{"id":18304,"date":"2016-12-02T15:09:02","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T15:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18304"},"modified":"2016-12-02T15:09:02","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T15:09:02","slug":"jobless-rate-falls-look-for-the-critics-to-chime-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18304","title":{"rendered":"Jobless rate falls; look for the critics to chime in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"jobseeking\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Labor has just released its latest job report.<\/p>\n

The nation added 178,000 private-sector jobs in November. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent. Both numbers were better than economists had forecasted.<\/p>\n

Good news, yes? Well, not exactly. That depends on a single political factor, or so it seems: your political persuasion.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama has overseen an astounding string of consecutive months with job growth: the count now stands at 81 months. When he took office in January 2009, the nation was shedding three-quarters of a million jobs a month; we were in the midst of that worldwide economic\/financial collapse, if memory serves.<\/p>\n

Jobs are up.<\/p>\n

The jobless rate is down to 4.6 percent. That’s the lowest since the days of the Clinton administration.<\/p>\n

Good news, yes?<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/money\/markets\/stock-futures-mostly-flat-after-jobs-report-beats-expectations\/ar-AAl2Dyb?li=BBnbfcN<\/a><\/p>\n

Hold on! Not quite. Obama critics cite something called the “workplace participation rate.” That includes a metric that measures the number of people looking for work. When the jobless rate falls to this kind of level, the critics suggest that’s a symptom of folks who no longer are “participating” in the job search.<\/p>\n

Thus, the good<\/em> news becomes bad<\/em> news … according to the critics.<\/p>\n

There used to be a time when you could measure joblessness and economic health using the number of jobs being created and the rate of unemployment.<\/p>\n

Jobs are up. Joblessness is down.<\/p>\n

That’s no longer good enough.<\/p>\n

My head is spinning.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of Labor has just released its latest job report. The nation added 178,000 private-sector jobs in November. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent. Both numbers were better than economists had forecasted. Good news, yes? Well, not exactly. That depends on a single political factor, or so it seems: your political persuasion. … Continue reading Jobless rate falls; look for the critics to chime in<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[540,2503,5047],"class_list":["post-18304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-joblessness","tag-us-labor-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18306,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18304\/revisions\/18306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}