MONDAY, MAY 9, 2016

Obama’s Bogus 5% Unemployment Rate

Business Insider says Obama’s economy added 160,000 jobs in April, fewer than expected, as Obama’s so-called “unemployment rate” held steady at 5% because Obama’s claims of a strong economy ring hollow for the many thousands of workers who say they cannot make enough to survive.

Writing for Quartz, Sarah Kendzior says on April 14, Bloomberg News announced that jobless claims in the US had reached their lowest level since 1973. “All other labor market data were telling us that the economy is creating a lot of jobs,” economist Patrick Newport told the outlet. “This was further confirmation that the labor market is strong.”

But that same day, thousands of fast food workers, airport workers, home care workers, and adjunct professors took to the streets across the country to protest brutal labor conditions and demand a $15 minimum wage. Most of these workers make far below $15 per hour. Some make as low as $7.25 per hour, the current federal minimum wage. Most lack benefits. Some, like adjunct professors, have contingent, temporary jobs, sometimes consisting of only one poorly paid course per year. Many low-wage employees work two or even three jobs in an attempt to cobble together enough income to cover basic needs.

According to the US Bureau of Labor, all of those workers are considered “employed.” They are viewed as part of the American economy’s success story, a big part of which is our 5% unemployment rate. As Obama boasted in February: “The United States of America right now has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.”

But Obama’s claims of a strong economy ring hollow for the many thousands of workers—in professions ranging from those which require a GED to those which require a PhD—who say they cannot make enough money to survive. And these people, at least, are working. Those who cannot find work at all tell an even grimmer story.

There are three main reasons Obama’s vaunted economic recovery still feels false to so many. The first is the labor participation rate, which plunged at the start of the Great Recession and discounts the millions of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more. The second is “the 1099 economy,” a term The New Republic’s David Dayen coined to refer to the soaring number of temps, contractors, freelancers, and other often involuntarily self-employed workers. The third is a surge in low-wage service jobs, coupled with a corresponding decrease in middle-class jobs.

Employment statistics in particular have a habit of eclipsing the real story. As any worker will tell you, it is not the number of jobs that matters most, but what kind of jobs are available, what they pay, and how that pay measures against the cost of living. The 5% unemployment rate, other words, is hiding the devastating story of underemployment, wage loss, and precariousness that defines life for millions of Americans.

The Blower says maybe that’s why Donald Trump appears to be reversing his position on raising the Minimum Wage. The presumptive GOP nominee, said Sunday that “people have to get more,” after spending time on the campaign trail striking down the possibility of a minimum wage hike. “I don’t know how people make it on $7.25 an hour,” Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press.