Shock employment figures: Fewer than 46% of Americans have jobs

Shock employment figures: Fewer than 46% of Americans have jobs

www.rawstory.com

The percentage of Americans who have jobs has fallen to the lowest point in three decades and now hovers just above 45 percent of the total population, according to an analysis of labor data published by USA Today.

The report, based on figures provided by the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that at 36.7 percent, Mississippi had the lowest percentage of population working.

Employment rates were also low in California and Arizona, where just over 37 percent had jobs.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I think that these numbers are a little more descriptive of our economic climate than the controversial "unemployment numbers", though they aren't synonymous with each other. The "unemployment numbers" seem so dishonest in the way they are tallied and touted.

With that being said, I completely disagree with the Republicans attempts to move the retirement age up to 70 in an attempt to get some of the entitlement programs out of the red. I was actually a supporter of Rand Paul however I'm beginning to see that he is the same Republocrat statist as the majority of the Republican and Democratic parties. The solution is to scale back government, not increase labor while decreasing the standard of living. This number of employed is only going to get worse and what's more, a large percentage of the employed are probably under employed and working for inadequate pay. Still, they want you to work harder, sacrifice more and give them more money.

By moving the retirement age to 70, the government is counting on people dying before being eligible to receive the benefits they over-paid for. How about doing away with the entitlement programs all together and giving people their money back? We can afford such an endeavor by severing corporate welfare and rolling back our empire to bring our troops home for starters.

Regardless, this is just another example of government putting more of the burden on the people. Slimming the belt for us, while the government splurging remains the same. Hey, here is an idea, have the government cut back... not the people. After all, isn't the government supposed to benefit the people and not the other way around? Somewhere that notion has been lost and we are all servants to the state.


--airspoon


www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Mmmmm more free trade please.

reply to post by airspoon

How about doing away with the entitlement programs all together and giving people their money back?

Ummm, what money?
Sorry but I think we spent that on necessities like war and politicians pay packets..
Maybe you should retire at age 99 and we'll see if there's enough money to support you till you die..
Of course that's only if you don't require any medical aid because we had to ration that too..
Politicians and their family need top healthcare for any old illness more than you need a new heart..
Hope you understand...

Wow, that is shocking. These figures scream conspiracy to me. Why isn't this a huge deal you ask? Can you say cover up? It's TPTB again, and they are doing a damn fine job at driving the dollar south I must say. The numbers in California and Mississippi are just dumbfounding!! What is even more dumbfounding is just how controlled this information is; there is little light in the darkness in other words.

Now we need the percentage of people that hold non-governmental jobs. That would likely put us at 35% or so of the nation supporting everybody else. Gault's Gulch, here I come.

reply to post by backinblack


Look, I can save my own money, thank you. I don't need the government taking my money by force with some false promise that it is an investment in the future. If people didn't have social security deductions from their pay, then they could invest that money how they see fit- or simply save it. If someone didn't want to invest or save that money, then it would be their own fault later in life when they need it. Just because a few people are incapable of saving or investing money, force should not be initiated against the rest of us, especially when that money is practically being thrown away to begin with.

We are basically being forced to hand over money to the government, so that they can manage our finances for us and we all know how poorly the government manages finances. We are basically paying into entitlement programs that we will never be able to take advantage of. In private industry, this is called fraud.


--airspoon

America needs jobs and lots of them, the government should just get out of the way. A free market will create jobs, bureaucrats won’t and they haven't, they have actually made less jobs.

The percentage of Americans who have jobs has fallen to the lowest point in three decades and now hovers just above 45 percent of the total population

This measure is meaningless because you cant really take any real conclusion from a relation between employment and total population. It must be between employment and active population (generally considered as people aged between 24 and 65 years old). That said, this decline can be explained by things other than there being less jobs (which im not denying. Bad journalism just pisses me off), like a baby boom (children dont work of course) or, more likely, an aging population (people aged 65+ have greatly increased, while younger people has diminished).

