Uncategorized

About Those Jobs …

Unemployment in America is down from its recessionary peak, yet it remains chronically high. Then there’s the problem of our nation’s shrinking labor force – which is currently hovering just above its thirty-year low. The biggest problem, though, is the lack of income growth – which is driven in no…

august employment situation

Unemployment in America is down from its recessionary peak, yet it remains chronically high. Then there’s the problem of our nation’s shrinking labor force – which is currently hovering just above its thirty-year low.

The biggest problem, though, is the lack of income growth – which is driven in no small part by the paucity of high-paying jobs.

The website Zero Hedge has been all over this issue – dating back more than two years in fact.

And this week the site’s basic premise – that America’s modest employment rebound isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be – finally received some long-overdue ink courtesy of none other than The New York Times.

From the story …

Politicians across the political spectrum herald “job creation,” but frightfully few of them talk about what kinds of jobs are being created. Yet this clearly matters: According to the Census Bureau, one-third of adults who live in poverty are working but do not earn enough to support themselves and their families.

A quarter of jobs in America pay below the federal poverty line for a family of four ($23,050). Not only are many jobs low-wage, they are also temporary and insecure. Over the last three years, the temp industry added more jobs in the United States than any other, according to the American Staffing Association, the trade group representing temp recruitment agencies, outsourcing specialists and the like.

Low-wage, temporary jobs have become so widespread that they threaten to become the norm. But for some reason this isn’t causing a scandal. At least in the business press, we are more likely to hear plaudits for “lean and mean” companies than angst about the changing nature of work for ordinary Americans.

Of course it isn’t “lean and mean” companies to blame for this … it’s economic reality, which we maintain was imposed upon these companies by a government-inflated housing bubble.

Seriously … what part of lending $2.4 trillion to people who couldn’t afford to own homes did these politically correct housing officials think was a good idea?

Let’s ask Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, shall we?

Anyway … the bottom line is weak job growth has been compounded in far too many cases in with crappy pay and non-existent benefits. That means income growth – and the expanded consumerism which accompanies it – has remained at a standstill.

It also means less money to invest – forcing companies to be “lean and mean.”

How do we overcome these problem? Easy: Find a way to make jobs desperate for people to fill them, instead of the other way around. In othert words, grow people’s incomes and grow investment – a process which starts with reducing, not expanding, the nation’s tax burden.

***

Related posts

Business

Palmetto Railways Corruption: CEO Pleads Guilty

Will Folks
Uncategorized

Escaping Your Timeshare Contract Safely & Effectively

FITSForum
Uncategorized

Spy Apps: Balancing Privacy And Practicality

FITSForum

14 comments

BigT January 31, 2013 at 7:06 am

Obama is a LIAR..and by beating aeound the bush, FITS is accomplice…either through FITS’ stupidity or dishonesty…

That said: Place where Obama is being Vehmently Reisted, the economy has some bright spots. Lexington County voted 70% AGAINST Obama…and it is bringing in REAL (not government) jobs…

Texas may be the most Anti-obama state in the Union…and it’s faring better. the pattern is Strong and Clean…but idiots don’t care about reality of truth…

That shows us: As soon as we get rid of Obama (in 2016 unless he’s impeached) we can expect recovery and healing nationally…probably not before…

Still: in places where Liberalsim reigns..California, NY and the Rust Belt…expect them to suffer..and they actually DESERVE it, because they elected Obama…

Reply
shifty henry January 31, 2013 at 7:52 am

……….. read and initialed

Reply
Common Sense January 31, 2013 at 7:59 am

Fucking idiot. You must be the only sad sack loser mo fo who isnt doing better..stock market market doubled, housing is taking off etc..everyone else is doing better but the purest losers ala T..keep whining you fucking idiot and the rest of of will enjoy the recovery. Remember winners win and whiners whine and we know what you are…

Reply
BigT January 31, 2013 at 8:25 am

Stock market mostly helps those w/ money to invest on speculation…if you have no job, I doubt the stack marker matters. And most in the middle have had to take their money out of the stock market to live in the Miserable Obama Depression…

As for hosuing…prices are WAY Down…people are selling at big loses because they cannot wait any longer…

That is not good when you take that kind of a hit…and there are no jobes…

Obama has focused on taking guns and gay rights…while kids of working parents starve…That’s DISGUSTING…

Reply
? January 31, 2013 at 7:22 am

“Seriously … what part of lending $2.4 trillion to people who couldn’t afford to own homes did these politically correct housing officials think was a good idea?”

