Sunday, May 4, 2014

Latest economic statistics don't look good for Obama

Idealists don't care so much about statistics, as they only get in the way of their idealistic statistics.  If you throw statistics at idealists that show the economy is not doing good, they will generally say things like, "we just need to give it more time."

We hear Obama saying things like this all the time about his economic strategies, and we keep giving him more time, and we keep getting more statistics that don't show an improving economy. 

A realist, on the other hand, loves statistics.  If statistics show his policies aren't working, he changes course.  That said, the following are the latest statistics regarding Obamanomics and Obamacare.  
  1. The U.S. Labor force shrunk by over 800,000 people in April of 2014 (note that Obama was elected in 2008, so this is six years into his Presidency), according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics
  2. The labor force participation rate declined or decreased to 62% in April 2014, that was the lowest since 1978, when Jimmy Carter was President
  3. What that.  This is according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics
  4. This means is only 62% of Americans of working age have job as of April 2014
  5. The number of Americans not working, but eating and watching television, probably driving and making cell phone calls, 92,594,000 in April, 2014
  6. Despite these #s, the unemployment rate has plunged from 6.7 to 6.3%, but mainly because they simply stopped counting the number of people who have given up looking for work.  This is according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics
  7. In other words, a large percentage of the 92,594,000 Americans not working is not counted in the unemployment rate.  This actually works to Obama's benefit because it makes the numbers look better.  
  8. The unemployment rate also went down because 280,000 jobs were created in April, most in 2 years at a rate of 6.3%, according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics
  9. The number of women 16 and older not in the labor force climbed to a record high of 55,116,000 in April, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
  10. This means that there were 55,116,000 women 16 and older who were in the civilian nonsinstitutional population who not only did not have a job, they did not actively seek one in the last four weeks. That is up 428,000 from the 54,688,000 women who were not in the labor force in March.
  11. 23,052,388 of U.S. households now on food stamps, that's 20% of American households that are being fed by the government, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture
  12. Twenty-percent of American households have no one working.
  13. If the number of people no longer looking for work, and who are working age, are included, the unemployment rate is 12.6%.  This is referred to as the U-6 number
Of interest here is that the Obama administration claimed that 280,000 jobs were created in April, and this, along with the decline in unemployment to 6.3%, was even reported by news organizations like Fox News.  This misleads people into thinking the economy is improving.

Yet labor force data suggests that 800,000 people lost their jobs in April.  The data does not add up. If 800,000 people left the job market, and 280,000 new jobs were created, this should be a net negative not a net positive.

This shows how any administration can spin the numbers to make them look good. Regardless, by studying all these numbers, we can see that Obama's economic policies are not working, and this is not good for a President who's now into his sixth year in office. look good for the economic policies of a President in his 6th year in office.  

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