US jobs report - The numbers we do NOT talk about
I almost posted this in ~news but wasn't really sure so feel free to move the post if I got it wrong.
The new jobs report is out:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
I consistently feel like the media just runs with the unemployment rate and ignores the other very important numbers. I think that the economy isn't really "booming" for ordinary Americans and I think that the numbers in the job report that aren't widely talked about are eye-opening.
These numbers used to be talked about a LOT more immediately after the 2008 recessions and during the OWS protests.
To be clear, I'm happy the stock market is up but I don't think it's "trickling" down all that much.
Some examples:
Long-term unemployed are not finding work:
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.4 million over the month; these individuals accounted for 22.9 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.)
There are ~4.5 million people who are working part-time who want to work full time, and that number is rapidly growing with ~250,000 added since last quarter:
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 263,000 to 4.6 million in September. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)
More than 1.5 million American's gave up looking for work:
In September, 1.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)
Tying this in with the new data regarding a very significant portion of corporate income being held in tax shelters and you can see a country where many things are grinding to a halt.
I can see two general potential options for this ongoing and draining level of unemployment and underemployment:
In the past the government has pumped money into the economy by way of infrastructure projects, arts spending and other endeavors that increased demand for labor when "the market" couldn't or wouldn't employ enough people, and that might be one potential solution. The New Deal created infrastructure, amenities and works of art that are still used and appreciated here 80 years later (though the infrastructure could use some work.) I'm not familiar enough with the drawbacks of increasing the monetary supply to give a good cost/benefit analysis on this, could someone with more understanding of fiscal policy chime in?
In the past there were more people who started their own businesses and created new flows of money through their communities in the process, making money for themselves and also employing others nearby. At the moment the ability to do this domestically in areas of business that require much in the way of infrastructure investment is strongly limited by competition from both larger companies that benefit from efficiencies of scale and foreign companies that benefit in other ways such as being part of a current cluster for that industry or from lower labor or material costs. There are still some options in local services that can't be handled remotely, but that limits options further. (You wouldn't believe how much of the traffic on /r/bookkeeping is people asking how easy it is to start working as a bookkeeper.)
EDIT: Oh, and 3) Subsistence farming, but all the land is currently owned by someone, so there's that problem and it's been enough generations since people were farmers that people would have to either be trained or starve and that's a big problem too.
I don't know how to end this. Workers aren't in a great place, and haven't been for more than a decade now. How does anyone fix it?
Yeah, I own a business, but it's only thanks to my mom who founded it in better times. If I was starting from scratch you'd bet I'd be working for a large corporation, and there's even some days now where I wonder if the risk is worth it as compared to less fulfilling but safer work.
For starters, go vote! :)
Religiously, at every legal opportunity.
And ideally research your candidates. Not what they say they support, but how they actually vote. My local senator said that he supported net neutrality but his votes said otherwise...