Where is the US economy headed?

Taken from boston.com.

The revisions for the prior two months added 139,000 jobs to payroll growth, and come after the government in October said the economy gained 810,000 more jobs than previously estimated in the year ended in March. Increased job growth will fuel wage gains, keeping consumers spending and providing a lift for an economy that faltered last quarter, economists said.

Workers' average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent after increasing 0.2 percent the previous month.

"The Fed is going to say this is an economy that has legs to it," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, N.C.

The revisions added jobs in finance, education, healthcare, and leisure and hospitality.

Manufacturers shed 39,000 jobs last month, the biggest drop since July 2003, after cutting 12,000 jobs in September

Builders shed 26,000 jobs, the most since February 2003, after adding 5,000 jobs in the prior month.

This is from government reports; I have difficulty understanding and reconciling how our economy grew jobs when manufacturers shed 39,000 jobs, and builders shed 26,000 jobs. You can't add jobs in health care and education when there's a shortage of teachers and nurses. Many schools are using unlicensed teachers, and many hospitals are paying premium for nurses, because they can't find any.

Try this. You can then plug in the years and adjust the chart as you wish for your liking.

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/charter.exe/fedstl/unrate

I agree manufacturing jobs, such as the auto industry is suffering. It would not matter whether the president or Congress were Democrat or Republican. This trend has been occurring for a long time. I think it is due to our inflated wages and lifestyle here compared to other countries. Its about competition, and the people in China for example are happy to work for lower wages and a lower standard of living to produce the same products that we have traditionally produced. I don't think this can be fixed without eliminating the minimum wage law along with lots of other benefits provided by businesses, and reprogramming our citizens to live on less.

Jobs are evolving into the service industry, and I agree I do not like this trend for the long term, as I think it spells problems in my view. I think we need more creation of wealth lower down in the economic tree, and I believe this is best done in manufacturing and other basic industries. I am not an economist, but a healthy tree has a healthy root system. But as I said, I think this trend is inevitable, given the world economic system we are participating in, unless some fairly drastic earthshaking cultural changes are made.

It is my personal opinion that this country is at its pinnacle, and could continue the pinnacle for a while, I am not sure, but we could soon be outdone by the Chinas, the Indias, and perhaps other countries if we do not do a better job of education and staying at the forefront of technological advancement. But again, given the context of the system we have going for us during the current culture and generation, the economy is doing fairly well. The problems you speak of, and which I have discussed, are generational and cultural, and do not change overnight.

The 810,000 more jobs that our government bandies about for the year ended March is only 67,500 new jobs per month; far short of the 150,000 jobs needed in the US. How can they reconcile their 4.4 percent jobless rate? It's a miracle!

I haven't spent the time adding the numbers as you have attempted, but I think there is a good chance you are missing something in your figuring. I don't think the government could lie that much about the rate. Also, I am guessing the bureaus that compile these numbers are mostly Democratic leaning bureaucrats, and would like to see numbers to be negative, so I doubt very seriously the government would lie in Bush's favor.

One of the factors you may be ignoring is the many jobs that do not show up in their job creation statistics, but do have an effect on unemployment if the people are employed and therefore not applying for unemployment.

okie, Good point about competiveness; I agree. However, the US has up to now been very competitive in many fields, especially high tech and biotech where the future ecoomy will grow.

There's nothing wrong with my numbers. Here's a sampling of the 2004-2005 academic year college graduates:
Associate degree......668,000
Bachelor dgree......1,416,000
Masters degree........562,000
Professoinal...............85,000
doctors.....................47,200
.......total ................2,778,200

If we divide this number by 12(months) to average it, the number shows our country must create 231,517 jobs every month. If our country is growing new jobs at less than 70,000 jobs every month, the unemployment rate should show a greater number than 4.4 percent. Don't forget, the above college graduates don't include all those high school graduates also looking for "new" jobs.

Another issue that exacerbates job creation is the simple fact that more Americans are keeping their jobs past their retirement age. As our country's population grows, more young people will be finishing school, and begin looking for jobs. The low job creation rate for the US will continue to grow. I just hate to see our government get away with half-truths just before the elections. I've been retired from work since 1998, and have no desire to seek a "job." I'm just angry that our government is doing so little for the American People while spending billions in Iraq.

cicerone, why don't you go to work for the bureau of labor and statistics because if you can crunch all the numbers on your calculator in a few minutes, we are wasting an awful lot of money on thousands of employees to come up with these numbers?

okie, They crunched the numbers; I just "borrowed" them.

Well, thats fine, but the point you need to look at is that the unemployment figure is likely more accurate than the job creation numbers. I have not researched it recently, but I recall hearing that many jobs simply are not accurately reported for various and sundry reasons.

