The United States economy added only 142,000 jobs in August, compared with an average monthly gain of 212,000 over the prior 12 months, dropping 33%. It was the smallest gain since January. The small amount of jobs added occurred in professional and business services and in health care.
Should we be concerned that the percentage of Americans that are either working or looking for work is the lowest that it has been in 36 years? In August, an all-time record high 92,269,000 Americans 16 years of age and older did not “participate in the labor force”. And when you throw in the people that are considered to be “in the labor force” but are not currently employed, that pushes the total of working age Americans that do not have jobs to well over 100 million.
After years of ignoring the obvious, the Federal Reserve has been finally forced to admit that the labor force participation rate matters, and in fact has started to point it out as a clear negative when it comes to Yellen’s “dashboard” of thresholds which will allow the Fed to raise rates (for the obvious reason that the Fed is desperate to delay ZIRP as long as possible and is now highlighting all that is wrong with the economy, contrary to Obama who is still focusing on all the rigged greatness of the US recovery) and to do so is going through Zero Hedge archives to note all those things which everyone had ignored for years and which we have pointed out as structural failures of the so-called recovery. So while we are happy to oblige the Fed with our tens of thousands of articles summarizing what is broken with the US economy thanks to, well, the Fed, here is another one: one which the Fed can use next year when the time to hike rates has come and gone, and when the Fed is once again scratching its head what to blame it on.
A record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The labor force participation rate has been as low as 62.
People have such short memories. Even though we are repeating so many of the same patterns that we witnessed in 2000-2001 and 2007-2008, most people do not think that another financial crash is coming. In fact, with the stock market setting record high after record high lately, I have been taking quite a bit of criticism for my relentless warnings about the coming financial storm.
The Total Number of Americans Not in the Labor Force is over 92 million~ about 1/3 of the population. The latest official government statistics put the unemployment rate in the U.S.
A deeply disturbing survey reveals how severe the retirement crisis in the U.S. truly is.
Large numbers of people believe that an economic crash is coming next year based on a seven year cycle of economic crashes that goes all the way back to the Great Depression. What I am about to share with you is very controversial. Some of you will love it, and some of you will think that it is utter rubbish.
For the first time in the nation’s history, foreign interests now own more than $6 trillion in U.S. government debt, according to the most recent Treasury Department report on major foreign holders of the debt, which includes the numbers through the end of June.
There was a time when going to college made sense in every feasible way. It made sense professionally, economically, and many college graduates have a wonderful time in the process of completing their degrees. Most would argue that learning is vital in growing and moving forward.
There was much celebration regarding the jump in July housing starts and permits, which literally blew away Wall Street expectations, being the highest since November 2013. So is this the housing recovery everyone’s been waiting for? Sadly, no, because one glance at the internal numbers reveal that virtually all of the surge higher was due to a big jump in multi-family starts.
Is silver really a good investment for barter? Should you invest in silver or gold for a safety net in case the economy gets worse? I’m going to go over the pluses and minuses of each and tell you what I think.
The financial industry — indeed, most of the business world — works within a state of almost perpetual cybersiege at a level few consumers grasp. And the costs and dangers are growing for those who seek to protect their assets and their customers. “The constant barrage of attacks is real,” says J.
The sudden military escalation in Ukraine in recent days has, according to JPMorgan’s Alex Kantarovich, reduced the earlier hopes that the high level meeting in Minsk on 26 August would help to defuse the conflict. As Kantarovich warns, the markets are now bracing for the US/EU responses. In the worst case scenario, now appearing more likely, severe pressure on stocks may extend.
Employers have been creating jobs at a good clip this year, but Americans are too exhausted and discouraged by the pain of the recession and slow recovery to see much cause for optimism. That’s the conclusion of a new report surveying the economic sentiment of workers, released Thursday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
It’s bad enough that you don’t make any interest holding your money in a checking or savings account at the bank. But at least it’s safe, right? Not so much, as Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer announced this month that instead of banks receiving bail-out money (from taxpayers) when they experience financial problems, they have now planned for a bail-in (by depositors and investors).