PrintJanuary 9, 2011
Good News! American Workers Are Giving Up
On Friday, the president wasted no time informing the country that unemployment rates had dropped from 9.8% to 9.4%. That sounds pretty good until you dig into the underlying numbers. Then it sounds dire.Despite expectations that the U.S. would add 170,000 new jobs, only 100,000 were added in December. And yet the unemployment rate fell by 0.4%, a feat that would normally require the addition of up to 750,000 new jobs. How could the rate fall so dramatically with job gains of only 100,000?Normally, an increase of 100,000 jobs would not even absorb the number of new entrants (new graduates, immigrants, and those returning to the work force) to the labor market. But we're told that 100,000 jobs have lowered the unemployment rate by 0.4%. It sounds like someone at the Department of Labor is cooking the books (something I've suspected at times but have never been able to prove). Actually, there is a very logical explanation for this anomaly.How can...(Read Full Article)