That is precisely what I did. I compared the growth of people employed in the main part of their working lives with the population growth of the same age. And found that the working population was not keeping up with population growth.



That "age window" is the main part of their working life! As for skewed results, the statistic YOU present gives the most skewed result possible-if you haven't found a job in six months you no longer count as unemployed. That's ridiculous.

Yes, it has. Which is why that statistic is very misleading, and always has been. That is why I didn't use it.

That's funny, that didn't happen under Bill Clinton. Instead, the opposite happened. For instance, from March through July of of 1996-four months-over 1.2 million jobs were added. Over 300,000 jobs a month. Yet, the unemployment rate did not change at all. All the economists were astounded. Why? Because all the people who had been laid off years ago under Bush I were now coming back to take all the new jobs that were available under Clinton. Sure there were plenty of new jobs-but the unemployment rate didn't change because many of the new jobs were being taken by people who had not counted on the unemployment rate statistics for years. Which is why I don't use the unemployment rate statistics.


On the contrary, we use the most simple, direct figures possible to arrive at a clear picture. YOU can quote statistics where people who are unemployed for over six months no longer count as unemployed if you wish. Just don't try to fool anyone into thinking it presents the real picture.

Your claim that some new jobs aren't being reported is the same tactic our government seems to be using, but that's also a no brainer. All employers must report all employees for income tax purposes. If you have found a way to not report new employees, I'm sure many businesses would love to hear about it. What's your next straw?

If we have over two miilion new college grads every year, and our country reports only 70,000 jobs every month, it's impossible to have a 4.4 unemployment rate. Are you that dense?

Just noticing no Bush opponents are posting bad economic news here, probably because there is little to report. The economy keeps humming along, and Bush's tax cuts produce higher tax revenues and lower deficits, as things improve following the effects of 911. Maybe if Bill had gotten OBL when he had the chance, we would not have had to suffer the setback and the war we are in now? Wonder why the 911 Commission didn't discuss that subject a bit more in their conclusions?

No doubt when Hillary starts running harder, she will again probably claim, as Bill did, that the economy is the worst since the Great Depression. The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer mantra again. Maybe she can borrow Edward's Two Americas speech that he repeated hundreds of times?

okie, You're either very wealthy or very dumb; take your pick.

There are more than 6 million more Americans without health insurance since Bush took over the white house.

The savings rate in our country is the worst since the depression.

Wages have not kept up with inflation, and most families are now earning less based on the loss from inflation vs wage increases.

Consumer debt is double now compared to when Bush took over the white house.

Our country lost over three million factory jobs during Bush's tenure. Those were mostly middle-class families.

Bush makes the claim that during his tenure 2.6 million new jobs were created. That averages out to 36,111 jobs per month. Our country needs between 150,000 to 200,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with those graduating from high school and college. If you believe that our unemployment rate that the government puts out is true, you don't understand anything about the job market or our economy.
Bush continues to claim that his tax cuts (for the rich) will create jobs. Where are they?

Most jobs today do not provide 401Ks or fully paid health insurance benefits. Most workers now pay a portion of their health insurance benefits; that was not true before Bush took over the white house.

Most jobs today start at lower pay, and pay increases are fewer than before Bush took over the white house.

cicerone, I would wager that for every family in America that was low income and / or in debt with no savings, if you gave them or some of us 50 grand at the beginning of the year for doing absolutely nothing, at least half of us would have it spent in 6 months.

Much of what you mention is a problem of personal responsibility. Here we sit in the most prosperous country in the history of the world, houses are getting bigger, we are getting fatter, people are beating the door down to get here, and you can do no better than paint the dire picture you did. Furthermore, if the president was a Democrat right now, you would be singing a different tune.

Here ya go Okie.

Bombardier could build airplanes in Mexico[/u]

Ask and ye shall receive, Okie.

I'm going to post a link to this article, because there are about ten graphs which I'm not going to go to the effort to repost here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/13/75459/5050

Okay, here's a couple to tease ya:

US Interest payments on debt are the highest ever:


Household Debt Service payments are the highest percentage ever:


Savings rate is lowest since the Depression:


You say that



But that just isn't true. Our economy has been sustained by the massive levels of debt that we have accrued over the last 6 years, not by any great amount of prosperity on our part.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, Thank you for those graphs. It contradicts everything okie tells us about our "great' economy.

From what I read, the economy, for the past 4 years, has done exceptionally well but only for the top 1/3 of the population while the bottom 2/3 has seen flat or often negative growth.

dys, As I've said, okie is probably very rich or a damn fool. There's no way he can refute the facts from Cyclo's graphs/link. He's living in la-la land where neocons have become deaf, blind, and dumb to the realities of our country's economy. I guess he's not in that group of over six million that lost their health insurance during the past six years of Bush's tenure.