Net Number of Births Minus Deaths In America, By Month

To Live and Die in the USA
August--------> The 1st  most popular month in which to have procreational sex. 
November----> The 2nd most popular month in which to have procreational sex.
January-------> The 3d  most popular month to have procreational sex...

And the winner for 1st most popular month in which to Die: January
Also popular months to die in: July, September, November.

The number of Americans Not Working Is Back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

March NFP big miss at just 120K. Unemployment rate declines from 8.3% to 8.2%. The household survey posted a decline in March from 142,065 to 142,034. Considering Birth Death added 90K to the NSA number, the actual number was almost unchanged.

The unemployment rate drops to 8.2% for one simple reason: the number of people not in the labor force is back to all time highs: 87,897,000.

Latest BLS Report: Only 120,000 jobs added in March - a huge disappointment

Four common unemployment myths:

I don’t receive unemployment benefits, so the government doesn’t count me as “unemployed.” The official unemployment rate is based on a survey of about 60,000 households, not on unemployment benefits, which are administered by the states. The unemployment rate includes people who aren’t eligible for benefits, such as people who quit their jobs voluntarily, people who are entering or re-entering the work force (after graduating from high school or college, for example, or after taking time off to raise a child), and people whose benefits have expired. But it also might not include some people who do qualify for benefits: Someone doing odd jobs while collecting unemployment benefits will qualify as “employed” in government statistics.

I’m a contractor, not an employee, so the government doesn’t consider me “employed.” Anyone who has done any work for pay in the relevant week is considered employed, whether an employee, a contractor or self-employed. That includes informal work, such as child care or handyman-type jobs. Even work for “in-kind” pay, such as room and board, counts as employment. Owners of for-profit businesses are employed too, even if they don’t pay themselves a formal salary, and people who work at least 15 hours a week for a family-owned business or farm count as employed, even if they aren’t paid at all.

More than 350,000 people a week are getting laid off, so the unemployment rate should be rising. The U.S. added 120,000 jobs in March, and has averaged 154,000 jobs over the past six months. That’s a lot less than the 350,000 to 400,000 people who file first-time claims for unemployment insurance each week, which can make it sound like employers are shedding jobs on balance.

The figure reported in the monthly jobs report, however, is a net number, taking into account both hires and layoffs. So if the report says the economy “added” 120,000 jobs, that means employers hired 120,000 more people than they laid off. The figure is based on a monthly survey of 160,000 businesses and government agencies, which is conducted separately from the survey of households. Employers are asked how many workers they have, and whether they’ve gained or lost employees in the past month. Those answers are used to calculate payroll figures for the entire economy.

The unemployment rate is the best way to gauge the health of the labor market. The unemployment rate is the mostly widely followed labor market gauge, but it isn’t the most complete. Especially in tough economic times, plenty of displaced workers don’t count as “unemployed.” For example, someone who is laid off from a job and decides to go back to school doesn’t count as unemployed because he isn’t currently looking for work. The same is true for someone who gives up looking because he doesn’t think any work is available. Meanwhile, someone who takes a part-time job to make ends meet counts as “employed,” even if he is working just a few hours a week.

The Labor Department tries to track people who fall outside the traditional categories. People who aren’t actively looking for a job but want one and are available to work are counted as “marginally attached” to the labor force. People who are working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job are counted as “part-time for economic reasons.” In March 14.5% of workers fell under the broadest gauge of un- and under-employment, which includes both categories.

There’s also another way to measure the labor market: count the employed, not the unemployed. Many economists prefer this method, because there’s less gray area over who should count as employed, and less of a likelihood of bad news masquerading as good news. If lots of unemployed people give up looking for work, for example, the unemployment rate will fall, but the employment rate won’t rise. That may be what’s happening now — the share of the population that’s working plummeted during the recession and, unlike the unemployment rate, has barely recovered since then. But the falling employment rate could also reflect demographic shifts, such as an aging population.

Health Care Law Is Doomed

Even if the law survives the Supreme Court and the next election, the clock will be ticking. Recent estimates suggest that the law would cause 11 million people to lose their employer-provided insurance and be forced onto a government-backed insurance plan. That's a problem because 77 percent of those who now have insurance rate their current coverage as good or excellent. Only 3 percent rate their coverage as poor. For most of the 11 million forced to change their insurance coverage then, it will be received as bad news and create a pool of vocally unhappy voters.

Additionally, the cost estimates for funding the program are likely to keep going up. Eighty-one percent of voters expect it to cost more than projected, and recent Congressional Budget Office estimates indicate voters are probably right. But it's not the narrow specifics and cost estimates that guarantee the ultimate demise of the president's health care plan. It's the fact that the law runs contrary to basic American values and perceptions.

This, then, is the third hurdle the law faces: Individual Americans recognize that they have more power as consumers than they do as voters. Their choices in a free market give them more control over the economic world than choosing one politician or another.

Seventy-six percent think they should have the right to choose between expensive insurance plans with low deductibles and low-cost plans with higher deductibles. A similar majority believes everyone should be allowed to choose between expensive plans that cover just about every imaginable medical procedure and lower-cost plans that cover a smaller number of procedures. All such choices would be banned under the current health care law.

Americans want to be empowered as health care consumers. Eighty-two percent believe that if an employer pays for health insurance, the worker should be able to use that money and select an insurance product that meets his or her individual needs. If the plan they select costs less than the company plan, most believe the worker should get to keep the change.

