Tag Archives: Unemployment

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Does 5.7% GDP growth help to alleviate the 17% effective unemployment rate?

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Consider this article from Bloomberg News. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, who anticipated the financial crisis, called the fourth quarter surge in U.S. economic growth “very dismal and poor” because it relied on temporary factors.

Roubini said more than half of the 5.7 percent expansion reported yesterday by the government was related to a replenishing of inventories and that consumption depended on monetary and fiscal stimulus. As these forces ebb, growth will slow to just 1.5 percent in the second half of 2010, he said.

Investors Business Daily explains:

So let’s deconstruct that 5.7% a bit. For one thing, most of the gain — nearly two-thirds, in fact — was a result of an end to the panicked inventory liquidation that took place at U.S. firms last year. Remove that, and a different picture emerges — a 2.2% rise in GDP.

Most economists agree that GDP growth of 3% or so is needed to boost employment. That may in part explain why GDP could grow 2.2% in the third quarter and 5.7% in the fourth quarter, while businesses slashed 735,000 jobs over the same six months.

More meaningful is year-over-year growth. By that measure, we barely grew — real GDP rose just 0.1% in the fourth quarter from last year, virtually flat. Worse, real nonresidential fixed investment — a proxy for business investment in future output — plunged 14.6% from last year. That’s a shocking vote of “no confidence” in Obamanomics by America’s entrepreneurs and businesses.

We wish that was all, but it isn’t. According to the Labor Department, wages and benefits rose in 2009 by just 1.5%, the smallest rise in history. Meanwhile, weekly earnings for nonmanagement workers fell 1.6% last year, the worst since the 1991 recession.

These subpar numbers only underscore the weakness of our job market. In just two years, we’ve destroyed almost 8 million jobs and watched as the unemployment rate surged to 10%.

One quarter of growth isn’t going to change anything – we still have 10% unemployment, which is actually 17% when you consider the people who are no longer actively looking for work. Obamanomics wrecked the economy, starting in late 2006 when the Democrats got control of the House.

News

Unemployment rate among men aged 25-54 is 19.4%

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Check out this post over at Dinocrat. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

According to an analysis done by TIME Magazine’s Justin Fox, almost 20% of 25-54 year old men are unemployed today, a receord since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track of the data just after World War II. An unemployment rate of 20% among men in their prime is shocking. Absent the substantial government transfer payments today and the large labor force participation by women, the 20% male unemployment figure would be regarded as a national emergency.

Rome is burning. And yet Congress and the administration fiddle with crooked healthcare deals, tomfoolery such as AGW, perverse nonsense like cap and trade, imaginary “green” jobs, the treating of enemy combatants as mere crooks, etc. — and their policies towards hostile powers are even more ill-informed and provocatively weak. It’s hard to imagine a government more out of step with the people.

Here’s the graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the decline since 1948. (H/T Time Magazine)

This is actually important to me, and something I am thinking a lot about. I have come to realize that marriage is really an incubator for passing on values to children that are often different from those of the state. Scholars like Stephen Baskerville and Jennifer Roback Morse have argued that the family is a buffer against the power and influence of the state. This is especially true for Christian men and women whose values are definitely not those of the secular leftist state. But where do families come from? How do they start?

In order to have a family, a man marries a woman who agrees with his worldview and values, and then they have children. It’s the man’s role to lead the family by protecting and providing for his wife and children. But that man needs a job so that he can have confidence that he can fulfill those responsibilities. The earning of money is what gives a man the respect and authority in the home so that he can lead his wife and children. Any challenge to the man’s role as protector and provider diminishes his authority to lead.

Already, I am concerned about how the massive tax burden placed on working men causes them to have their authority whittled down, since the state confiscates much of a man’s money and then provides services that he really should be providing himself. Often the services provided (abortion, etc.) are not compatible with Christianity at all! But this new statistic about 19.4% of men in their prime being unemployed is even worse, because now men are earning no money at all! How can they start a family with no income?

There really isn’t much thought going on today about the problem of how to get men to marry and stay married. Instead, people are more focused on dealing with a variety of of grievances from victim groups. I’ve blogged before about the problems that men are having in the schools today, largely due to the application of feminist theory to education. No one seems to be concerned about whether men are doing well in school, and whether they are being raised in families with actual fathers, instead being raised by government subsidies.

I think that young people really need to stop and think about what they want out of life. There seems to be a tendency today among young people to think that relationships are about fun, and that it isn’t necessary to be careful about your choice of mate because the government will always be there to take care of you if you get into trouble, (e.g. – unplanned pregnancy, abusive spouse, etc.). This must stop. We need to stop looking at the government as a substitute for making solid, long-term choices about sex and marriage.

At some point we are going to have to ask ourselves whether we are ready to abandon the family entirely and just substitute sperm donations and government checks for men. If the state is the source of money in a child-producing unit, then the state is the one who calls the tune about what the children will believe. And make no mistake – academics on the secular left are salivating at the thought of pushing their values onto the next generation of children. That is why they are hostile to voucher programs and private schools.

Related stories

Some stories from last year about just a few the problems men are facing.

There are actually many other problems that men are facing that I could have brought up, but my focus today is on education and jobs. These are serious problems and they have serious consequences.

News

Unemployment for young Americans surges to record high of 52 percent

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Here’s a story from the New York Post. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

“The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent — a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. — meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time.”

“The number represents the flip-side to the Labor Dept.’s report that the employment rate of 16-to-24 year olds has eroded to 46.6 percent — the lowest ratio of working young Americans in that age group, including all but those in the military, since WWII.”

And they’ll have to pay for the trillions that Obama is adding to our national debt, too.

Remember, young people really liked Obama during the election:

I’m thinking that those young people should be more careful about considering a politician’s voting record instead of listening to their government-funded public school teachers. It seems to be that government-run public schools will always indoctrinate children to vote for bigger government, and that means higher unemployment in the private sector, especially for entry-level job-seekers. Maybe the young people didn’t think that far ahead, but then they should be more cautious about forming opinions without asking their parents for input.

You may also be interested in a wonderful video linked here that shows several prominent Democrats assuring us that the stimulus bill was needed to create millions of jobs and keep unemployment below 8%. They don’t understand economics – they’re Democrats. The know less about economics than my keyboard. If young people want to learn about economics, then they need to read Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. Those are the two greatest living economists, and they teach economics so that regular people like me can understand.