Misery Index: The Obama Depression - "Private sector doing just Fine"

[Soul Crusher]

September 10, 2012

The Truth About the Unemployment Rate in 2 Graphs

Brenton Stransky
 



See also: Un-Spinning Jobs Numbers
 
On the first Friday of every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases their important "Jobs Report" that details the previous month's employment statistics.  Among the menagerie of data points, the most important figure to the average American is the un-employment rate, and according to Friday's report of the August numbers, that rate fell from 8.3 to 8.1%.
 
Unfortunately, the 8.1% jobless rate is misleading and is a significant tail wind for the Obama campaign. When clarified, however, the un-employment rate is actually closer to 11.6%!
 
To the un-assuming observer, the month over month decline in the un-employment rate may seem to indicate that the economy is improving and even that the President's economic policy might be the proximate cause.  To the more astute observer, the report showed the slowing of job creation to less than 100K; less than needed to compensate for population growth and less than the 2011 average of 153K jobs. 
 
This distinction in the un-employment rate might be the most important figure in determining the winner of the 2012 Presidential race.  Despite the political noise that enshrouds a presidential election, this election - like others - will come down to one important matter: the economy.
 
James Carville, President Clinton's campaign advisor famously said "the economy, stupid" and set it as the primary campaign point of Clinton's 1994 Presidential race.  Clinton deftly pivoted, targeted the faltering economy, and defeated the sitting president.  Romney should take note.
 
"The economy," in turn, can be discussed with one statistic; the unemployment rate.  Harry Truman famously said "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own."  The 1952 race was about the economy, the 1994 race was about the economy, it's still about the economy and it will always be about the economy.
 
For at least the last 70 years, no president has been re-elected when the unemployment rate was over 7.2%.
 
With the entire election -- perhaps -- contingent upon on this one, important data point, it is important to investigate the figure further.  From 2002, the un-employment rate fell steadily to a cyclical low of 4.4% but -- as a result of the 2008 Financial/Housing Crisis -- rose to 10% by the end of President Obama's  first year in office; second only to the 1983, post war high of 10.8%.
 

The President and his campaign have identified the threat to their re-election hopes posed by the high un-employment figure and are quick to point out that despite the current rate of 8.1%, the un-employment rate has steadily fallen.
 
Here's what they're not telling you: since the start of the financial crisis, the labor participation rate -- defined by the BLS as the percentage of the workforce (anyone 16 and older who was working or looking for work) that is employed (full-time or part-time) -- has fallen precipitously.  In other words, many workers have simply stopped looking for work.
 
 

According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve office, there are about 240 million Americans of working age.  When the President took office in 2009, the Labor Participation rate was 65.8% but has fallen to 63.5% --the lowest in 30 years -- as of Friday's BLS report.  This means that since the President has taken office, 5.5 million Americans have stopped looking for work and are not included in the un-employment rate!
 
According BLS's August data, of the approximate 240 million Americans of Working Age, 155 Million are participating in the work force and 12.5 Million are un-employed.  This produces a un-employment rate of 8.1% (12.5M un-employed / 155 employed).  But, when we add back the 5.5 million Americans who have given up looking for work during the Obama Presidency, we can calculate a more accurate un-employment figure of 11.6% (17M/155M).  When the 8M "involuntary part-time employees" - those who want to work full time but can't find full-time jobs -- are added to those un-employed and to those who have stopped looking for work we come up with the "under-employed rate;" currently 16.8%!
 
Friday's BLS report may seem to suggest that the un-employment rate is falling at an acceptable pace and the President and his campaign will likely point out that 8.1% is a lot better than 10.0%.  We political observers should recognize this tactic as putting lipstick on a pig.
 
How can the ranks of the un-employed continue to rise while the un-employment rate drops?  Political fixing may be at work.  After all, it was reported this week that the President's former senior advisor and current re-election senior strategist, David Axelrod, threatened the Gallop organization earlier this year for an unfavorable poll that showed Mitt Romney with a 48-43 lead over President Obama for the 2012 presidential election.  If the White House will lean on private organizations for their data, we can assume they also lean on inter-governmental agencies such as the BLS.
 