Yes, and the irony is the continued “stimulus” includes significant purchase of MBS’s ever month…they are trying to blow the real estate bubble back up.

It looks like they are having some short term success too in areas where median income is higher(like D.C.-wonder why everyone there makes so much?).

Anyway, they are simply spraying more fuel on the fire long term…there’s no way they will sustain another housing bubble for more than 5 years….I doubt 3 personally.

There’s a good chance GDP fell because the accounting methods used to report 3rd qtr. growth via the “gov’t spending” part of the GDP equation was curiously stacked in an unusual manner(just in time for the November election!) to show growth…and that was unwound a bit for the 4th qtr.

As I’ve mentioned before though, the “gov’t spending” portion of the equation is total bullshit anyway…not that 98% of the population knows what the GDP is let alone how it’s calculated.

The MSM/propaganda machine spits out “good” or “bad” implications based on mostly useless GDP #’s and the sheeple nod their heads and go “bahhhh…goooood!” or “bahhhh….baaaaad!” to each other after watching the bobble heads on TV or listening to them on radio. Their handlers are pleased.

Reply
shifty henry January 31, 2013 at 7:53 am

………… read and initialed

Reply
shifty henry January 31, 2013 at 8:05 am

……….. two things to celebrate today—-

CHILD LABOR DAY

NATIONAL POPCORN DAY

Reply
Ohnonotagain January 31, 2013 at 8:05 am

That last paragraph starts out OK, but you write as if there is incontrovertible proof of the final statement in it, and there is not. I know it is accepted as fact, but there is enough evidence on both sides of the issue to suggest that the tax “burden” isn’t really the cause behind companies’ decisions to contract or not expand.

Reply
BigT January 31, 2013 at 8:26 am

Where’s Obama’s jobs plan…Did I miss that????

Reply
Isotope Soap January 31, 2013 at 11:57 am

You said there’s a boon in Lexington County…why don’t you start there, Bigums?

Reply
johnt January 31, 2013 at 9:19 am

Overlooked in the politics is the fact that we are in the middle of a computer revolution which may be more significant than the industrial revolution. Computers/robots have replaced all kinds of jobs from receptionist and file clerk to assembly line workers and technicians. The good news is that companies can provide good and services which are better and less costly than before (which is why the stock market is doing well and inflation is mild). The bad news is that when machines displace workers, the workers either become unemployed or migrate to lower paying jobs.

The industrial revolution generated all kinds of social change, revolution, and new political/economic philosophies. I can’t wait to see what the computer revolution brings.

Reply
james the foot soldier January 31, 2013 at 9:59 am

I feel so sorry for the Po Mo Fo Lo Info voters now faced with HIGHER taxes and FEWER jobs.

YES WE CAN!

Reply
Common Sense January 31, 2013 at 2:55 pm

at least its way better than the end of the Bush years..

Reply
Booyah February 3, 2013 at 12:33 am

There is zero reason to offer high pay when the market will bear low pay.

That’s not a “scandal”, it’s reality for much of the world and now the US too.

“Find a way to make jobs desperate for people to fill them, ” is pants-on-head retarded.

There is no way to do that, because EFFICIENCY means investing in ways to use fewer workers, not finding ways to employ more of them.

Even China, an example being Foxconn, is investing in robots because they are even more efficient than armies of Chinese serfs.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/foxcponn-apple-iphone-ipad-robot,19088.html

Reply

Leave a Comment