The Untold Unemployment Story: A Loss Of 162,000 Full-Time Jobs In June Jul 14th 2013, 10:00
BOCA RATON, FL - APRIL 10: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks on the economy at Florida Atlantic University (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
You would not have gotten the real story about the June unemployment report on the front page of any newspaper. If you can find a reporter who can think for himself or herself, he or she is a treasure who should be promoted to run the entire paper.
But since you are already here, the real story is available if you read on. There were no net full time jobs created last month. The number of full time jobs actually declined by at least 162,000 on net last month.
All of the net new jobs created last month were part time jobs. The Labor Department reported, "The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons…increased by 322,000 to 8.2 million in June. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job." (emphasis added).
That is why the Labor Department also reported that the U-6 unemployment rate, which includes these involuntary part-time workers, soared from 13.8% in May to 14.3% in June. That soaring unemployment suggests not recovery but renewed recession.
These part-time jobs replacing full time jobs helps to explain why middle class incomes have continued to decline throughout Obama's Presidency. The middle class has lost the equivalent of one month's income a year under President Obama, and with these employment trends, those declining living standards will continue.
Moreover, even counting this explosion of part-time jobs, Obama's supposed recovery is sorely lagging. As we pointed out last week, in the 11 previous recessions since the Great Depression, the economy gained back all of the jobs lost during the recession in an average of 25 months from when the recession started. But today, we are 67 months after the recession started, and 49 months after it officially ended, and under what passes for economic policy under the smartest President ever, we still have not gained back all of the jobs lost during the recession. And, again, that is counting the explosion of part time jobs replacing full time jobs.
President Obama told us in his State of the Union Address this year, "A growing economy that creates good, middle class jobs – this must be the North Star that guides our efforts." But, once again, the President's words have not matched his deeds.
Karma
Most troubling, unemployment has remained harshest for the President's staunchest supporters. Black unemployment for June remained stuck at 13.7%. It has been as bad or worse for four years or more.
Hispanic unemployment was still 9.1%, a slight improvement over the double digit unemployment this group has suffered for more than four years under President Obama.
Moreover, teenage unemployment for June was a Depression level 24%. Hispanic teenage unemployment was 30%. Black teenage unemployment was a genocidal 43.6%.
Yet, these are the same groups most staunchly telling pollsters they approve of the President's performance. Is this generation of Americans, at least as of today, really capable of self-government?
Economic Re-Education Camp
What these facts teach us is that economic re-education camp is long overdue, for the President's senior economic advisors, all the way to his base of most ardent supporters. We need to return to first principles regarding how jobs are created in a free market economy, and how wages and incomes grow. Then we can evaluate what economic policies would best promote those results.
Scott Foresman Science
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