If the President can convince the country that the un-employment rate is improving at an acceptable pace he will win the election.  If R2 are able to convince voters that the un-employment situation is much worse than 8.1%, than they will win because, after all, it's the economy stupid.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/the_truth_about_the_unemployment_rate_in_2_graphs.html#ixzz26B0HbucJ

[Soul Crusher]

AA (American Airlines) to shutter Fort Worth Maintenance Facility (1,090 jobs)
 cbslocal.com ^ | September 10, 2012 | Unattributed

Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 11:55:45 AM by


Excerpted Website:

Snip: The airline plans to eliminate 993 out of 5,150 maintenance jobs in Tulsa. In 2010, the airline closed a Kansas City, Mo., maintenance facility that it acquired in the 2001 purchase of bankrupt TWA.

 Separately, the union for American Airlines flight attendants said 901 of its members have signed up to get payments of $40,000 apiece for quitting their jobs at the financially troubled company so far.


(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.cbslocal.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

Federal regulations increased 7.4% during Obama’s first three years
 Hot Air ^ | 09-11-2012 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 12:28:49 PM


Want an insight on why we’re experiencing the worst recovery since the Great Depression? The US Chamber of Commerce points out that the Code of Federal Regulations has grown at a pace outstripping economic growth — and especially job creation — during the Barack Obama administration, expanding by 7.4%, with a good part of that growth in the first year:

Over the past three years, the bound edition of the Code of Federal Regulations has increased by 11,327 pages – a 7.4 percent increase from Jan. 1, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2011. In 2009, the increase in the number of pages was the most over the last decade – 3.4 percent or 5,359 pages.

Over the past decade, the federal government has issued almost 38,000 new final rules, according to the draft of the 2011 annual report to Congress on federal regulations by the Office of Management and Budget. That brought the total at the end of 2011 to 169,301 pages.

That is more than double the number of pages needed to publish the regulations back in 1975 when the bound edition consisted of 71,244 pages.

The figures were released on Monday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., when the business federation held its annual Labor Day briefing on the state of the economy, obstacles to job creation and the burden of regulations on the labor market.

To put this in perspective, the growth rate in the first George W. Bush term — when he enjoyed one-party control of Washington for a couple of years as well — was 4.4%. That was bad enough; by 2008, the annual compliance cost to the economy was $1.7 trillion, according to a 2010 Small Business Administration study. If compliance costs increase at the same ratio as regulations, the Obama administration added nearly $126 billion in compliance costs in three years.

But that ratio may not tell us the whole story. Regulations still remain to be written for Obama’s two biggest legislative “achievements” — ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. The passage of both bills created massive ambiguity on compliance costs, because both bills deferred a huge amount of regulatory production to bureaucrats within the executive branch. Much of that regulation remains to be written, no doubt delayed beyond the election so as to prevent discussion of the far-reaching implications of the power Congress handed to HHS and other agencies.

When those regimes get fully fleshed out, expect the increase rate of regulation to skyrocket — and investment to decline.

[Soul Crusher]

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/11/obama-on-track-to-have-worst-job-record-since-worl/?page=all



Wow.    What a friggin disaster. 

[Soul Crusher]

Does this look like an economy that’s moving forward? 9 reasons why it really doesn’t
The American Enterprise Institute ^ | September 11, 2012 | James Pethokoukis
Posted on September 12, 2012 1:26:07 AM EDT by 2ndDivisionVet

I would like to believe the U.S. economy is firmly back on track and headed toward renewed prosperity. A slow track, to be sure, but at least things are moving forward. That would be something, at least.

Except the data show a recovery in reverse, headed the wrong way.

1. More jobs were created per month last year than this year (and pitifully few in both years). Since the start of the year, job growth has averaged 139,000 per month vs. an average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011. At this year’s pace, it will take 11 years to bring the unemployment rate back down to 5%.

2. Back in 2009, the incoming Obama administration predicted sub-6% unemployment in 2012 if Congress passed the $800 billion stimulus plan. Instead, we’ve had 43 straight months of 8%-plus unemployment. And that high level of sustained joblessness is likely contributing to a deterioration in the U.S. labor force and higher structural unemployment.

3. The labor force participation rate is lower today than at the start of the year, and lower than at the start of 2011. Yes, the economy has created private-sector jobs every month for the past 30 months, since February 2010. But during that span, labor force participation has continued to drop. If the participation rate were the same today as it was in February 2010, when the job market supposedly bottomed, the unemployment rate would be 10.1%.

