Unemployment Rises Again

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported another rise in the unemployment rate, from 9.1% in May to 9.2% in June. The unemployment rate has now been above 9% for twenty-four of the last twenty-six months. Government economists had estimated that the private sector would add 120,000 jobs in June, instead only 18,000 were added.

There are now 982,000 discouraged workers in America. These are workers who have given up on the prospect of finding employment. Another 2.7 million Americans are unemployed, but have not actively searched for work in the last four weeks. Neither of these categories are included in the official unemployment rate.

6.3 million Americans have been looking for work for more than six months. This represents 44.4% of the unemployed — a new record. These are the Americans who are losing their homes to foreclosure due to the gross mismanagement of the economy by the federal government.

At the same time, average hourly wages also fell as did the average number of hours worked by each employed person. This means that even those Americans who do have jobs are earning less.

President Obama seems able to acknowledge the problem, while at the same time being unable to see how it is a result of decisions he has made. The President stated, “Our economy as a whole just isn’t producing nearly enough jobs for everybody who’s looking.” What he isn’t admitting is that unemployment has never been so high so long after the official end of a recession. At the same point after the last three recessions, unemployment averaged only 6.8%.

Due to Obama’s mismanagement of the economy, there is no sign of a recovery. Almost no new jobs have been created in the last year. BLS data showed approximately 139,882,000 Americans employed in June of last year and 140,129,000 Americans employed in June of this year. In one year, we have seen a net growth of only 247,000 jobs. The economy must add 125,000 to 150,000 jobs per month simply to keep up with population growth.

Here’s what some economists are saying about the June job report:

• “This is a big bucket of very cold water.” — Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics
• “We don’t have the orders, we don’t have the production [to create more jobs]” — John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo.
• “June’s employment report doesn’t have a single redeeming feature. It’s awful from start to finish.” — Paul Ashworth, economist at Capital Economics