A Frightening Trend!

from The Gray Area:

To get a realistic perspective of unemployment in the United States, one should look at several indicators. Using charts the Wall Street Journal published on Friday paints a frightening trend.

1. The monthly jobs reports monthly gain or loss in job, up a disappointing 74,000 in December. The 182,000 average monthly jobs gains in the past year were nearly unchanged from those of 2012.

2. The main (U3) unemployment rate, down to 6.7% from 7%, which primarily reflects jobs seekers giving up their search and leaving the workforce. Some groups are getting hit harder than others in the job market.

3. The Gap between jobs added and jobs needed to recover from the great recession.

4. The U6 unemployment rate representing the unemployed, the underemployed and the discouraged is the real unemployment rate. In December the U6 unemployment number was 13.1%.

5. The labor force participation rate, or who is actually available to work. That number declined in December to 62.8%, returning to the 35-year low touched in October.

With fewer and fewer people working and looking for work every month, primarily the young and minorities, you can see signs of a society in decline. Without more and new job creation, the economy and the culture of American lives will be dramatically impacted.

> Incent private sector job creation

> enact individual and corporate tax reforms,

> remove restrictions on growth sectors like energy,

> reduce national debt to create market stability,

> reform entitlements to a sustainable level to return consumer confidence.

As Janet Yellen, the new Fed Chief, alluded to in an interview last week, a rising tide can lift all boats.

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