4. The unemployment-population ratio, which looks at what portion of the working-age population has a job, is also lower today than it was at the start of the year and seems dead in the water:

(GRAPH AT LINK)

As JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli argues:

The more comprehensive employment-to-population ratio ticked down to 58.3%; this measure is a mere 0.1% above its cycle trough, indicating that once one takes account of population growth there has been essentially no progress in repairing the labor market after the recent downturn.

5. Average hourly earnings were unchanged in the August jobs report, and are up just 1.7% over the past year. Not only does that match the slowest pace on record, but one you account for inflation, wages are flat to down.

(GRAPH AT LINK)

6. Last year, the economy, adjusted for inflation, grew by 1.8%. Right now, it’s on track to do about the same this year. Another year of sub-normal growth, below 3%, means the output gap between where GDP is and where it should be (if the economy were growing merely at trend) continues to grow. If GDP growth in 2011 and 2012 were 3% and not a bit less than 2%, the economy would be $350 billion bigger in 2013 than where it is headed to be.

(GRAPH AT LINK)

7. The American economy is less competitive than it was last year or the year before, according to the latest competitiveness report from the World Economic Forum: ”The United States continues the decline that began a few years ago, falling 2 more positions to take 7th place this year.”

The United States now ranks 7th in the WEF rankings out of 144 nations vs. 5th in 2011, 4th in 2010, and number 1 in 2008. Two growing problems: a) wasteful and ineffective government and b) crony capitalism.

8. The day of fiscal reckoning grows ever nearer as the national debt grows, and Washington fails to constrain out-of-control entitlement spending. Indeed, some economists think the debt is already slowing growth.

(GRAPH AT LINK)

9. Growth is so slow right now that if anything goes wrong, we are likely to slip back into recession and problems 1-8 above get even worse.

(GRAPH AT LINK)

America is not stuck in a sluggish or disappointing economic recovery. It’s in the middle of an economic emergency with more trouble on the way. And it’s time for Washington to start acting like it.

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2012/09/11/obama-has-had-plenty-of-time-but-gave-us-0-3-growth-instead


Damn that is terrible.   

WORST ON RECORD

[Soul Crusher]

11 Heartbreaking Facts About Poverty In America
Eric Platt|21 minutes ago|1,097|2
Spencer Platt/Getty Images


 
People line-up to receive food at a distribution point that was handed out by the Food Bank of the Southern Tier Mobile Food Pantry in Deposit, New York.
 
Nearly one-in-six Americans remain below the poverty line as the country grapples with low growth and moderate jobs growth, new data from the Census Bureau shows.
 
To qualify for poverty a family of four must earn less than $22,811
 
In its report released today, the Census Bureau painted a detailed picture of the difficulty many Americans are facing, including declining household earnings.
 
Below, 11 sad statistics from the report.
 46.2 million Americans are under the poverty line — that's 15.7 percent of the country
 1-in-15 American households earned less than $11,406, the second highest percentage since 1967
 Median household incomes fell 1.5 percent to $50,100
 48.6 million Americans did not have health insurance in 2011 (down from 2010)
 9.4 percent of children did not have health insurance
 The bottom 10 percent of earners made the same amount of money in 2011 as they did in 1994
 Women continued to earn 77 percent of what men earned
 27.6 percent of Black Americans were in poverty
 25.3 percent of Hispanic Americans were in poverty
 9.8 percent of White Americans were in poverty
 More than one-fifth of those under 18 were in poverty
 
The Census' report included charts that illustrate how key trends have evolved over time.
 
Click here to see the charts >


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/poverty-in-america-2012-9?op=1#ixzz26GxeRCPy

[whork]

I thought poor people were lazy and had it coming

[Soul Crusher]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/more-americans-opting-out-of-banking-system/2012/09/12/6380b986-fcf1-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_story.html


Black market rapidly expanding 

[Soul Crusher]

Homelessness and panhandling in New York City
 

Posted: Sep 12, 2012 7:51 PM EDTUpdated: Sep 13, 2012 7:41 AM EDT

By KERRY DREW, Fox 5 News Reporter
MYFOXNY.COM -

New York City has a rising homeless population; it is up nearly 18 percent since 2011. Panhandlers now line city streets, including in Union Square.
 
