Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
And once again, you are acting like I said something, which I never even came close to saying. I have never come close to saying "do nothing". Why do you do this so frequently?
So, what should we do? Well, at the moment, unemployment is very low, and black unemployment and Hispanic unemployment are at all time lows, I think. What got us here? A Republican president, many years of a Republican congress, and tax cuts.
So I say, let's stick with what worked.
If Hilary had won, and the liberals ran Congress, and their massive tax hikes resulted in this low unemployment, I would be honest enough to admit that it worked. I'm willing to bet everything I own, that you and Spence will never do the same.
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But what have the Republican President and Congress done for Hartford or Bridgeport? After many years something should have happened.
Is the low unemployment real, lets not forget trumps opinion on that prior to the election. How has the data collection or compilation changed since he was elected?
Remember, the unemployment rate comes from a separate survey than the one used to count jobs created. The former is based on a monthly survey of 60,000 households by the Census Bureau. The latter by a survey of about 149,000 businesses and government agencies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to the Census household survey, the biggest contribution to the drop in the unemployment rate wasn't people getting jobs — that survey registered a gain of just 3,000 in April. It's due mainly to the fact that 410,000 dropped out of the labor force — and no longer count as unemployed.
If you compare today's numbers to December 2000, the picture is even more striking.
The labor force participation rate in Dec. 2000 was 67%. Today it is just 62.8%.
The employment-to-population ratio then was 64.4%. Now it's 60.3%.
The population not in the labor force — they don't have jobs and aren't looking — has climbed a stunning 25.3 million over those years.
Think about it this way. If the labor force participation rate were the same today as it was in December 2000, the unemployment rate wouldn't be 3.9%. It would be 10%!
Yes, many who've left the labor force over the past 18 years are baby boomers entering retirement. But that doesn't come close to explaining the massive increase in labor dropouts.
For example, the labor force participation rate among 20- to 24-year-olds was 78% in December 2000. It's just 71% today. For those 25-34 years old, the rate declined from 85% to 83%.
In contrast, among those 55 and older, the participation rate increased — going from 33% in December 2000 to 40% now.
Clearly, there are still millions of potential workers sitting on the sidelines.
As to black and hispanic unemployment, I thought a rising tide lifts all ships. Both those rates still have the same relationship to white unemployment that they did before trump, double. Nothing surprising or wonderful there.