Except it's no longer funny anymore:
"Much of last month’s decline in the unemployment rate was the result of more than 800,000 workers giving up work searches and dropping out of the labor force. Only those who seek work are counted by the Labor Department as unemployed."
"Job market showing stronger growth" by Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff May 03, 2014
I can't think of a more deceptive headline, although I suppose that is something that the money-addicted Bo$ton elite need to see.
Hiring soared in April as the US economy created the most jobs in two years, another sign the plodding recovery is finally shaking off the last recession and accelerating toward a stronger expansion.
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The jobs report follows other positive economic reports. Consumer confidence is near a six-year high, business spending on equipment is increasing, and home prices are on the rise.
OMG!
See:
US economy slowed drastically in the first quarter
Sales of US existing homes slip to a 20-month low
“Five years into the recovery from the recession, the economy will need to look to gains in consumer spending and business investment more than housing.”
US economy likely to rebound from slow 1st quarter
Consumer confidence decreases from 6-year high
Why would you believe anything they $ay?
The strongest growth in hiring nationally came from companies that provide technology, accounting, and other business services, a particularly important sector in the Massachusetts economy. Another of the state’s key sectors, health care and education, also experienced strong job gains nationally.
The state will release employment statistics for April in about two weeks, but hiring in Massachusetts has also shown signs of picking up. Last month, employers in the state added more than 8,000 jobs, pushing overall employment to an all-time high of about 3.4 million jobs.
Yup, things are picking up and the outlook is mostly positive.
Related: Mass. economy outpaces US in first quarter growth
“The story for the Massachusetts economy, if you ignore high levels of unemployment and inequality, is the economy has been performing very well.”
Any wonder I'm not liking the smell of bull$hit anymore?
The only month it turned bad was when income taxes were due to be lowered back in October!
Kip Hollister, founder of the Boston staffing firm Hollister, Inc., said she is seeing signs that the job market is improving for workers in Massachusetts. Companies that not too long ago were mostly hiring temporary or contract workers are now seeking permanent employees; the demand for workers to fill permanents positions is up about 8 percent from a year ago at her business, Hollister said.
At the same time, employers are starting to find that if they delay too long in making offers to candidates, they may lose those prospects to competitors. “It does show that the times are changing,” Hollister said.
They $ure are!
The nation has added more than 200,000 jobs in each of the past three months, and has regained all the private sector jobs lost in the last recession. The national jobless rate has dropped more than a percentage point in the last year.
But analysts said optimism about the economy should still be tempered. It will likely take another two years to reach the 5.5 percent rate considered full employment. Average hourly earnings were flat in April and only up by 1.9 percent over the year, barely keeping up with inflation.
Those are the ones lucky enough to be trapped even as Wall Street bonuses rise and US firms are sitting on $1.95 trillion -- that's with a t -- in profits in offshore accounts.
In addition, much of last month’s decline in the unemployment rate was the result of more than 800,000 workers giving up work searches and dropping out of the labor force. Only those who seek work are counted by the Labor Department as unemployed.
You have been sidelined because of a weak job market.
Related:
"Officials emphasized [that] unemployment has fallen more quickly than expected because the labor market remains weak. The share of adults with jobs has barely increased since the recession, and many people have stopped looking for work, driving the decline in the official unemployment rate.... Yellen appeared to jolt investors last week.... Yellen’s comments gave encouragement to Wall Street. In both her House and Senate appearances, Yellen sought to emphasize policy continuity with her predecessor, Ben Bernanke."
This after we were told she was more of a dove when it came to usurious banking and the central banking stranglehold over the economy.
She won praise with those that truly matter, but this blaming the weather bit really needs to stop.
Some economists attributed the drop in labor force participation to the expiration of long-term unemployment benefits, which may have removed an incentive for some to continue job searches. Unemployed workers must actively seek work to receive benefits.
There are “people in 30s and 40s who normally should be working are not working,” said Maury N. Harris, an economist with UBS Securities in New York.