Note: Im not American, but as someone who works with this type of statistic data, I dont like to see it badly used.

reply to post by airspoon


Mate I hear you..
Here in Australia we are FORCED to pay 9% of our wages into superannuation.
Most accounts LOST over 30% during the GFC..

Why can't we put that money into our homes which is most peoples biggest single investment ??

Instead many here in Australia lost their homes when their FORCED savings could have prevented that..

reply to post by Rockdisjoint


America doesn't have a free market, though the "free-market" buzz word is often falsely used. Instead, the government often shows extreme favoritism in industry through regulation and legislation. The government will never step aside and allow a free and decentralized market to take shape, as the corrupt elite would no longer be able to keep their fingers in the till and their hands on the control strings. With a free-market, it is the consumer and hard-worker who wins and I'm affraid that doesn't look too enticing to TPTB. After all, free markets are an extreme danger to the status quo.


--airspoon

reply to post by Picao84


Good points but you ignore the millions of illegal immigrants..
Mind you, the statistics probably ignore them also.

reply to post by airspoon


airspoon I enjoyed reading both your posts, they are articulate and communicate well. You used a term I am not familiar with: "Republocrat statist". If you have a moment, would you reply with a definition of this term? I thank you in advance.

Geez, that's just ridiculous. How the heck is unemployment at 55%? Are these numbers including children and the elderly/disabled?

Edit: Yeah, it appears that they're talking about the entire population, not just those eligible to work as the unemployment statistics look at.

My parents died at ages 65 & 66. They had a lot of social security money taken out over their lives.
I am an only child, and when they died, I maybe got $250 for funeral costs from SS, but the gov't kept ALL of my parents' social security money and I got nothing.
If I was mentally retarded though, I would have gotten my father's SS probably for life. I still would be retarded, but I'd be getting that extra income.

They are setting us all up to die off before retirement age, so they can keep that money they've already spent! It's a scam, they are criminals, and if you think life expectancy ages are going to be 90-100 in the near future, guess again fools! By the time you guys figure out what they are doing, it will be too late, because you'll be dead or dying.

reply to post by airspoon


Yes, I know. That was my point.

Originally posted by Rockdisjoint
America needs jobs and lots of them, the government should just get out of the way. A free market will create jobs, bureaucrats won’t and they haven't, they have actually made less jobs.

Great, except free market sends all our jobs overseas..........with corporate welfare rampant, and "we have to do what is best for the stock holders above and beyond everything else..hope you understand...don't care if you don't" mentality, free market is just as corrupt and broken.........they (government and free market) are both still evil masters.......

"If you talk to young people in America - they've already accepted this," Paul said Wednesday.

Wow, Mr. Paul, you mean you are applauding that a group of people finally are believing the

propaganda
1. Information, esp. of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
2. The dissemination of such information as a political strategy.

that the GOP has put out there in earnest for a few years.

"I think raising the retirement age going out 20 years so you're not affecting anyone close to retirement, and eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken." from John Boehner 2010.

If the GOP hadn't spread this piece of propaganda, would those "young people" have "accepted" it? Were thoughts put in their head, not for discussion, but for acceptance? Scary.

Well we did it to ourselves with NAFTA... we just dont make anything in this country anymore
Whirlpool, GE, Briggs & Stratton are but a few who've moved down to Mexico and taken the jobs with them...

No real surprise in those numbers when you think about it

no surprise here as i have observed since 2006 the jobless claims estimated about 300,000 to 500,000. recently we have amazing temporary jump in jobs with Mcdonalds-50,000 and 172,000.

So if you do the math it does not add up, but you know never ever have true and acurate accounting as the american dream cannot be painted in less than an above average setting for the whole world to see. As what kind of picture would that paint to developing countries when every nation needs to be just like us and we are trying to save these nation-states from themselves. Thus, a nation of democracy is the only way to enlightenment even if you have to lie about it