"I was married, had a wife, house, car, the whole nine yards, middle class," Paul Santo said, "and lost everything."
 
Santo said he now lives just off 14th Street. Every day he puts up a sign asking for cash.
 
"I've got appointments to try and better my life," he said. "Just getting on a train is $2.25."
 
Amy Moreno, a panhandler, said: "I ask for donations. I want to rent a room to get off the street before winter."
 
Moreno said she sleeps in Union Square twice a week. The other nights, she stays with friends. She makes bracelets for those who give her donations.
 
"It goes towards the beads, it goes towards my daily food intake," she said.
 
Patrick Markee, of the Coalition for the Homeless, said: "A lot of times those folks are a couple of paychecks away from becoming homeless. You might see people panhandling who are still in a precarious housing situation, they might just need those few extra dollars to get by."
 
Markee said the city is in its worst homeless crisis since the Great Depression. He said every night an estimated 45,000 people sleep in shelters across the city, and more sleep on the streets.
 
Then there are the panhandlers -- some of whom are homeless, some just looking for extra cash. 

"In my neighborhood, the East Village, I see a lot more people sleeping on the streets," Markee said. "I see a lot more people with cardboard signs asking for money. The street homelessness feels more visible."
 
The New York City legal department said peaceful panhandling has been legal since 1996; it is considered a First-Amendment right.
 
According to an NYPD spokesperson, beggars can only be arrested if they become aggressive or block traffic.
 
"Where I am now, a closed business, they're not going to bother me," Santo said. For now, he plans to keep panhandling.
 
"I'm on the street, but I'm on the list for housing right now," he said. "So hopefully that will go through."


Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19529462/homelessness-and-panhandling-in-new-york-city#ixzz26LrL0Hg3

[Soul Crusher]

Rich-Poor Gap Widens to Most Since 1967 as Income Falls

By Catherine Dodge and Mike Dorning - Sep 12, 2012 3:33 PM ET
 

A teenager who collects bottles and cans and lives in a city shelter walks near Times Square in New York City.
 
A census report showing median household income fell last year puts a new focus on the biggest issue of the U.S. presidential election. And it’s likely to be deployed by both candidates to reinforce their campaign themes.


People attend a food distribution by the Food Bank of the Southern Tier Mobile Food Pantry in Oswego, New York. The U.S. Census Bureau released figures today that showed the proportion of people living in poverty was 15 percent in 2011. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images


The U.S. Census Bureau figures released yesterday underscored the struggles of American families in a sputtering economic recovery. The report also showed the income gap between rich and poor people grew to the widest in more than 40 years in 2011 as the poverty rate remained at almost a two-decade high.

“Weirdly, I think you’re going to see both sides take these numbers and suggest it’s evidence why ‘I should be elected,’” said Steve Jarding, a lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former Democratic political consultant.

Median household income dropped 1.5 percent last year while the proportion of Americans living in poverty was 15 percent, little changed from 2010. The 46.2 million people living in poverty remained at the highest level in the 53 years since the Census Bureau has been collecting that statistic.

The economic plight of Americans is at the center of November’s presidential election. Republican challenger Mitt Romney argues that people are worse off because of President Barack Obama’s economic policies. Obama counters that Romney would push plans benefiting the wealthiest at the expense of the middle class and those striving to escape poverty.

‘More Evidence’

“Romney is going to say, ‘This is more evidence Obama failed,’” Jarding said. “Obama is saying, ‘It’s guys like Romney who gave us these income drops and this poverty level.’”

Romney has stressed tax cuts for wealthy “job creators” as a way of boosting economic growth, while Obama has focused on maintaining government support for education, health care and other programs financed by tax increases on higher-income earners.

The president got some good news from the census report, which said the number of Americans who lack health insurance declined to 15.7 percent from 16.3 percent. Many people under the age of 26 took advantage of a provision in Obama’s 2010 health-care overhaul that allowed them to be covered under their parents’ plans.

About 540,000 more young people were insured in 2011, the bureau said. Nationwide, about 48.6 million people were uninsured last year, compared with 49.9 million a year earlier.

Sharpened Attacks

During the Democratic National convention earlier this month, the Obama campaign sharpened its criticism of Republican economic policies under former President George W. Bush as undermining the middle class and accused congressional Republicans of obstructing progress.

