#msg-1237156
Damn good thing that we're around to lift your fog of willful ignorance, ain't it, dearie?!
'REAL Unemployment Rate 6.3% -7.4%': Deep Dive Thread Into Jan Jobs Report RAINS All Over Biden's Parade
http://twitchy.com/samj/2024/02/02/antoni-jobs-report-thread-n2392475
The January 24 Jobs Report dropped today and of course, our pals on the Left are doing what they do every month and acting like Biden is doing a great job! So many new jobs created! Unemployment down! BIDEN BOOM they say.
And as usual, it's a bunch of horse crap.
Big thanks to E.J. Atoni, Ph.D. for doing the actual footwork and showing the reality of our country right now.
Hint, it ain't good.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ STOP going crazy about this jobs report: BLS themselves told us last month that data from Jan '24 and later months are NOT directly comparable to prior months because of methodology changes - stay tuned for a full thread on this jobs report ...
And here we go:
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ Jan jobs report 🧵 - here's what you need to know that the talking heads and gov't statisticians won't tell you, including why the real unemployment rate is between 6.3% and 7.4% ...
But wait, there's more.
Lots more and none of it looks good for the Biden administration or Democrats in general.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ First the headlines:
Nonfarm payrolls rose 353k last month
Unemployment rate steady at 3.7% (more on that later)
Note that updates to the BLS' data make it difficult to compare Jan '24 to prior months, so this monthly change needs an important qualifier ...
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ In brief, things once again look good b/c prior periods were revised down; the new seasonal adjustments and other changes reduced the number of payrolls in every month last year except Dec; cumulative monthly difference is -1.3 million w/ average monthly difference -126k ...
Gotta love those magical revisions.
Ok, only if you're Biden.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ So, do we have more jobs or not? Depends on which survey you look at: establishment survey, which allows for double counting, continues rising while household survey declines - there's an unprecedented gap between the 2 right now:
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ Another important divergence is part-time vs. full-time; even after adjusting for seasonal changes which are huge in Jan, economy still lost full-time jobs and only gained part-time jobs ...
Not to mention how many Americans are having to work multiple jobs just to tread water in Biden's economy.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ That's a continuation of an established trend: part-time has trended upward fairly consistently while full-time has leveled off; economy has lost ~1.6 million full-time jobs since Jun '23 and replaced them w/ ~1.6 million part-time jobs, which helps explain the next red flag ...
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ Weekly hours are plummeting, now down to lowest level since covid lockdowns; aside from abnormalities of '20, it's at the lowest level since the Great Recession w/ housing meltdown and global financial crisis; firms are cutting hours and replacing full-time jobs w/ part-time:
Weekly hours are plummeting.
Not good.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ As people work fewer hours, their paychecks buy less, even w/ hourly raises, b/c prices are still rising faster than weekly earnings; significantly higher hourly wages still leave workers behind - about 4.3% behind Jan '21 ...
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ As far as where the jobs are, they have overwhelmingly been created in gov't and gov't dominated/funded healthcare sector - take away both direct and indirect gov't expenditures funded by debt and Y/Y job growth turns negative, pointing to unsustainability ...
Government jobs.
Color us SHOCKED. Biden is growing the government ... and calling it 'job creation'.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ Interesting to note who has the jobs: they've all gone to foreign-born workers; not only are native-born workers way below their pre-pandemic trend, but they're even below the pre-pandemic level (Jan '24 vs. Jan '20):
Foreign-born workers.
Shocking.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ In just the last year, a net 193k native-born workers lost their jobs, while a net 1.2 million foreign-born workers gained jobs (important to use Y/Y comparisons w/ these datasets b/c they're not seasonally adjusted):
Holy crap.
Welcome to Biden's America.
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ And the number of people missing from the labor force remains stubbornly high, artificially reducing the unemployment rate ...
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ Depending on which methodology you prefer, you can calculate a more realistic unemployment rate that accounts for all of these missing workers: somewhere between 6.3% and 7.4% - that's not horrific, but significantly higher than "official" 3.7% ...
E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) ~ TLDR: economy is still adding jobs, but they're overwhelmingly lower pay, fewer hours, and either directly or indirectly paid by gov't; also, Fed will need to look for a different excuse to cut rates and end QT - another banking crisis would fit the bill perfectly ...
But hey, otherwise great report, Joe.
Aces.
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