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Labor Force Participation Plunges To 30-Year Low As Another 522,000 People Drop Out
It is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record.
The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%, is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.
Labor force participation Rate:
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People not in labor force:
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Jobless Claims Rose Last Week ‘Unexpectedly’
Jobless Claims Rose Last Week ‘Unexpectedly’ – Sweetness & Light
From the perennially blindsided Reuters:
Jobless claims unexpectedly rise last week
Lucia Mutikani
April 12, 2012WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week to their highest level since January, a development that could raise fears the labor market recovery was stalling after job creation slowed in March.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 380,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 367,000 from the previously reported 357,000.
Wow, Reuters is even reporting that last week’s number was revised up. (As usual.)
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 355,000 last week…
Meanwhile, the Associated Press tries to make the best of things:
US applications for jobless aid up to 2-month high
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
April 12, 2012WASHINGTON (AP) – More people sought unemployment benefits last week, pushing the number of applicants to the highest level in two months.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly unemployment benefit applications jumped 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 380,000. The previous week’s figures were also revised higher…
The figures come after a disappointing employment report last week that showed that employers added only 120,000 jobs in March, half the average pace in the preceding three months. But many economists downplayed the weak March figures, noting that a warmer winter may have led to some earlier hiring in January and February…
Hilarious. But the AP never says die:
The economy has added an average of 212,000 jobs per month in the January-March quarter, well ahead of last year’s pace.
Economists note that applications for unemployment aid are at a much lower level than they were last year, suggesting that March’s weak numbers might have been a temporary lull…
And their economists are never wrong. Except all the time.
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Slow Jobs Growth Underscores Obamanomics’ Failure
Slow Jobs Growth Underscores Obamanomics’ Failure – Investors Business Daily
Darin Wedel, an out-of-work Texas electronics engineer who more than two months ago sent his resume to the White House at the request of President Obama, is still unemployed. It’s a tale for our times.
Wedel sent his resume to the White House after Obama told Wedel’s wife in a Jan. 30 Internet forum that the U.S. doesn’t have enough home-grown engineers to fill all the opportunities.
Turns out, that’s not exactly true. “Not even recruiting companies are calling anymore,” Jennifer Wedel, a Fort Worth, Texas, mother of two, said of her jobless hubby.
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As the Wedel family might tell you – and as April’s mediocre gain of 120,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs shows – the economy’s employment engine isn’t in high gear.
Numbers tell the story. Since Obama entered office promising a jobs boom from his “stimulus,” the economy has lost 1.6 million jobs. Since the employment peak in early 2008, 5.2 million jobs have disappeared.
Labor participation rates have plunged in recent years, in part due to retirements, but mostly due to people just dropping out – they can’t find jobs at all.
Today, a record 100.5 million Americans older than 16 don’t have jobs, up 34% since 2000. As Eddy Elfenbein, editor of the Crossing Wall Street blog, notes, “If we were to have the same jobs-to-population ratio as 12 years ago, there would have to be 14.6 million more jobs, or 22.6 million fewer people.”
That’s the scale of the damage done to our economy.
It may come as a surprise to Americans who’ve been fed a steady diet of stories claiming a ripping recovery is either here or on the way, but this remains the worst jobs recovery since the Depression.
The White House and Democrats tout that unemployment has fallen from a high of 10% during the recession to “just” 8.2% in April.
But that’s deceptive, to say the least. Since official data no longer count many jobless people, some analysts use a variety of alternative unemployment measures to see what’s really going on. And what they see isn’t pretty.
Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics has its own measure that gives a better reading than the so-called “headline” number. It’s called U-5, and it includes not just the unemployed, but discouraged workers and those “marginally attached” to the labor force.
What’s it say? That unemployment, in contrast to the official government rate of 8.2%, is more like 9.6%.
The IBD/TIPP Poll has its own measure. Each month we ask respondents if anyone from their household is looking for work. In April, 24% of households answered in the affirmative – translating to roughly 30 million Americans, or a jobless rate of nearly 19.4%.
Yet, the government’s official figures say just 12.7 million don’t have jobs. Take that with a grain of salt.
Lest you think it’s just us, Gallup also does its own jobs survey each month. Its “underemployment rate” – made up of those without jobs and those working part-time but who want full-time work – now stands at 18%.
