The “labor force participation rate” hit a record low hit at 63.2 percent. This represents the percentage of Americans over the age of 16 who have jobs (even if it is part-time or just a temporary job), or are looking for a job. That is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ job numbers released this past Friday.
So after Barack Obama has been in office for 4 and 1/2 years and spent trillions on stimulus, we have a record low number of Americans over the age of 16 who have any job at all or are even optimistic enough to be looking for a job. Almost 40% of the American population over the age of 16 is unemployed or so depressed that they’ve given up looking for work. That is not good news, despite Obama’s claims that we are heading in the right direction.
Jimmy Carter must be smiling because before last Friday, he held the record for the worst labor force participation rate. Now Barack Obama holds the record for this worst jobs record. In 1978, the record was set at 63.4 percent during the Carter-era stagflation.
While President Obama tells us every month that the economy is creating new jobs and points to a falling unemployment rate, he fails to tell the whole story. First, the economy is creating some new jobs. But far too many of those jobs are part-time jobs. And the full-time jobs that are created are not enough to even keep up with population growth. Second, most of the “improvement” in the unemployment rate is not improvement at all. It is simply the result of millions of Americans losing hope and giving up on finding a job. So even the “good news” of an drop in the unemployment rate is not actually good news. It is simply confirmation of more economic bad news.
If the unemployment rate were dropping because the economy was creating lots of good, full-time jobs, that would be one thing. And that is the impression that Obama and his administration hope create. However, the truth is that most of the jobs created in 2013 have been low paying part-time jobs. And far more people have lost hope and given up looking for a job, than have found full-time employment. This is the sad truth that Obama would like to avoid.
There are 90 million americans who are without a decent full-time job. Obama was elected in 2008 telling he knew how to fix the economy. Now more than four and a half years later, it is clear he has no idea how to fix the economy or no interest in doing so. In fact, much of his agenda — ObamaCare, increased regulation, higher taxes, anti-energy policies, etc — has extended and exacerbated the weak economy.
Obama can no longer blame Bush for the weak economy. When Reagan became president, he enacted policies that unleashed economic growth and in a single month during the Reagan recovery, more than 1,000,000 jobs were created. Thirty years, later Obama’s jobless recovery struggles to create that many jobs in a year.
Bush is not the reason for Obama’s woes. Obama is the reason. His policies are the reason. It is time for Obama to accept this fact and it is time for the media and Americans to stop giving Obama a pass. On any reasonable objective level, Obama is worse than Carter.