Those attacks are resonating with many voters. Americans blame Bush and Congress more than Obama for the decline in middle-class living standards over the past decade, according to a July 16-26 Pew Research Center poll. Among respondents who described themselves as middle class, 62 percent placed “a lot” of responsibility on Congress and 44 percent faulted Bush, compared with 34 percent who said Obama is culpable.

Within hours of the census data release, a posting on the White House’s official blog written by Obama spokeswoman Amy Brundage cited the figures as reason that Republicans in Congress “should act this month” to pass an Obama-backed jobs package they have opposed for a year.

‘Pro-Growth Agenda’

The Romney camp used the release to criticize the president. “Nearly one in six Americans are living in poverty, including a record number of women, and the middle class is struggling amid falling incomes, rising prices, and persistently high unemployment,” Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. “Mitt Romney’s pro-growth agenda will revive our economy.”

Dan Schnur, a campaign adviser to Republican John McCain’s 2000 bid for the White House, said the impact on the election campaign is diminished, both because public perceptions of the economy are so well-entrenched and Obama’s campaign themes stress the contrast between the two parties’ economic principles over progress on the economy.

“If Obama had given a convention speech that tried to tell the country how well the economy was doing, a report like this one would have undercut that message very severely,” said Schnur, now director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “But numbers like this underscore what voters already know.”

Wealthiest Gain

The census data show the wealthiest Americans secured most of the benefits from the economic recovery that began in June 2009.

“The gains from economic growth in 2011 were quite unevenly shared as household income fell in the middle and rose at the top,” Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, said on a conference call with reporters.

Average incomes fell for the bottom 80 percent of earners and rose for the top 20 percent, highlighting the need for “those at the top to share” as the nation looks to reduce its budget deficit, Greenstein said.

The top 1 percent of households experienced about a 6 percent increase in income, said David Johnson, chief of the social, economic and housing division at the Census Bureau.

While the ranks of Americans in poverty were little changed in 2011, median household income last year was $50,054, down from an inflation-adjusted $50,831 in 2010. In 2011, median household income, adjusted for inflation, was 8.1 percent less than in 2007, the year before the recession began, and 8.9 percent below its peak in 1999.

Not Enough

The weighted-average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2011 was about $23,000, according to the census.

“Even though the recovery has been slow, the economy has been expanding,” said Melissa Boteach, who coordinates an effort to cut U.S. poverty in half in 10 years at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based research group with ties to the Obama administration. “The gains from the economic growth have not reached working families struggling at the bottom.”

U.S. unemployment, which hovered at or above 9 percent for most of 2011, has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, the longest stretch in monthly records going back to 1948. The increase in hardship comes as state and federal governments are cutting spending to close budget deficits.

Modest Expansion

The income figures declined as the U.S. economy expanded 1.8 percent in 2011, down from 2.4 percent in 2010. Growth has averaged a 1.9 percent annual rate through the first six months of this year.

The Census Bureau also reported that a measure of the gap between rich and poor households rose. A figure of zero means all income is evenly distributed while a 1 represents complete concentration. The measurement, known as the Gini index, rose to .463 from .456. The figure has risen steadily from its 1968 low of .351.

The persistent poverty rates pose a threat to the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness as more and more children are growing up in poor households, Boteach said. Down the road, that leads to higher health-care costs, lower educational levels and reduced worker productivity.

“We’re really shooting ourselves in the foot if we don’t tackle early childhood poverty,” she said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Catherine Dodge in New York at cdodge1@bloomberg.net Frank Bass in New York at Fbass1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark McQuillan at mmcquillan@bloomberg.net

[Soul Crusher]

US median income lowest since 1995
 
By James Politi in Washington



The median income of American households dropped to its lowest level since 1995 last year, extending its decline during President Barack Obama’s tenure and highlighting the depth of the damage to the middle class inflicted by the recession and weak recovery.
 
According to annual data from the Census Bureau, median income adjusted for inflation – a closely watched measure of the financial health of average Americans – fell to $50,054 in 2011, or 1.5 per cent below its 2010 level and 4.1 per cent below its score when Mr Obama took office in 2009.

