Unemployment rate falls to 8.6% in November

Obama's policies must not be working. How dare that unemployment rate drop while he is in office? Now go out and find the negative take on this. There are people that have just stopped looking for work because the job market has been so bad for so long - They are just lazy. I think improvement is improvement no matter what the factors. If people choose to sit out the recovery, then they shouldn't be counted.

Washington — The U.S. unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level in more than two and a half years, as employers stepped up hiring in response to the slowly improving economy.

The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate dropped sharply to 8.6% last month, from 9% in October. The rate hasn't been that low since March 2009, during the depths of the recession.

Still, 13.3 million Americans remain unemployed. And a key reason the unemployment rate fell so much was because roughly 315,000 people had given up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.

Employers added 120,000 jobs last month. And the previous two months were revised up to show that 72,000 more jobs added — the fourth straight month the government revised prior months higher.

Private employers added a net 140,000 jobs last month. Governments, meanwhile, shed another 20,000 jobs, mostly at the local and state level. Governments at all levels have shed almost a half-million jobs in the past year.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-12-02/unemployment-rate-november/51577788/1

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daniel-gross/november-jobs-report-curb-enthusiasm-142920148.html

 

Let's see from moen's post.
154 M Americans in the work force. (In case you missed it, that is 13.3M / .086.)
Unemployment dropped 0.4% = 618,000
But wait! Employment only went up 120,000. What happened to the other 498,000? Did they disappear?

Another question for moen to answer. Where did the 498,000 people disappear to? I wonder how many times moen will avoid this one.

 

The left is calling this a success story? I guess it's a reflection of just how much of a failure this presidency has really been.

 

Any moment now, Moen will say something like "The 3 Stooges have chimed in" or something just as asinine. And then his lapdog will post something like, "Yeah, you tell 'em, Master" and then will "LIKE" his post. Then Moen will turn around and "LIKE" his lapdog's post. Then Moen will say something to the effect of, "They don't like Obama because he's black" and, well, so it goes. *** y a w n ***

 

Now you can not complain if he responds in a similar fashion but be warned if it starts to turn into a childish free for all I will close this thread

 

The simple answer is that your calculations are beyond flawed. The US Civilian Workforce of 154,000,000 was from 2008 when the unemployment rate ranged from under 5% to over 7%. Maybe you could post a link to the place you copied these figures from and I can interpret them correctly for you.

 

WRONG! I showed you exactly where that 154M came from in YOUR POST. Again;
"Still, 13.3 million Americans remain unemployed." (your post)
"unemployment rate dropped sharply to 8.6% last month, from 9% in October" (your post)

So it says that 13.3 M Americans are unemployed and that is 8.6% (i.e.0.086) of the work force. Therefore, 0.086 * (total work force) = 13.3 M. Solving, (total work force) = 13.3 M / 0.086 = 154 M. Try it out if you don't believe me.

Next, the unemployment "8.6% last month, from 9% ". Therefore, it dropped 0.4% or 0.004. 0.004 * 154M = 618,000 (without the rounding) are no longer "unemployed". Every bit came directly from you post.

BTW, if you had read you OP you would see the answer. It is also there.

 

Do "seasonal" hirings (i.e. Christmas help) figure in those numbers?

 

They used to be "seasonably adjusted", but I have not heard that lately.

 

Would you mind showing me where there is a 154 M figure in MY post? I'm not seeing it so I can't see how it was used in the article. Please point it out.

 

I have explained it twice. If you are that mathematically challenged, ask you kids to explain it to you.

 

You have not explained where the 154 M figure is in the article I posted. If anyone else would like to point it out.....? Anyone?

 

The only negative on the whole improvement is improvement part is that 120,000 found work but 315,000 gave up even the hope of finding a job and just quit looking. If we can get enough people to just give up, we can get that rate down to zero.

 

Or we could raise it by losing another half million government workers. It's all good.

 

BTW, whether the number is 154M, 145M, or 165M is virtually immaterial. Even at 145M, there are still 460,000 people disappearing.

 

That is continuing to happen even as we speak with no signs of slowing down. I am seeing it on a regular basis.

 

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say Republican politicians are screaming "Nooooo! If employment improves ...it hurts our chances of taking seats away from Democrats!" in unison about now.

You guys are absolutely nothing like the Three Stooges. The Three Stooges were funny.

 

You won't hear me complaining. I've never complained to the mods about anything posted on these forums. I let the inane diatribes of the witless liberals speak for themselves.