In sum, this isn’t by any stretch a normal jobs recovery. It’s the worst ever. And the reason is simple: The man in the Oval Office makes promises his statist policies can’t keep. Just ask Darin Wedel.
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America’s Debt Is Greater Than Entire Eurozone And U.K. Debt Combined – Weasel Zippers
And their combined population exceeds the U.S. by 18 million people.
Via The Weekly Standard:
As the chart shows, America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)
The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America’s debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone’s. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.
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Daily Benefactor News – Fake Unemployment Rate At 8.2 Percent
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Jobless Down .1% Because People Giving Up – Sweetness & Light
From a suddenly fazed Associated Press:
U.S. economy adds 120K jobs, jobless rate at 8.2 pct
By PAUL WISEMAN
April 6, 2012WASHINGTON (AP) – The job market slowed in March as companies hit the brakes on hiring amid uncertainty about the economy s growth prospects. The unemployment rate dipped, but mostly because more Americans stopped looking for work.
What a shocking admission from the AP. And they even put it in the first paragraph. (Instead of the last, as they usually do, if they mention it at all.)
The Labor Department says the economy added 120,000 jobs in March, down from more than 200,000 in each of the previous three months.
The unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent, the lowest since January 2009. But the rate dropped because fewer people searched for jobs. The official unemployment tally only includes those seeking work.
All of which just shows how perverse the government’s way of measuring is, anyway. If you are out of a job but give up looking, you become magically are employed.
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They need to come up with a new metric.
Despite the pullback in March, the economy has added 858,000 jobs since December – the best four months of hiring in two years.
And yet, even by the AP’s own admission, the only thing that has driven down the unemployment rate by a measly .3% is the government’s sleight of hand.
Slower job growth could threaten a recent rise in consumer confidence and dent investors’ enthusiasm for stocks. It also could prove a setback for President Barack Obama’s re-election hopes…
And, after all, that is all that matters.
Retailers seemed hurt most in March. They shed nearly 34,000 jobs in March after cutting nearly 29,000 in February. Temporary help firms dropped almost 8,000 – a potentially bad sign for the job market because companies often hire temp workers before adding full timers
What’s this? We were just told by an earlier AP story that everything was coming up roses.
Government hiring was little changed in March, a positive sign after months of job cuts and the state and local level…
Only the news media and the rest of the Democrat Party would see this as a “positive sign.”
Economists have worried all along that job growth couldn’t sustain the strong December-to-February pace…
Really? Well, this is the first we have heard of it from the AP. Ever since Obama was elected we have been told by the AP and Reuters that prosperity was just around the corner.
But, to be fair, who could expect that the economy could sustain such a breakneck pace.
Meanwhile, we have this from Reuters:
White House advisers: Economy making progress
April 6, 2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is continuing to recover but still has a long way to go, top White House advisers said on Friday, after the Labor Department released weaker-than-expected jobs figures.
“What we are seeing in the economy right now is that we are making progress, but we still have a long way to go,” White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said.
But he faulted Republicans in Congress for getting in the way of employment creation. “The partisanship… has blocked us from having a stronger job market,” he said…
My God, they are shameless.
It’s almost a sickness the way they blame everyone but themselves. In fact, you can strike the ‘almost.’
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Prior Week’s Jobless Claims Were Up By 9K
Prior Week’s Jobless Claims Were Up By 9K – Sweetness & Light
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From an unquestioning Reuters:
Jobless claims fall to 4-year low in latest week
March 29, 2012
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New claims for unemployment benefits fell to a fresh four-year low last week, according to a government report that showed ongoing healing in the labor market.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 359,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
Last week the Department of Labor and our one party media reported that new jobless claims were down by 5,000. In fact, last week’s AP’s headline and lead from Charles Rugaber was: “US jobless aid requests hit 4-year low – The number of people seeking unemployment aid in the U.S. fell to a four-year low last week, bolstering the view that the job market is strengthening.”
In reality, none of that was true. The number of new claims has been revised up, and by a whopping 16,000. Which means that in reality jobless claims actually went up the prior week by 9,000 claims.
But neither the AP nor Reuters nor any of the other media outlets will print a retraction of their headlines about jobless claims going down.
The report included revisions for claims data from 2007 based on updated seasonal adjustment calculations. New seasonal adjustment factors were also introduced for 2012.
