lie. During the last
recession the percentage of working age Americans with a job fell
dramatically, and since then we have not seen that number bounce back at
all. In fact, this is the very first time in the post-World War II era
that we have not seen the employment-population ratio bounce back after
a recession. At this point, the employment-population ratio has been
under 60 percent for 49 months in a row...
Since the end of 2009, the employment-population ratio has been remarkably steady. Just check out these numbers...
March 2008: 62.7 percent
March 2009: 59.9 percent
March 2010: 58.5 percent
March 2011: 58.4 percent
March 2012: 58.5 percent
March 2013: 58.5 percent
We should be thankful that the percentage of working age Americans
with a job did not continue to decline, but we should also be quite
alarmed that it has not bounced back at all.
If there was going to be a recovery, there would have been one by
now. The next major economic downturn is rapidly approaching, and that
is going to push the employment-population ratio down even farther.
So why is the U.S. economy not producing as many jobs as it used to? Well, certainly
the overall decline of the economy has a lot to do with it. We are a nation that is
drowning in debt and that is getting poorer by the day.
But since the end of the last recession, corporate profits have bounced back in a big way and are now at
an all-time high. So you would figure that the big corporations should be able to hire a lot more workers by now.
Unfortunately, that is not the way things work anymore. Big
corporations are trying to minimize the number of expensive American
workers that they have on their payrolls as much as possible these days.
One way that they are doing this is through the use of technology.
Thanks to robots, computers and other forms of technology, big
corporations simply do not need as many human workers as they used to.
In future years, this trend is only going to accelerate. I wrote about
how this is changing the world of employment in one of my previous
articles entitled "
Rise Of The Droids: Will Robots Eventually Steal All Of Our Jobs?"
Another way that big corporations are replacing expensive American
workers is by shipping their jobs off to the other side of the globe.
Big corporations know that they can make bigger profits by making stuff
in foreign countries where they can pay workers less than a dollar an
hour with no benefits. How in the world are American workers supposed
to compete with that?
For much more on how U.S. jobs are being killed by offshoring, please see this article: "
55 Reasons Why You Should Buy Products That Are Made In America".
And of course
immigration
is having a dramatic impact on the labor market in some areas of the
country as well. Cheap labor has dramatically driven down wages in a
lot of professions. For example, once upon a time you could live a very
nice middle class lifestyle as a roofer. But now many roofers really
struggle to make a living.
When you add everything up, it paints a very bleak picture for the future of the American worker.
The cost of living keeps rising much faster than wages do, and the competition for good jobs has become incredibly fierce.
Meanwhile, the government continues to make things even easier for
those that are not working. This has caused some Americans to give up
completely and to be content with letting the government take care of
them. The following is from a recent article
by Monty Pelerin...
As we make it easier to get unemployment benefits for
longer time periods, more people take advantage of the system. So too
with food stamps and disability. All programs are at or near record
levels in what is supposed to be four years into an economic recovery.
For many, the benefits of becoming a government dependent exceed what
they can earn. One study reported that a family of four, collecting all
the benefits for which they were entitled, would have to earn $65,000
per annum to have the same after-tax purchasing power.
If you are a product of the government schools and are legal to work
(i.e., have skills enough that you are affordable at the minimum wage or
higher), at what point do you realize that there is no need to go
through the hassle of actual work. You can live pretty well by staying
home and taking advantage of the entitlements available to you. That is
exactly what a larger and larger percentage of the population are
realizing. In many cases, it is economically irrational to work.
This behavior creates a social pathology that only worsens over time.
Kids learn from their parents that work is not necessary and the many
ways to game the system. In this regard, look for this problem to become
worse over time unless these programs are cut back.
In some areas of the country, it actually pays not to work very hard. According to
Gary Alexander,
the Secretary of Public Welfare for the state of Pennsylvania, a
"single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327
in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with
net income and benefits of $57,045."
But the truth is that most Americans still want to work hard and
would gladly take a good job if they could just find one. The following
is one example that was featured in a recent
Fox News article...
After a full year of fruitless job hunting, Natasha Baebler just gave up.
She'd already abandoned hope of getting work in her field, working
with the disabled. But she couldn't land anything else, either — not
even a job interview at a telephone call center.
Until she feels confident enough to send out resumes again, she'll
get by on food stamps and disability checks from Social Security and
live with her parents in St. Louis.
"I'm not proud of it," says Baebler, who is in her mid-30s and is
blind. "The only way I'm able to sustain any semblance of
self-preservation is to rely on government programs that I have no
desire to be on."
And that is how most Americans feel.
Most Americans do not want to be
dependent on the government.
Most Americans want to work hard and take care of themselves.
Unfortunately, our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for everyone and it never will again.
So there will continue to be millions upon millions of Americans that
find that they cannot take care of themselves and their families
without government assistance no matter how hard they try.
And this is just the beginning - things are going to get
much worse during the next major wave of the economic collapse.
Yes, at the moment there are more than 101 million working age
Americans that do not have a job, but that number is actually going to
go much higher in the years ahead. The anger and frustration caused by a
lack of employment opportunities is going to shake this nation.
That is why it is important to try to become less dependent on your
own job. In this economic environment, a job can disappear at literally
any moment. Anything that you can do to become less dependent on the
system would be a good thing.