But overall, the economy looks to be back on track, said Doug Handler, chief US economist IHS Global Insight, a Lexington forecasting firm. The Federal Reserve’s decision to continue to pare back stimulus measures indicates the policy makers have underlying confidence that the economy is strengthening, Handler said....
Oh, now I feel much better. I mean, they have done such a great job over the last 100 years or so.
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What? The job is only a PART-TIME position?
At least Obama is making over the board with his people.
"Fed pick has academic, policy gravitas" by Binyamin Appelbaum | New York Times March 13, 2014
NEW YORK — Stanley Fischer has worked for much of his professional life to improve economic policy in the developing world. Now he is on the verge of a new role in a country with plenty of economic problems of its own: the United States.
Fischer, nominated by President Obama to be vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is likely to move quickly through a confirmation process that begins with a Senate Banking Committee hearing Thursday.
If confirmed, he would join Janet Yellen, the Fed’s new chairwoman, in figuring out how much more the Fed can do to help the economy recover. Yellen proposed his selection to the White House.
Fischer has supported the efforts by the Fed and other central banks to revive economic growth but has described the benefits as limited. “You could do a lot with monetary policy, but you couldn’t get the economy growing fast again,” he said on Bloomberg Television in September. “You needed fiscal policy.”
Self-effacing, Fischer is skilled at making sharp points without making enemies.
Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary, suggested at a November conference held by the International Monetary Fund in Fischer’s honor that there were fewer financial crises in the decades after World War II because people had acted prudently.
“Larry,” Fischer responded, “I wonder whether the 35 years after World War II had something to do with the fact that financial liberalization hadn’t yet happened.”
Summers was a major proponent of liberalizing US banking laws in the 1990s, including dismantling the Glass-Steagall Act, which strictly limited the ability of commercial banks to engage in securities investments. Some analysts have asserted those changes made the financial system more vulnerable to the credit crisis that led to the Great Recession of 2007.
Fischer’s prepared remarks before the Senate committee focused on the importance of the Fed’s role as regulator. “The Great Recession has driven home the lesson that the Fed has not only to fulfill its dual mandate, but also to contribute its part to the maintenance of the stability of the financial system,” he said.
Fischer, 70, is widely respected in the world of economic policy. His academic work in the 1970s helped provide intellectual justification for today’s activist monetary policy. His students included retired Fed chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.
He subsequently began a career in policy making, including an eight-year run as governor of the Bank of Israel, a job he left in June.
Fischer, born into a family of shopkeepers in present-day Zambia, in a home without running water, amassed a fortune as the author of a best-selling economics textbook and a senior executive at Citigroup. In December, he disclosed assets worth $14.6 million to $56.3 million. He said he would divest some stock and investment holdings if confirmed.
Fischer came to America in the late 1960s for a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then spent nearly two decades there as a professor of economics.
His most famous work was a 1977 paper that helped ignite a revival of the idea that central banks can stimulate economic activity. He became a US citizen in 1976.
He turned to policy making in the 1980s — a change Bernanke would describe as an inspiration — by joining the World Bank as chief economist. After a brief return to academia, he was appointed as the IMF’s first deputy managing director.
Developing nations were hit by crises during Fischer’s time at the fund, and the changes in economic policy the IMF required from countries seeking its help remain controversial. Typical demands included reductions in domestic spending and greater openness to foreign investment.
So the he's the one behind global austerity and is now Yellen's right-hand man.
“Tens of millions of people were unnecessarily thrown into poverty,” said Mark Weisbrot, codirector of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Just the guy we need leading the private central bank thiefdom of AmeriKa.
Fischer’s 2002-2005 tenure at Citigroup also has drawn scrutiny. He oversaw foreign operations, working under a contract that allowed him to leave for a “high-level” government job without surrendering the value of his stock options.
You don't need to Fisch very far to see the conflict of interests of another dual-national.
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Related:
“The customers they most desire are the mass affluent or emerging affluent households that are candidates for multiple products and services.”
Just trying to be a good Citizen I gue$$.
