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White House Yanks Controversial Nominee to Helm Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Conservative economist EJ Antoni’s nomination to become the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics was withdrawn by the White House late Tuesday, with much of the nation’s capital focused on the ongoing drama of the government shutdown.

“Dr. EJ Antoni is a brilliant economist and an American patriot that will continue to do good work on behalf of our great country,” a White House official said in a statement.

“President Trump is committed to fixing the longstanding failures at the BLS that have undermined the public’s trust in critical economic data. The President plans to announce a new nominee very soon.”

Trump nominated Antoni on Aug. 11, ten days after firing then-BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer following a lackluster jobs report that coincided with significant revisions to past figures the bureau released.

Antoni, the chief economist for The Heritage Foundation, was expected to face a close confirmation vote in the Senate amid criticism that he lacked experience both in public service and in compiling labor data. (Read more from “White House Yanks Controversial Nominee to Helm Bureau of Labor Statistics” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Labor Force Participation in 2013 Lowest in 35 Years

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Photo Credit: APThe average annual labor force participation rate hit a 35-year-low of 63.2 percent in the United States in 2013, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The last time the average annual labor force participation rate was that low was in in 1978, when it was also 63.2 percent. Jimmy Carter was president then.

The BLS bases its employment statistics on the civilian noninstitutional population, which consists of all people in the United States 16 or older who are not on active duty in the military or in an institution such as a prison, nursing home or mental hospital. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of people in the civilian noninstitutional population who either had a job or who actively sought one in the previous four weeks.

Read more this story HERE.

1,148,000 Fewer Americans Have Jobs Today Than 7 Yrs Ago

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

1,148,000 fewer Americans held jobs this November than did seven years ago in November 2006, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Back then, according to BLS, 145,534,000 Americans held jobs. This November, according to BLS, only 144,386,000 Americans hold jobs. That is a drop of 1,148,000 in the number of Americans working.

This decline in the number of Americans who actually have jobs has come even though the size of the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population and the size of the nation’s civilian labor force have both grown significantly over the last seven years.

The civilian noninstitutional population is made up of all people 16 or older who are living in the United States and are not in the military or a prison, mental facility or nursing home. The civilian labor force consists of all people in the civilian noninstitutional population who either have a job or who actively sought a job in the past four weeks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Americans’ Participation in Labor Force Hits Low Not Seen Since Carter Administration

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Photo Credit: APThe percentage of American civilians 16 or older who have a job or are actively seeking one dropped to a 35-year low in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In September, the labor force participation rate was 63.2 percent, but in October it dropped to 62.8 percent—the lowest it has been since February 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president.

The labor force, according to BLS, is that part of the civilian noninstitutional population that either has a job or has actively sought one in the last four weeks. The civilian noninstitutional population consists of people 16 or older, who are not on active-duty in the military or in an institution.

At no time during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, did such a small percentage of the civilian non-institutional population either hold a job or at least actively seek one.

The BLS has been calculating the national labor force participation rate since 1948. From that year until 2000, when labor force participation peaked at 67.3 percent, the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population that either held a job or was seeking one generally was on the rise. Since 2000, the percentage has been trending down.

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Women in Labor Force Matches 24-Year Low

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Photo Credit: APCNSNews.com reported Tuesday that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ newly released data indicates American women participated in the nation’s labor force in September at a rate that matched the lowest level in 24 years.

Meanwhile, the number of women actually holding jobs decreased by 154,000 from August to September.

The actual unemployment rate for women dropped from 6.8 percent to 6.7 percent, due to the fact that the decline in the number of females in the labor force was greater than the number of females actually holding jobs. These statistics are based on the definition of what it means to be a “participant in the labor force.”

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Record 90 Million Americans Not in Labor Force

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Just after Labor Day, the Bureau of Labor statistics reported more than 90 million Americans age 16 and older were not in the labor force in August, the highest level recorded since the Department of Labor began collecting the data during the Truman administration three years after the end of World War II.

