Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Heading In Right Direction
Date:	6/3/2018 4:24:38 PM (updated 6/3/2018 4:26:16 PM)

Unemployment continues to head down. Interesting what Trump inherited when he entered office compared to Obama....

Nonfarm payroll unemployment rate  in December 2008  rose from 6.8 to 7.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll employment fell by 524,000 over the month and by 1.9 million over the last 4 months of 2008.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 156,000 in December 2016, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Under Obama, rate was reduced from 7.2% to 4.7%. Under Trump the positive direction continues to improve to 3.9%. Listen to the Right, one would think Trump took over a bad economy. Quite the opposite.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Heading In Right Direction
Date:	6/4/2018 9:49:43 AM

What Trump inhereted was the worst economic recovery in the history of the country.  I would remind you that the recession ended prior to Obama taking office (look it up if you don't believe me).  So what he came into office with was a golden opportunity to preside over a normal recovery where GDP growth exceeds 3% and employment improves fairly quickly.  But he squandered it with meaningless stimulus payoffs, Obamacare, taxes and regulations out the whazoo, not to mention record setting deficits.

So what Trump inhereted is a long, slow, painful recovery and more than likely the next recession given that we are almost ten years without one.  I know liberals would love to give credit to Obama for the latest results and in one regard he does deserve credit, as does Hillary.  Neither of them are president.  Other than that, I cannot think of one policy, law or action that he took in his eight years in office that helped the economy......not one.  But it was no coincidence that after 8 years of the Obama and one year of Trump that things began to improve more rapidly.  Lower taxes and regulations......works every time it's been tried.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	Heading In Right Direction
Date:	6/4/2018 12:39:53 PM

I would also be remiss if I didn't point out that the U-2 number is still a joke because it doesn't take into account the labor participation rate.  The current rate is 62.7% which is still far too low.  The real number to watch is the U-6 which is down to 7.4% (from a high of 10.1% in Januray 2017) and improving slightly but still too high.  What I don't get is that as the economy improves I expected the U-2 numbers to go up and not down as more people entered the job seeking process assuming they could find one.  Would be interesting to see if these people out of the labor market have given up totally or what.  Assuming they wanted to work, they ought to be getting back into the market for a job which would drive U-2 up and U-6 down as they found work.  I hope we haven't created a permanent underclass that simply won't work even if jobs are available.  And of course part of the labor participation rate takes into account retirees, especially as baby boomers leave the job market permanently.  I can't find any recent data on how much of the LPR is retirees.

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	Heading In Right Direction
Date:	6/5/2018 10:09:50 PM (updated 6/5/2018 10:15:29 PM)

MM has it ever occured to you that, since the economy has pretty much ''recovered'' from the 2008 collapse, that the reason the participation in the labor market may still be so low is because many (most?) of those ''dropping'' out of the market are doing so not because they cant find work, but because they have no financial need or desire to work?  Just because somebody is in the demographic that typically makes up the ''labor'' market does not mean that all of them need or want to ''labor''!  Don't all you culture war types consider a mom deciding to stay home with the kids a good thing rather than a sign of economic distress?