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Ear to the Ground

Jobless Rate Drops as People Give Up Looking

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Posted on Jan 7, 2011
unemployment office
Flickr / clementine gallot

Bad news on the U.S. job front: While the country’s unemployment rate took its biggest drop since April 1998, the decrease was due not so much to a recovering economy, but to the fact that 260,000 people have given up looking for work.

A problem with existing job figures is that those who are employed part-time, and those who have given up looking for work, are not counted in the overall unemployment figure. For a more appropriate gauge of unemployment, try the “underemployment” measure. —JCL

The BBC:

The US unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% in December from 9.8% in November, the biggest one-month drop since April 1998, official figures show.

Some 103,000 jobs were created last month, the Labor Department said, although this was fewer than the 145,000 to 175,000 forecast.

The lower rate came not only because more people found jobs, but also because 260,000 had given up looking.

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rico, suave's avatar

By rico, suave, January 8, 2011 at 3:12 pm Link to this comment

Pat:

Great idea.

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PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, January 8, 2011 at 2:00 pm Link to this comment

Time to revive the CCC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps

Recycling, tree planting, maintaining public infratructure, let those collecting extended unemployment benefits and welfare pay it back in labor.

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By samosamo, January 8, 2011 at 1:06 pm Link to this comment

****************


Classic use of Orwellian euphemism and doublespeak where it is
made to appear that employment is growing and the economy is
‘well’ on the way to recovery when it is all a ruse to make those
we elect to look good.

Then you have bernanke come out with the latest, in his mind,
which is probably closer to the truth than the 9.8 to 9.4 stats,
that employment or should I say UNEMPLOYMENT numbers won’t
reach ‘normal’ levels for another 4 or 5 years. I am curious as to
how or why this clown possesses that information as it seems to
be something or the other already ordained.

And it has not gone unnoticed that this comes from the BBC.

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By ssss, January 7, 2011 at 8:15 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

From reading some of these comments, you people are greatly delusional.

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rico, suave's avatar

By rico, suave, January 7, 2011 at 6:26 pm Link to this comment

morris:

While I agree that there are lots of drug offenders unnecessarily held as guests of the state, I don’t know if dumping them onto the streets to look for honest work would work.

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By morristhewise, January 7, 2011 at 4:57 pm Link to this comment

Small business entrepreneur­`s have always created millions of new jobs, but unfortunately thousands of the best minds are wastefully incarcerate­d. There are 250,000 former drug dealers in America`s prisons, many are intelligent­, talented, and top earners. They should be pardoned and given enough start up funds to create honest new small businesses and job opportunities­ for unemployed workers. This idea might be radical, but remember it takes ingenuity to earn big bucks on dangerous streets, their skills can now be harnessed to bring the nation back to it`s former greatness.

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By gerard, January 7, 2011 at 4:21 pm Link to this comment

Shucks, man ... everybody knows them jobs is hiding somewhere where, the more you look, the less you find .  It’s part of “the invisible hand” of the capitalistic economy that’s all clogged up at the top now, like too much water accumulated behind a dam.  But the ice is melting up at the top.  Sooner or later the “jobless market” will break open and there’ll be jobs all over the place,  like “.... tote dat barge, lift dat bale, Get a little political and you land in jail.”
  Ole Man Robber, he just keeps robbin’ along.

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rico, suave's avatar

By rico, suave, January 7, 2011 at 2:45 pm Link to this comment

As soon as enough unemployed people realize that the government now has the legal ability to give them a roof, food, education and medical care, at no cost to them and they stop looking for work, the unemployment rate should rapidly drop to zero. How nice it must be to just not give a shit about finding a job and sit back and let the suckers work to support you.

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