On Friday, the BLS reported that the 90,473,000 Americans not currently in the labor force marked the first time the figure exceeded the 90 million threshold.

In January 2009, when President Obama first took office, there were 80.5 million Americans 16 years and older not in the labor force, meaning the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased 10 million during his presidency.

For men, the BLS reported the labor force participation rate, the percentage of the population working or considered looking for work, was 63.2 percent in August, basically unchanged from 63.5 percent in July. It’s also a record low.

The BLS also reported the unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percent to 7.3 percent in August, but the figure was almost completely driven by negative factors.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Hidden Jobless Disaster

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The market tanked Wednesday on bad preliminary job news. And so, when Friday’s jobs report is released, the unemployment rate and the number of new jobs will come in for close scrutiny. Then again, they always attract the most attention. Even the Federal Reserve focuses on the unemployment rate, announcing on a number of occasions that a rate of 6.5% will indicate when it is time to start raising interest rates and winding down the Fed’s easy-money policies.

Yet the unemployment rate is not the best guide to the strength of the labor market, particularly during this recession and recovery. Instead, the Fed and the rest of us should be watching the employment rate. There are two reasons.

First, the better measure of a strong labor market is the proportion of the population that is working, not the proportion that isn’t. In 2006, 63.4% of the working-age population was employed. That percentage declined to a low of 58.2% in July 2011 and now stands at 58.6%. By this measure, the labor market’s health has barely changed over the past three years.

Photo Credit: Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Obama Wrong Again: the Private Sector is Suffering; Government Employment Fares Far Better

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President Barack Obama famously blamed the bad economy on a struggling public sector, but a new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report shows that the issuance of pink slips has slowed among government workers while jumping across much of private industry.

In August, nearly 1.8 million private sector employees were laid off—up nearly 300,000 from July and nearly 100,000 from August 2011. Those layoffs came just two months after Obama proclaimed that “the private sector is doing fine” and attributed struggling job creation to government layoffs.

“The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government,” he said in June. “If Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments and how do we help the construction industry?”

The latest BLS numbers tell a different story. Federal employees saw decreased job loss over the year, while layoffs at the state and local level grew by about 2 percent—less than half the 4.4 percent layoff increase experienced by the private sector.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Economics of Abortion: Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Lost

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As we all know, there are so many effects that abortion has on our society and the whole world. What seems to be overlooked is how abortion can hurt the economy. People make the mistake that abortion is solely a moral issue, and therefore cannot be related to the effects of the economy.

In the United States, we have a national debt nearing $16 trillion, which has surpassed the nation’s annual GDP. In other words, our federal government is spending beyond our means. Since abortion was legalized in 1973 by Roe v. Wade, over 50 million babies have died, with over 3,000 killed on a daily basis.

It’s horrible enough that these innocent babies are murdered, but can you imagine how many more contributions those 50 million lives would have made? Perhaps one of those aborted could have found a way to cure AIDS, cancer, or asthma, just to name a few. Plus, with more people contributing to society through work, we would have a higher GDP, which would greatly help reduce the burden of our government spending, which spends about $4 billion daily. Much progress could be made to shore up the social security of the 10,000 individuals who retire every day.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, Guttmacher Institute, and National Center for Health Statistics, if abortion had never been legalized in 1973, more than 17 million people would be employed, resulting in an additional $400 billion from those workers, with $11 billion contributed to Medicare and $47 million contributed to Social Security. Although it is important to also reduce government spending, these added incomes would nevertheless help the country.

It doesn’t take a world-renowned economist to figure out that when you’re decreasing the youth from abortion and with all the baby-boomers retiring, Social Security is going to eventually run out if we continue with abortions and the amount of spending by the federal government. Even though Social Security cannot last forever with the amount of federal spending today, not having abortion would help Social Security last longer, assuming that the amount of federal spending is the same.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: utsfl