Why do these claims numbers have to be ‘seasonally adjusted’ in the first place?’ This is not like the monthly unemployment rate, which is based on a poll. This is an actual hard number. The number of claims is what it is. The ‘seasons’ should have no bearing on it at all.
In fact, this week’s ‘not seasonally’ adjusted new claims number went up. (As it almost always does.) According to the Department Of Labor, the previous week’s unadjusted number of claims totaled 315,636. This week’s unadjusted claims totaled 319,349. So the unadjusted number of new claims went up by 3,713.
So we might have just answered our own question as to why they ‘seasonally adjust’ these numbers.
The prior week’s figure was revised up to 364,000 from the previously reported 348,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a claims reading of 350,000 for last week…
A Labor Department official said there was nothing unusual in the state-level data and only two states – Alaska and Hawaii – had been estimated…
So how come the Department Of Labor has to revise its numbers by so much, week after week? These jobless claims are processed by computers. Why is it so hard to count them accurately, and right away? And how come the errors always favor the Obama administration?
Again, we might have just answered our own question.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press is reporting:
US weekly unemployment aid applications decline
CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
March 29, 2012WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits dropped last week, the latest evidence that the job market is strengthening.
The Labor Department says weekly unemployment benefit applications fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 359,000. That’s the smallest number of applicants since April 2008…
Note that the AP does not even bother to mention the revision of the prior week’s number by a whopping 16,000 claims.
The department also made its annual revisions to the past five years of unemployment benefit data. The revisions significantly increased the number of unemployment benefit applicants in recent months. But the downward trend remains intact…
Reuters mentioned this revision, but did not bother to report that they were “significantly increased the number of unemployment benefit applicants in recent months.” Apparently, they didn’t think that was news.
Luckily, the AP assures us that “the downward trend remains intact.”
It’s like magic.
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*LIVE STREAMING* Arizona Republican Primary Debate (CNN) – February 22, 2012 – 8pm EST
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Obama Senior Adviser: Unemployment Checks Stimulate The Economy (Video)
This evening, speaking at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said that folks getting and spending unemployment checks is a healthy thing… because it stimulates the economy:
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“Even though we had a terrible economic crisis three years ago, throughout our country many people were suffering before the last three years, particularly in the black community,” Jarrett said. “And so we need to make sure that we continue to support that important safety net. It not only is good for the family, but it’s good for the economy. People who receive that unemployment check go out and spend it and help stimulate the economy, so that’s healthy as well.”
Gallup Finally Discovers What Conservatives Have Known From The Beginning
Health Costs, Government Regulations Curb Small Business Hiring – Gallup
U.S. small-business owners who aren’t hiring – 85% of those surveyed – are most likely to say the reasons they are not doing so include not needing additional employees; worries about weak business conditions, including revenues; cash flow; and the overall U.S. economy. Additionally, nearly half of small-business owners point to potential healthcare costs (48%) and government regulations (46%) as reasons. One in four are not hiring because they worry they may not be in business in 12 months.
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Companies typically hold back on hiring when the economy is weak and when their operating environment is not providing sufficient revenues or cash flows. This appears to be the case right now, as the economy has been weak for more than four years. Less typical is for many owners to point to such things as potential healthcare costs and government regulations.
130 Current And Former Government Employees In Washington D.C. Face Prosecution For Unemployment Fraud
Nearly 90 city employees were suspended Monday and face potential firing and prosecution for receiving unemployment benefits while holding their city jobs, District officials said.
In addition, about 40 former city workers cashed unemployment checks they were not entitled to and also face sanctions. In all, the city estimates it has paid out as much as $800,000 in unemployment benefits to working city employees since 2009.
“By holding people accountable, that sends a clear message we’re not tolerating this behavior,” said Lisa Mallory, director of the D.C. Department of Employment Services, which administers the jobless benefits program.
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…………………………………………………………………..Lisa Mallory
Monday’s action, which follows at least three years of scrutiny from local and federal authorities, represents an unusually broad crackdown on corruption in the District government workforce. The volume of benefits claims has soared alongside the District’s jobless rate, and investigators have taken an increasing interest in how the unemployment program guards against fraud.
D.C. Inspector General Charles J. Willoughby and Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan are involved in the investigation, and authorities anticipate referring at least some cases to federal prosecutors for criminal action. Mallory, whose office continues to review cases, also said she has worked with the U.S. Department of Labor to prevent this type of fraud.
