(un)Employment Report

In a regular monthly exercise in statistical flim-flam, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the jobless numbers for October 2011.

The meaningless unemployment rate in the headlines: 9% , down a whopping 0.1%. The real unemployment rate: 16.2% (includes people who no longer get unemployment benefits, need work but have stopped looking because it’s futile, or have only found part-time work). Learn more here.

There was a net gain of 80,000 jobs in the past month, not all of them at McDonald’s (some were at Wendy’s). At that rate, all of America’s 13.9 million unemployed should be working by about 2030.

Related:

“Most unemployed Americans are no longer receiving unemployment benefits,” Christopher S. Rugaber, AP via New York Daily News

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Occupy Appropriate Technology. And Yachts.

Occupy Wall Street protesters in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park had their gasoline-power generators confiscated by the NYFD as potential fire hazards. How to power life’s basic necessities, computers and cell phones? Bicycle-powered generators.

Further south, 300 Florida protesters marched on the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The chief oppostiton to the good-natured and well-tanned marchers was a torrential downpour.

Related: Appropedia.org Appropriate Technology Portal

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Occupy Cottage Cheese

Hundreds of thousands of middle class Israelis began protesting a huge jump in dairy prices this summer, resulting in the largest demonstrations the country has ever seen. These soon became protests about widening economic inequalities in the small nation.

The protests are getting results. The Israeli cabinet has just approved a new tax plan reducing taxes on low-income wage earners and raising them for the rich and for corporations. Other new policies include cuts to the defense budget.

Citibank CEO to Protesters: ‘Call Me, Dudes!’

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said he would be happy to talk with Occupy Wall Street protesters, calling their motives “completely understandable.” “Trust has been broken between financial institutions and the citizens of the U.S., and that is Wall Street’s job, to reach out to Main Street and rebuild that trust,” said the chief of the third largest U.S. bank. He made the remarks as he mingled with plain working folks at a breakfast organized by Fortune magazine. If you can’t make it to Mr. Pandit’s executive suite, Gawker obligingly provides his mobile phone number (646-512-4269) and suggests a few questions. Can’t get through? Try Mr. Pandit’s office phone (212-793-1201) or email him (vikram.pandit@citi.com).

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(un)Employment Report: No New Jobs

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the jobless numbers for August 2011.

The official unemployment rate, the one in the headlines, is 9.1%. The real unemployment rate: 16.2% (includes people who no longer get unemployment benefits, need work but have stopped looking because it’s futile, or have only found part-time work). The official rate hasn’t changed from last month, the real rate has grown by a tenth of a percent. Learn more here.

45,000 jobs were temporarily lost in the Verizon strike, and those workers are back on the payroll this month, but the 17,000 government jobs eliminated last month are permanently gone. While 62,000 private sector jobs were added in August, this is no comfort to America’s 14 million unemployed.  More that 6 million of them have been out of work for over six months.

(un)Employment News

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the jobless numbers for June 2011.  Observers expected 100,000 new jobs; only 18,000 were created. 25,000 state and local government workers were laid off.  6.3 million Americans have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer.

The official unemployment rate, the one in the headlines, is 9.2%. The real unemployment rate: 16.2% (includes people who no longer get unemployment benefits, need work but have stopped looking because it’s futile, or have only found part-time work). Learn more here.

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Employment Report: Only 7 Million More New Jobs Needed

“At the rate of last month’s dismal job creation, it will take more than 15 years for America to replace the 7 million jobs that vanished in this Great Recession. The awful new job numbers — just 38,000 in May when economists say the country needs at least 244,000 new jobs per month if the United States is to ever climb out of its hole — are the latest sign America is beginning a new brutal phase of the endless crisis.”

– “Nation Needs To Replace 6,955,000 Pre-Recession Jobs; 38,000 Created Last Month,” Ken Layne, Wonkette

The Republican geniuses responsible for the global crash have an answer: pull even more money out of America’s economy.

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(un)Employment News

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the jobless numbers for April 2011. This is a regular monthly exercise in statistical flim-flam, and the BLS knows it.

The meaningless unemployment rate in the headlines: 9% (up from 8.9%). The real unemployment rate: 16.6% (includes people who no longer get unemployment benefits, need work but have stopped looking because it’s futile, or have only found part-time work). Learn more here.

There was a net gain of 200,000 jobs in the past month, not all of them at McDonald’s (some were at Wendy’s). At that rate, all of America’s 13 million unemployed should be working by about 2016.

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(un)Employment News

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the jobless numbers for Febuary 2011. This is a regular monthly exercise in statistical flim-flam, and the BLS knows it.

The meaningless unemployment rate in the headlines: 8.9%. The real unemployment rate: 15.9% (includes people who no longer get unemployment benefits, need work but have stopped looking because it’s futile, or have only found part-time work). Learn more here.

 Mike Konczal explains the bottom line: “Unemployment Is Dropping as Workers Keep Dropping Out.”

 

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GOP Claims EPA Costs Jobs

Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R, TN-7) has performed a remarkable scientific feat, eliminating the polluting and climatic effects of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. She did so at a single stroke by introducing H.R. 97, the “Free Industry Act.”

The act would deny the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to enforce control of those harmful substances by declaring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence to be erroneous. The Republican justification for H.R. 97 is the claim that EPA regulation of the aforesaid substances would be “job-killing.” As Dean Baker puts it, “Republicans call … policies ‘Job Killers’ because the media might ask for evidence if they called them ‘Baby Killers.’”