 
Although real median income had already started to slide beginning in 2008, before Mr Obama entered the White House, the fact that he was not able to reverse that downward trend could expose him to criticism from Mitt Romney, his rival, that his policies have not aided the middle class. In addition to the drop in overall median income, the data also showed a rise in income inequality last year.
 
The release of the dire median figures also offers the latest reminder of the sluggishness of the recovery, marked by high unemployment and weak job creation, which is prompting Federal Reserve officials to consider a new round of monetary easing as early as Thursday.
 
But while the data on income will have been discouraging for Mr Obama, other elements of the report were more upbeat. For instance, the poverty rate dropped slightly, from 15.1 per cent to 15 per cent, as fewer middle-class Americans struggled so much that they had slid under the poverty threshold of about $23,000 in annual income for a family of four.
 
Also, the Census Bureau said that the number of people without health insurance cover declined from 50m in 2010 to 48.6m in 2011, along with the percentage of people lacking coverage, which fell from 16.3 per cent in 2010 to 15.7 per cent in 2011.

This will allow Mr Obama to show that his 2010 health reform is already starting to have an effect on the number of uninsured, even though many of the provisions have not kicked in yet. For instance, young Americans under the age of 26 are now allowed to be covered under their parents’ plans, reducing the number of youth without medical insurance.



The fresh data on income, poverty and health insurance coverage was delivered as the race for the White House enters its final stretch. With little less than eight weeks to go before voters head to the polls in early November and the sluggish economy at the top of the agenda in many swing states, both Mr Obama and Mr Romney have attempted to demonstrate that they would be best candidate to deliver relief to middle-class Americans.
 
Mr Obama is championing higher taxes on the wealthy in order to protect government spending on programmes that aid the middle class as the best recipe for the country. But the census data could dent a small burst of rising confidence in the economy that has showed up in polls by Gallup and Reuters/Ipsos since last week’s Democratic convention.
 
Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council at the White House, said the data reinforced the need to move forward with Mr Obama’s policies, some of which have been blocked by congressional Republicans. “While we have made progress digging our way out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, too many families are still struggling and Congress must act on the policies President Obama has put forward to strengthen the middle class and those trying to get into it,” Mr Sperling wrote in a blog post.
 
Mr Romney, a former private equity executive, has promised to use his business expertise to create a better environment for hiring and investment that he claims would directly benefit middle-class Americans.
 
“Today’s report confirms that the American dream remains out of reach for too many Americans,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman. “While this may be the best President Obama can do, it’s not the best America can do”.
 
The annual census data can often become a critical reference in US political campaigns. Mr Obama and Democrats in Congress effectively used the stagnation of median household income during the administration of George W. Bush to target Republican economic policies during the congressional election of 2006 and the presidential election of 2008.

Real median household income reached its peak at $54,932 in 1999, 8.9 per cent above its current level, under President Bill Clinton and has not been below $50,000 since 1995. Under President George W. Bush, it fell to $52,778 by 2004 before recovering to reach $54,489 in 2007 and then sliding again in 2008.

[whork]

You do know a Romney presidency will further widen the gap between rich and poor right?

[Soul Crusher]

BIG MISS: Initial Jobless Claims Jump 15K To 382K
Eric Platt|13 minutes ago|810|5

UPDATE:
 
Initial jobless claims jumped unexpectedly in the first week of September, new data out of the Department of Labor shows.
 
Click here for updates >
 
382,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending September 8, up some 15,000 from a week earlier.
 
However, continuing claims showed some improvement during the period, with 3.283 million people remaining on benefit. That's down from 3.332 million a week before.
 
A figure that popped out at us: the non-seasonally adjusted number of first time unemployment followers dropped to 297,402 during the week.
 
Below, a look at initial claims over the past few years.
 





Eric Platt/Business Insider, Data: Department of Labor
 






Eric Platt/Business Insider, Data: Department of Labor
 

ORIGINAL:
 
Minutes away from the key economic announcement of the morning: Initial Jobless Claims.
 
Economists forecast first time claims increased from a week earlier, hitting 370,000 in the week ending September 8.
 
Continuing claims are expected to decline marginally to 3.318 million from 3.322 million.
 