Employees accused of wrongdoing worked in various arms of the District government, including the public schools and the D.C. Council staff, according to a high-ranking official to Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) who was not allowed to speak publicly on the investigation. Some of the employees, Mallory said, received $20,000 or more; others received only a few hundred dollars.
The alleged fraud is not complicated, nor is it uncommon in unemployment insurance programs: Workers apply for checks and receive them legitimately for a time but fail to inform authorities when they go back to work.
“Some are people who come in and out of government and never stopped [receiving unemployment checks]. Some may have worked in parts of an agency where for the summer months you don’t work,” Mallory said. “There are no clear patterns that we can discern. It’s just a matter of certifying you aren’t receiving income when you are receiving income.”
A Gray spokesman declined to release workers’ names Monday, citing privacy restrictions.
Mallory said her department regularly passes cases of suspected “overpayments” fraud to the inspector general for investigation and potential prosecution, but Monday’s crackdown represents an unprecedented review of the city’s 33,000-strong government workforce.
“Our focus is really on trying to deter,” she said. “We want to make sure that individuals who owe this money are actually held accountable for these overpayments.”
Nathan said in a statement that the alleged fraud is “unconscionable for anyone – and particularly District of Columbia employees, who should have high ethical standards.”
Jeff Lagda, a spokesman for the Labor Department’s inspector general, cited department policy Monday in not confirming or denying any ongoing investigation.
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Hallmark Unveils “Layoff Cards” For The Unemployed
Hallmark Unveils “Layoff Cards” For The Unemployed – WTHR
In the business of selling sentiments, there’s a card for everything, from traditional occasions to unique needs: cards with sound, cards for holidays, cards for losing a tooth.
But losing a job?
Yes, now there’s a card for that too.
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Hallmark recently rolled out a new line of layoff greeting cards. Stores have a specific section for job loss and recession humor, offering words of support and encouragement. With the unemployment rate at nine percent, the company says customers called-in the need.
One card reads “Don’t think of it as losing your job. Think of it as a time out between stupid bosses.”
“Yeah, I mean, that would be clever to give to someone,” said Linda Ralph, Martinsville. “It would have to depend on the person and their situation.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Amanda Smith, Indianapolis. “There’s a lot of people out of work. I have to say they’d sell more in Indiana than anywhere else, absolutely.”
“I’m not sure that I would do that. I don’t know. I think I’d do more to help them find a job than remind them they don’t have one,” said Mishcell Johnson, Indianapolis.
“Very good idea,” said Rose Dick, Greenwood. “I think it’d be sellable. It’s the truth.”
But what about people on the receiving end of these cards? Will the messages really go over well with folks in the unemployment line?
Employees at Work One in Franklin work with the unemployed every day. They say the layoff cards are a good idea.
“Getting a card like that and somebody caring is fabulous,” said Michelle Crowthers-Lunczynski. “The crazy part to think about this is there’s so many people laid off. At least someone’s caring enough to you know, get a card and say, ‘I’m thinking of you’.”
“I think it’s neat that there is a card there that can say what needs to be said in a situation like that, because sometimes it’s just hard to find the words,” added Work One employee Avril Fisher.
“It is sad, though. I mean, it just really…but one in ten people you could be mailing it to, absolutely,” Smith said.
The messages reflecting current culture, customers say, are perhaps just a sign of the times. Local Hallmark stores say the cards are selling well. In fact, they’re getting a shipment of four new styles next week.
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Obama’s Urgent Jobs Plan: Right Now, ‘Right Now’ Means Sometime Next Month Maybe
Obama’s Urgent Jobs Plan: Right Now, ‘Right Now’ Means Sometime Next Month Maybe – Los Angeles Times
Everybody remembers the urgency of President Obama’s attitude toward the awful jobs situation.
Back in early August, Obama said the jobs situation was so urgent that he was going to give another speech about it – in a month or so, in September after his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.
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And then in September the president announced he would give his major jobs speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7. But he neglected to check with congressional leaders first. And they suggested the 8th. So, since it was their House, the 8th it was.
“Tonight,” the president said in the first 34 of his 4,021 words to a national television audience that night, “we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that has made things worse.”
The speech got panned as another political campaign one with Obama announcing, in effect, that…
…since the first stimulus spending plan of $787 billion hadn’t really worked, maybe another $447 billion stimulus spending plan would.
