04 Apr 2014 About Those March Jobs Numbers…

Is 6.6 percent the best Obama is going to be able to do when it comes to job creation?

This morning, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics posted that the official unemployment rate for March was unchanged at 6.7 percent.  The alternative U-6 rate that covers the total number of unemployed along with the underemployed and despondent jobseekers only “marginally attached to the labor force” was a unsettlingly high and rising 12.7 percent.

This far into the President’s tenure, with his policies in high gear and the Bush era far in the rearview mirror, it’s all Obama’s fault now.

The writing was on the wall earlier in the week when the U.S. Department of Labor announced that claims for unemployment jumped by 16,000 in March to a seasonally adjusted number of 326,000 — 9,000 more than economists had anticipated.

What about the unemployment rate among the key Obama constituencies?  Once again, minority unemployment rates far outpaced white counterparts.

The Hispanic unemployment rate in March was down slightly to a still-high 7.9 percent.  The overall black jobless rate rose to a shocking 12.4 percent.  Among black teenagers, however, the out-of-work segment was a staggeringly unacceptable 36.1 percent (a 3.7 percent rise in just one month).

Such a high rate for black teens, an almost certain impediment for years to come as they lose out on the prospect of entry-level employment and training at a formative age, has been a largely unrecognized issue (outside of these monthly blog postings from Project 21 and among black conservative economists such as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams.  The Media Research Center, in fact, logged network interest in the black employment crisis when the job numbers are announced to just ten seconds over the past year — and that was confined to two times on one network.

Yet the President gets coverage for his childish name-calling of the budget plan to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) as a “stinkburger” and “meanwich.”

Once again, Derryck Green, a member of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network, is naturally not cheered by any of the new unemployment numbers, nor is he excited about the size, shape and strength of the Obama recovery.

In his monthly “About Those Jobs Numbers…” commentary on the state of the recovery, Derryck notes that a lot of the ineptitude is really an expected by-product of the progressive policy agenda:

As another month passes with the economy and job creation stagnant, Americans are continuing to see the obviously intended economic realities of central planning and progressive ideals.

The progressive desire to remake society, however, is diametrically opposed to what’s actually needed for our nation to recuperate its lost jobs, wages and capital — not to mention the faith and optimism that has been lost by the American people during what’s supposed to be Obama’s economic recovery.

Looking at the newly-released job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate is unchanged since last month at 6.7 percent.

For blacks. there’s a 12.4 percent overall jobless rate.  For black teens, the rate is 36.1 percent.  Also, 2.2 million Americans remain on the margins of the labor force, of which the participation rate is 63.2 percent.

Only 192,000 non-farm jobs were added to the American economy last month.  It doesn’t begin to approach what’s needed to maintain the average pace of job replacement.

It’s been said before, but one particular observation bears repeating.  Despite how the unemployment rate is doctored to appear (Census employees are accused of faking job numbers prior to the 2012 presidential election), and no matter how the Obama Administration spins the news, the nation continues its descent into the murkiness of economic apathy and stifled productivity.

Regarding doctored data, not only are there the allegations of unemployment data being intentionally manipulated to favor Obama — if one can call anything related to the economy in the Obama years as favorable — but it appears that Consumer Price Index (CPI) data may have also been falsified by some of the same people who are accused of cooking the jobs numbers.

The CPI measures the variation of prices for goods and services to determine the development and effect of inflation.  It’s responsible for setting increases of military pay and retiree benefits.  Falsifying CPI data affects those whose income is dependent on government edict.

Adding to this, the Obama Administration has demonstrated a willingness to lie to the nation regarding his health care promises and the severity of the unemployment situation. That President Obama would lie about inflation levels, while cheating service members out of earned pay and the elderly out of benefits, is no surprise at all.

But there is good news of sorts — at least if you are a supporter of leftist politics.  Now that ObamaCare allegedly has over seven million Americans enrolled, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says “we [can] now pivot to jobs.”

Now?  Now?!

That ObamaCare was the focus as the nation suffered through double-digit unemployment, and that ObamaCare remained the focus as more and more Americans left the workforce, confirms just how serious progressive-minded, utopian partisans seem to be when it comes to the economy.

Consider this.  Aside from jobless claims that increased this week, there are also these formidable factors:

• Radio Shack, Staples, Sony, Office Depot, Sears Holding (which owns Sears and Kmart), J.C. Penney and Disney — among many other companies — all announced plans to either close stores and or layoff employees in March;
• Two million fewer people were in the workforce this past month than at the same time last year;
• According to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, government data has indicated that almost 17 million Americans wanted, but were unable to find, full-time work in 2013;
• The housing market remains weak;
• The Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen said that, even though the Fed decided to taper its bond-buying bailout to $55 billion per month (over $4 trillion total), it will continue for “some time” to tinker with the economy to combat sustained levels of unemployment.

These are real, tangible indicators that the economy hasn’t recovered.  In addition, almost 45 percent of Americans feel they are no longer part of the middle class.  Worse still, 40 percent now self-identify with being lower-middle or lower class, economically.

All this would certainly appear to be bad news for an economy urgently in need of resuscitation, but it’s a significantly worse situation for those who are poor, who lack basic job skills and who have a checkered work history.  It’s remarkably bad when the lack of available jobs intensifies the competition to find work… any work.  This glaring realization — though evidenced generally among the American people — characterizes the black economic and employment situation, specifically.

As previously mentioned, the unemployment rate for blacks and black teens is 12.4 percent and 36.1 percent, respectively.  If not for a few voices — including Project 21 — many Americans would be clueless to the economic struggle and anxiety felt by many black Americans.

According to a new report from the Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute ABC, NBC and CBS gave a mere TEN SECONDS — combined — over the last year into reporting the exceedingly bleak black economic plight and severe black unemployment.  Of the 145 jobs-related stories during the past year, the black unemployment rate was mentioned.  Twice.

Obama, ABC, NBC and CBS have apparently continually ignored the fact that, since January of 2009, the President’s first month in office, the black unemployment rate has been below 12 percent once.  It’s been at or above 14 percent only 39 times, at or above 15 percent on 29 times and at or above 16 percent on eleven times.  They have also continually ignored black teenage unemployment, which during the same period, has been below 35 percent only four times.

Yet Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the enemy.  At least he submitted a budget this week that has a chance of getting at least some consideration.

This is inexcusable, but it is also not surprising.

And nothing will likely change at this rate.

Expect the Obama Administration and his supporters to deliver practiced, sympathetic talking points about putting America back to work.  Pronouncements will be made in solemn and determined tones, attached to concerned faces, as they attempt to further fleece the American public.

What’s worse is that, after all the destructive evidence resulting from the policies this administration advocates, that fleecing may prove convincing.  Again.