The Department of Labor will release figures at 8:30 a.m.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/initial-jobless-claims-sept-8-2012-9#ixzz26LxjC1aq

[Soul Crusher]

Survey: One-Third Of Americans In ‘Lower Classes’ Since Obama Took Office

By Benjamin Fearnow

September 12, 2012 5:00 PM




An increase of people identifying as “lower class” has happened since Obama took office in 2008. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)


Follow WNEW's Election Watch 2012 Coverage Here

»More Political News
 

WASHINGTON (CBS WASHINGTON) – In the course of Obama’s presidency, people saying they are in the “lower classes” have risen from one-quarter to one-third of the adult population.
 
According to the Pew Research Center, Americans who say they are in the lower-middle or lower-class has risen from 25 percent to 32 percent in the past four years, in the national survey of 2,508 adults.
 
Not only has the lower class grown, but its demographic profile also has shifted. People younger than 30 are disproportionately swelling the ranks of the self-defined lower classes. The shares of Hispanics and whites who place themselves in the lower class also are growing.
 
Among blacks, the story is different.
 
The share of blacks in the lower class has not changed in four years, one of the few demographic groups in which the proportion in the lower classes did not grow. As a consequence, a virtually identical share of blacks (33%) and whites (31%) now say they are in the lower class.

 

When it comes to political affiliation, more Democrats than Republicans place themselves in the lower classes, but those of the GOP saw a sharper rise over the past four years. Some 23 percent now call themselves lower class, up from 13 percent in 2008. Among Democrats, 33 percent now call themselves lower class, compared with 29 percent in 2008.
 
The survey finds that hard times have been particularly hard on the lower class.
 
Eight-in-ten adults (84%) in the lower classes say they had to cut back spending in the past year because money was tight, compared with 62 percent who say they are middle class and 41 percent who say they are in the upper classes. Those in the lower classes also say they are less happy and less healthy, and the stress they report experiencing is more than other adults.
 
To measure social class, the Pew Research surveys in 2012 and 2008 asked respondents this question: “If you were asked to use one of these commonly used names for the social classes, which would you say you belong in: the upper class, upper-middle class, middle class, lower-middle class or lower class?”
 
Few respondents in either survey placed themselves in the “lower class” or “upper class” categories. So for this report “lower class” constitutes those who placed themselves in the lower or lower-middle class. Those who identified themselves as upper or upper-middle class are combined to form the “upper class” group.
 
Looking ahead, a bleak future is predicted by many.
 
Many in the lower class see their prospects dimming. About three-quarters (77%) say it’s harder now to get ahead than it was 10 years ago. Only half (51%) say that hard work brings success, a view expressed by overwhelming majorities of those in the middle (67%) and upper classes (71%).
 
According to Pew, while the expectation that each new generation will surpass their parents is a central tenet of the American Dream, those lower classes are significantly more likely than middle or upper-class adults to believe their children will have a worse standard of living than they do.
 

[whork]

You do know a Romney presidency will further widen the gap between rich and poor right?

[flipper5470]

Explain how that gap will widen?

[whork]

Explain how that gap will widen?

Tax cuts for the uber-rich paid for by the middle class

[flipper5470]

Which tax cuts and what increases are you referring to?

[GigantorX]

Tax cuts for the uber-rich paid for by the middle class

What tax cuts for the wealthy?

Under Romney's plan the rich will pay no more and no less than they do now. Everyone's rates will be cut but the tax expenditures will also be cut, i.e. shelters, credits, write offs etc.

[whork]

What tax cuts for the wealthy?

Under Romney's plan the rich will pay no more and no less than they do now. Everyone's rates will be cut but the tax expenditures will also be cut, i.e. shelters, credits, write offs etc.

Under Romney's plan the rich will pay no more

Everyone's rates will be cut

This is a contradiction.

the tax expenditures will also be cut, i.e. shelters, credits, write offs etc.
= You really believe this? This would mean Romney own tax burden would increase. I highly doubt that

[flipper5470]

So you don't know what you're talking about then....

[GigantorX]

Under Romney's plan the rich will pay no more

Everyone's rates will be cut

This is a contradiction.

the tax expenditures will also be cut, i.e. shelters, credits, write offs etc.
= You really believe this? This would mean Romney own tax burden would increase. I highly doubt that

Yes I do. It's in the plan, this sort of thing has been happening since the 1950's. The rates were skyhigh for upper incomes but the amount of shelters, hideaways, write downs, etc etc etc were gigantic. Also, because of that super high tax rate....tax fraud and other illegal tax evasion activities were considered a normal practice.