This is the kind of thinking that can make sense within Washington. But since “stimulus” has become a laugh line, he didn’t use that word anymore.
And, hey, the debt ceiling had been raised to $16 trillion. (Speaking of which the president speaks on the debt this morning in another speech because he’s a Real Good Talker.) So why not spend a half-trillion more to look like he’s doing something about the terrible jobs situation with 14+ million unemployed?
If Republicans didn’t bite, no one would know Obama’s Plan B was never going to work anyway. And he could try to blame the GOP next year for failing schools and rusting bridges. This also seems to make sense within WasObama prepares to speaks at the white househington these days.
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The president was in such a hurry to get this new spending going, everyone remembers, that during that address he said the phrase “right now” seven times. He didn’t actually mean right now that night because the NFL season was opening a few minutes after his remarks.
But Obama did want to show how really urgent he said the situation was, even though it had taken him 961 days as president to say them. And even though from Day #1 of the brief Obama Era polls had shown jobs and the economy were the No. 1 priority among voters but he pursued healthcare and financial reforms first. And even though unemployment had been at or above 9% for 26 of the last 28 months.
So, given the president’s professed urgency, the next day, Sept. 9, everyone asked where was his jobs legislation?
And, well, it seems the urgent jobs bill hadn’t actually been written yet but should be ready in a week or two. When the laughter died, the White House said on second thought the legislation would be ready for a photo op the next Monday.
Well, here we are on the next Monday after that next Monday and we’ve just learned from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, that actually it seems that body won’t really be seriously getting into the legislation for a while yet. The Senate has some other more important business to handle. And then there’s this month’s congressional vacation, which in Washington is called “a recess,” like elementary school.
Here’s the revealing exchange with a persistent host Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union:”
CROWLEY: When is the bill going to get on the floor?
DURBIN: The bill is on the calendar. Majority leader Reid moved it to the calendar. It is ready and poised. There are a couple other items we may get into this week not on the bill and some related issues that may create jobs. But we’re going to move forward on the president’s bill. There will be a healthy debate. I hope the Republicans will come to…
CROWLEY: After the recess, so next month? Or when will it actually begin to act on?
DURBIN: I think that’s more realistic it would be next month.
So, as of right now, “right now” uttered on Sept. 8 really means sometime at least one month later.
Good thing the president’s own Democratic party controls the Senate. Because, otherwise, there might be some kind of silly, unnecessary delays in deliberating Obama’s urgent jobs bill that he says will surely help the nation’s unemployed millions if only those Republicans don’t connive to slow things down.
President Asshat’s “Jobs” Bill Makes It Illegal To Discriminate Against Unemployed
President Asshat’s “Jobs” Bill Makes It Illegal To Discriminate Against Unemployed – The Hill
President Asshat’s American Jobs Act, which he presented to Congress on Monday, would make it illegal for employers to run advertisements saying that they will not consider unemployed workers, or to refuse to consider or hire people because they are unemployed.
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The proposed language is found in a section of the bill titled “Prohibition of Discrimination in Employment on the Basis of an Individual’s Status as Unemployed.” That section would also make it illegal for employers to request that employment agencies take into account a person’s unemployed status.
It would also allow aggrieved job-seekers to seek damages if they have been discriminated against. This provision in particular prompted Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to argue that President Asshat’s proposal is aimed at creating a new, special class of people who can sue companies.
“So if you’re unemployed, and you go to apply for a job and you’re not hired for that job, see a lawyer,” Gohmert said on the House floor. “You might be able to file a claim because you got discriminated against because you’re unemployed.”
He said this provision would only discourage companies from interviewing unemployed candidates, and would “help trial lawyers who are not having enough work,” since there are about 14 million unemployed Americans.
“That’s 14 million potential new clients that could go hire a lawyer and file a claim because they didn’t get hired even though they were unemployed,” he said.
Under the bill, companies saying they will not consider unemployed candidates could face a court order enjoining them from this practice, a fine of up to $1,000 per day or “reasonable attorney’s fees.” Other violations could lead to damages as high as $5,000.
Enforcement of the new language would be carried out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other entities using the same power they have under the Civil Rights Act and the Government Employee Rights Act.
Gohmert also criticized other parts of President Asshat’s proposal, such as language that would create a program allowing workers to be reimbursed if their employer cuts their work hours by 10 percent.
