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The Unemployment Rate Drops From 8.2% To 8.1%, Helping To Obscure The Jobless Recovery

by on Friday, May 4, 2012 at 12:18 pm EDT in Economy, Politics

The Labor Department released its employment numbers today, and in keeping with the recent trend, the results appear positive, down slightly from the previous month’s results.

With a net gain of 115,000 jobs, the unemployment rate dropped from 8.2% to 8.1%.

But behind those numbers lurks a far gloomier picture. That 115,000 net gain is due, in part, to the government no longer counting as “unemployed” 103,000 people who became reclassified as “discouraged,” and yet remain unable to find work. Because in America, if there are no employment opportunities, and your plight goes on for too long, the government is permitted to ignore you completely (so that they can clean up their economic numbers for political purposes).

This helps to give Americans the impression that the economy is slowly, but surely, chugging along. 

As reported in the New York Times:

The unemployment rate ticked down to 8.1 percent in April, from 8.2 percent, but that was not because more unemployed workers found jobs; it was because workers dropped out of the labor force.

The share of working-age Americans who are in the labor force, meaning they are either working or actively looking for a job, is now at its lowest level since 1981 — when far fewer women were doing paid work. The share of men taking part in the labor force fell to 70 percent, the lowest number since the Labor Department began collecting these data in 1948.

And yet, despite these five long years of economic misery, austerity measures continue unabated, as 15,000 government employees were laid off in April.

The Redistribution of Wealth In America Continues …

by on Monday, November 9, 2009 at 3:41 pm EDT in Politics

The fleecing of the American Taxpayer continues unabated (as reported by Bloomberg):

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment bank, survivors of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, are set to pay record bonuses this year.

The firms — the three biggest banks to exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) — will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses, according to analysts’ estimates. That’s up 60 percent from last year and more than the previous high of $26.8 billion in 2007. The money, split among 119,000 employees, equals $250,400 each, almost five times the $50,303 median household income in the U.S. last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country continues to suffer from the highest unemployment rate since 1983.

UPDATE:

Ed Schultz rips Congressman Barney Frank a new one tonight for his dereliction of duty on Wall Street Reform.   Frank tries to deflect the inexcusable $30 billion in bonuses (mentioned above) by stressing that he’ll be able to tax them on this income:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_jjB8myhHE[/youtube]