for unemployment<\/a>.\u00a0 So there must more jobs, right?\u00a0 Yes, the article says: \u201cThe job market has also improved over the past six months. Net job gains have averaged of 208,000 a month from November through April. That’s up from only 138,000 a month in the previous six months.\u201d No wonder I keep seeing so many Help Wanted signs.<\/p>\nBut then the writer follows up with this:\u00a0 \u201cStill, much of the job growth has come from fewer layoffs\u2014not increased hiring.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Screeech.\u00a0 Hold on, what\u2019s that?\u00a0 How can Growth come from Layoffs instead of Hiring?\u00a0 You didn\u2019t get laid off, so that\u2019s the same as being hired?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Turns out employers are still laying off people and aren\u2019t hiring full time because of Obamacare and tax increases, but they are hiring part-time workers who don\u2019t get Obamacare.\u00a0 Those McJobs are the heros of this story.\u00a0 People taking McJobs don\u2019t apply for unemployment.\u00a0 That\u2019s your hopeful sign?<\/p>\n
And the article doesn\u2019t even mention discouraged workers.\u00a0 Instead it says: \u201cApplications are a proxy for layoffs. Weekly applications have fallen about 9 percent since November and are now at a level consistent with a healthy economy.\u201d\u00a0 Okay, I can buy that applications are a proxy for layoffs.\u00a0 When you get laid off, you go apply for unemployment.\u00a0 Makes sense.\u00a0 And I can believe there aren\u2019t many layoffs coming anymore, most of the fat was wrung out of the system years ago.\u00a0 So yes, very few layoffs after five years of lean is the same rate as very few layoffs when times are booming.\u00a0 All that adds up to \u201cwe\u2019re bottoming out\u201d not \u201cprosperity is right around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then, this howler:\u00a0 \u201cWages rose 3.6 percent in April.\u00a0 That\u2019s comfortably ahead of the 1.5% inflation rate.\u201d\u00a0 My wages sure as Hell didn\u2019t go up, but my grocery bill did and gas is back up to $3.77 today.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m actually impressed the Associated Press has managed to stuff so many ridiculous claims into one article and pass it off as good news.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joe doakes\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The U6 number – counting the percentage of unemployed and<\/i> underemployed – is up, even as the number of unemployed dropped a bit. The average amount of time worked in a week dropped. That means the job creation is all part-time. <\/p>\n
This isn’t a recovery. This is blood clotting and an infection forming. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Fewer people are applying\u00a0for unemployment.\u00a0 So there must more jobs, right?\u00a0 Yes, the article says: \u201cThe job market has also improved over the past six months. Net job gains have averaged of 208,000 a month from November through April. That’s up from only 138,000 a month in the previous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-the-great-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36280,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36279\/revisions\/36280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}