The proposal has mostly met resistance from House Republicans, in large part because it proposes $447 billion in new spending that would be paid for with new tax revenue that stretches over the next decade.
Thanks Barack… Jobless Claims Jump To 414,000
Initial Claims Jump To 414,000 – The Hill
The number of people applying for the first time for unemployment benefits grew slightly in the last week, highlighting the continued struggles in the job market as policymakers search for solutions.
Initial jobless claims grew by 2,000 for the week ending Sept. 3, climbing to 414,000 from an upwardly revised 412,000. The Labor Department previously reported that jobless claims for the prior week had come in at 409,000.
This latest data comes hours before the president uses a speech before a joint session of Congress to further push for job creation policies in an attempt to boost an economy that has lost steam.
Thus far, policymakers have struggled to find a way to bring down the persistently high unemployment rate, which sits at 9.1 percent. In August, the nation’s economy added precisely zero jobs.
Americans’ Satisfaction With National Conditions Dips To 11%
Americans’ Satisfaction With National Conditions Dips To 11% – Gallup
Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States has fallen back to 11%, the lowest level since December 2008 and just four percentage points above the all-time low recorded in October 2008.
The Aug. 11-14 Gallup poll finds satisfaction down five points from July (16%) and nine points since June (20%). The dip is likely a response to the recent negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling and continued concern about the national economy amid a volatile stock market. The recent downing of a U.S. military helicopter in Afghanistan resulting in the deaths of 30 U.S. servicemen could also be contributing to Americans’ glum mood.
Gallup began measuring Americans’ satisfaction with national conditions in 1979. Since then, satisfaction has been lower than the current 11% in only a few measurements in the final months of 2008. The all-time low of 7% came in an Oct. 10-12, 2008, poll, conducted shortly after stock values plummeted following Congress’ passage of the TARP legislation in response to the September 2008 financial crisis.
The current figures represent the continuation of a long slump in national satisfaction, which has been below 30% since September 2009, below 40% since August 2005, and below 50% since January 2004. The historical average satisfaction rating since 1979 is 40%. The all-time high is 71% in February 1999.
Democrats are somewhat more likely to say they are satisfied (19%) with conditions in the United States today than are Republicans (9%) and independents (8%).
Economic Concerns Paramount in Americans’ Minds
In all, 76% of Americans mention some economic issue as the most important problem facing the country, the highest percentage since April 2009.
The most commonly mentioned specific problems are all economic in nature, including the economy in general (31%), unemployment or jobs (29%), and the federal budget deficit and federal debt (17%). The top non-economic problem is dissatisfaction with government and political leaders, mentioned by 14% of Americans.
Either the economy in general terms or unemployment has ranked as the No. 1 “most important problem” every month since February 2008, and the two have been either first or second each month since December 2009. Prior to that, from August to November 2009, healthcare ranked second to the economy, with unemployment third.
The recent debt ceiling negotiations have clearly had an impact on Americans’ perceptions of the top problems facing the country, as the percentages mentioning the deficit and dissatisfaction with government are the highest since a January 1996 Gallup poll. At that time, during the 1995-1996 budget standoff between President Clinton and the Republican-led Congress, 28% of Americans mentioned the deficit as the most important problem and 17% mentioned dissatisfaction with government.
Implications
Americans are unhappy with the way things are going in the United States, with recent events in Washington and on Wall Street compounding the public’s economic angst. This has taken a toll on Americans’ ratings of political leaders, with congressional approval at an all-time low and President Obama registering the lowest approval ratings of his term.
Low national satisfaction ratings make incumbent politicians vulnerable to defeat, and Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were defeated for re-election at times when Americans were largely dissatisfied with the state of the nation. Satisfaction ratings tend to be low when the economy is struggling, so economic progress over the next 15 months will be a crucial factor in determining whether Obama is elected to a second term.
Thanks Barack… Jobless Claims Up 9,000
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected – Forex Pros
The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose more than expected, official data showed on Thursday.
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In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending August 12 rose by 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 408,000, higher than the expected increase of 400,000.
The previous week’s figure was revised up to 399,000 from 395,000.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended August 6 rose to 3.702 million from a revised 3.695 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing jobless claims to rise to 3.700 million.
Gatordoug
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Dave C
