Some (not-so-fun) facts about the June jobs report

Some (not-so-fun) facts about the June jobs report

Neal Boortz
July 9, 2012

Hopefully you know by now that our ObamaEconomy generated just 80,000 jobs in June, holding our unemployment rate at 8.2%. That was “unexpected” for many of those who predicted job creation at least over 100,000. This means that the last three months of jobs growth have averaged just 75,000. As James Pethokoukis points out, “During the first three years of the Reagan Recovery, job growth averaged 273,000 a month for a total of 9.8 million. If you adjust for the larger U.S. population today, the Reagan Recovery averaged 360,000 jobs a month for a three-year total of 13 million jobs.” Compared to his modern predecessors, the ObamaRecovery has been a failure.

We decided to put together a handy little guide, a compilation of various facts about the latest jobs report, which should be enough to convince even the most brain-dead liberal that Barack Obama is a colossal failure.

• More workers joined the federal government's disability program in June than got new jobs, according to two new government reports … While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, fully 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits. (Source)

• At this pace, job creation is not fast enough to lower the unemployment rate with the labor force growing at close to 150,000 per month on average. (Source)

• This continues to be the longest streak — 41 months — of unemployment of 8% or higher since the Great Depression. (Source)

• Back in 2009, Team Obama predicted that if Congress passed its $800 billion stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would be around 5.6% today. (Source)

• If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.8% today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. (Source)

• The number of people who have dropped out of the labor force entirely has exploded by 7.3 million since June 2009. (Source)

• The broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes “all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons,” is 14.9%, up a bit from May. (Source)

• In June, those not in the labor force rose by 34,000 to 87,992, the second highest ever, although good enough to keep the participation rate unchanged at 63.8%, and above the recent April low of 63.6%. (Source)

• The Joint Economic Committee put out a report saying that the Obama recovery now ranks dead last in modern times. (Source)

• According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP has expanded only 6.7 percent over the eleven-quarter recovery since the recession ended. The Reagan recovery at the same stage had increased by 17.6 percent. The Clinton recovery by 8.7 percent. (Source)

• The average length of unemployment rose to 39.9 weeks in June, close to recent peak. It was 17.4 weeks at the January 2008 peak and 23.9 weeks in June 2009, when the recession officially ended. (Source)

• Private-sector employment still down 3.9%, or 4.502 million. Government jobs overall are down 1.9%, with federal jobs (ex post office) up 10.7%. (Source)

• The number of startup firms has crashed from pre-recession highs, still near levels previously seen in the early 1980s, when the number of establishments was far lower. Establishments less than a year old, including those belonging to the same firm, totaled 556,553 in 2010, according to the latest Commerce Department data. That's down 26% from the peak of 747,278 in 2006. (Source)

• There was a net decline of 406,000 in the number of Americans age 25 or older with a bachelor’s degree or higher who were working in the United States in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Source)

• There are now 1.735 million young Americans who are no longer counted as “employed” because they have given up looking for a job and have left the labor force all together. If “the labor force participation rate were factored into the overall 18-29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18-29-unemployment rate would rise to 16.8 percent.” (Source)

• After adjusting for inflation, median annual household income tumbled 5.3% from June 2009 to May 2012. In contrast, median incomes dropped 2.6% during the 18-month recession. (Source)

• 184,000 more black American's went without a job in June, for an unemployment rate of 14.4 percent. (Source)

But if you ask the Obama campaign, they will tell you “not to read too much” into these monthly jobless reports. They’ve used that line no less than 30 times since November 2009 …