[Soul Crusher]

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More Bad News For The Middle Class
 Timothy Noah
September 12, 2012 | 4:30 pm
 .




I’ve been dishing a lot of bad news about the middle class lately, and now I’m afraid I have more. The Census department confirmed today that median household income continued to drop in 2011, the second year of the economic “recovery.” It dropped by about 4 percent, which is pretty close to the estimate produced in late August by two former Census statisticians at Sentier Research (4.8 percent). Unlike Sentier, the Census didn’t conclude that median income fell more during the recovery than during the recession; it found that median income fell by about the same amount in both periods. But that’s hardly cheering. The Census calculation of how much median income has dropped since 2007 (8.1 percent) is a bit higher than Sentier’s (7.4 percent). The time frames for the two studies were slightly different, so there may be no discrepancy at all. The point is: Yes, economically you are worse off today than you were four years ago, assuming you’re a typical American household. (But you should still vote for Obama, even though Obama didn’t do a very good job last week telling you why.)
 
Income inequality is getting worse. We already knew that the rich resumed increasing its share of the nation’s collective income in 2010, when a remarkable 93 percent of the recovery ended up in the pockets of the one percent. “I would strongly suspect,” Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said today in a conference call, “that that kind of trend, at least directionally, ... continued in 2011,” given the new Census data and the run-up in the stock market. What‘s new in 2011 is that a commonly-used statistical measure for income inequality—one that doesn’t do a particularly good job of measuring the one percent’s rapidly-growing share of the nation’s income, but measures very precisely the broader-brush income gulf between middle-class and upper-middle class workers--that this measure, the Gini index, saw its first statistically significant one-year rise since 1993. When we look at growing income share for the one percent we’re looking at the pigs-feeding-in-the-trough condition of the economic elite. When we look at the Gini we’re looking at the declining condition of the middle class. The higher it goes, the worse off the middle class is.
 
The Gini index has been mostly rising over the past decade, but it never before rose enough to attract much attention. In 2011, though, it rose s full1.6 percent. Overall, the Gini is up 5.2 percent since 1993. Most of that growth took place during the aughts. During the Clinton years the Gini index was relatively stable, and during the Reagan years it went up a lot. Under George W. Bush and now Barack Obama, it’s once again going up a lot.
 
There’s been a lot of argument about how much the middle class has declined, and what the causes are. But everybody agrees that it’s declined. I think (and argue in my book, The Great Divergence) that there are a lot of causes, foremost among them a rising educational premium (first for college graduates, now for holders of advanced degrees) and the precipitous decline of labor unions. If we don’t increase high school graduation rates, and make higher education more affordable, and make pre-school universal, and increase union membership, then middle-class decline will continue. Inequality between the middle class and the upper middle class is mostly a separate phenomenon from inequality between the one percent and everyone else, but they are connected in one key respect: As corporations have become more attentive to stockholders and less attentive to workers (because very few workers in the private sector are still unionized), resources have been shifting from labor to capital. You don’t believe me? Ask J.P. Morgan. For a more detailed examination, see the Economic Policy Institute’s new edition of The State of Working America (pp. 99-106). The authors attribute fully one-third of the one percent’s doubling of U.S. income share since 1979 to the shift from capital to labor. That’s money that used to go to working people.
 
We also need to increase opportunities for upward mobility. The U.S. is still pretty good at moving people up from the middle class to the upper-middle class (at least if you’re white), but it’s dismally bad at replenishing the ranks of the middle class from the poor--so bad, in fact, that on international measures of intergenerational mobility, the U.S. lags most of western Europe. A thriving middle class is a necessary precondition for a free representative government. As the late Harvard sociologist Barrington Moore famously observed, “No bourgeois, no democracy.” Maybe the U.S. can become the exception to that rule, but I wouldn’t count on it.
 .
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Source URL: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/107174/more-bad-news-the-middle-class

[whork]

Yes I do. It's in the plan, this sort of thing has been happening since the 1950's. The rates were skyhigh for upper incomes but the amount of shelters, hideaways, write downs, etc etc etc were gigantic. Also, because of that super high tax rate....tax fraud and other illegal tax evasion activities were considered a normal practice.

And what would Romneys agenda be to close these loop-holes?

He has been using them his entire life