It's not just the idea of making the choice that drives these numbers, it's the belief held by most Americans that competition will do more than government regulation to reduce the cost of health care. For something as fundamental as medical care, government policy must be consistent with deeply held American values. That's why an approach that increases consumer choice has solid support and a plan that relies on mandates and trusting the government cannot survive.

Correcting Obama's Lies About the Ryan Budget

1. Obama Claim: “Instead of being enrolled in Medicare when they turn 65, seniors who retire a decade from now would get a voucher that equals the cost of the second cheapest health care plan in their area. If Medicare is more expensive than that private plan, they’ll have to pay more if they want to enroll in traditional Medicare.”
Ryan Reality: All plans offered in the new Medicare exchange would be required to cover at least the actuarial value of the benefits offered by traditional Medicare, meaning that if the second-lowest-cost private plan is cheaper than traditional Medicare it is providing the same benefits in a more cost-effective way. The whole point is that private plans should be allowed to compete with traditional Medicare to deliver the same benefits at a lower cost. The result? Seniors get better value as providers are forced to compete against each other to better serve the patient. The President fails to grasp the basic concept that choice and competition remain the best means to delivers higher quality care at a lower cost.
2. Obama Claim: “If health care costs rise faster than the amount of the voucher — as, by the way, they’ve been doing for decades — that’s too bad.”
Ryan Reality:  Under competitive bidding, there is no risk that any senior will be unable to afford his or her guaranteed Medicare benefits. There will always be one plan that is fully covered by the premium-support payment, and there will always be one plan that costs even less. Lower-income seniors and those with greater health risks receive extra protection – fully funded savings accounts to offset out-of-pocket costs and risk-adjusted payments to cover greater health care needs.
3. Obama Claim: “Seniors bear the risk. If the voucher isn’t enough to buy a private plan with the specific doctors and care that you need, that’s too bad.”
Ryan Reality: If Medicare spending grows faster than GDP + 0.5 percent – the same growth rate that the President has proposed for his board of 15 unaccountable bureaucrats (IPAB) to impose upon Medicare – then Congress would be required to intervene and could implement policies that change provider reimbursements, program overhead, and means-tested premiums. Under our plan, the entire risk would not fall on the beneficiary – Congress would be required to act. Under the President’s plan, the entire risk of IPAB’s cuts – which Medicare’s own chief actuary has said could “jeopardize access to care for beneficiaries” – would fall on the senior unless a supermajority of Congress voted to intervene.
4. Obama Claim: “So most experts will tell you the way this voucher plan encourages savings is not through better care atcheaper cost. The way these private insurance companies save money is by designing and marketing plans to attract the youngest and healthiest seniors — cherry-picking — leaving the older and sicker seniors in traditional Medicare, where they have access to a wide range of doctors and guaranteed care. But that, of course, makes the traditional Medicare program even more expensive, and raise premiums even further.”
Ryan Reality: Cherry-picking is prohibited under our reforms. The proposal requires all plans on the Exchange to include guaranteed issue (i.e., they cannot deny coverage based on pre‐existing conditions) and community rating (i.e., they cannot impose prohibitively disparate costs on seniors) to ensure that seniors are able to choose an affordable health plan that works best for them — without fear of denial or discrimination.”
Not only are all seniors guaranteed coverage regardless of health history, our plan includes risk-adjusting as an extra precaution against cherry-picking. On page 53-54: “The federal contribution to seniors’ health plans would be risk‐adjusted so that the sickest seniors are protected from high premiums as well as adverse selection from insurers. Building on the risk‐adjustment tools currently used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), proper risk adjustment would ensure that seniors with the highest health costs would still be able to find an affordable plan. Federal contributions would be increased to account for a senior’s health status and age. CMS would also conduct an annual risk review audit of all insurance plans participating in the Medicare Exchange. Insurance plans covering a higher‐than‐average number of low‐risk seniors would pay a fee. Conversely, insurance plans covering a higher-than‐average number of high‐risk seniors would receive an incentive payment. The fees and incentive payments would flow internally through the same fund, so that payments to plans that cover high-cost patients would be funded wholly by the fees from plans that cover low-cost patients.”
The President is clearly, indisputably wrong.

In short, Obama attacked a Medicare plan that neither Ryan nor Romney are offering. The most charitable here explanation is that Obama and his speech writers were poorly briefed by his economic team. The other explanation is that Team Obama doesn’t much care about the facts. Either way, it will be up to Ryan and Romney to keep correcting them.

Effect Of Post-Unemployment Job Changes On Wages

 

More evidence for the ‘skills mismatch’ explanation of high unemployment. The 2008 Recession and its ongoing aftermath shows a disconnect between  the skills employers need and the skills employees have. This has contributed to the longest stretch of high unemployment since the Great Depression, and something that has received scant attention from the Obama administration, which has instead been focussing on the re-election campaign to the exclusions of almost everything else. Many jobs in home construction, durable-goods manufacturing and distribution, and mortgage finance were dependent on housing markets, which have crashed and burned and continue to smolder. The attempts by the administration to address this, HARP, etc., have been abject and dismal failures, with participation rates so low as to obviate the entire program. Unlike Bill Clinton, who  said he "feels your pain" (though of course he was lying), Obama hardly cares, being totally focused like a laser on only that which serves in the campaign.

The Stalling Obama Economy: Incomes Falling, Unemployment High, Low-paying Jobs, and Average Earnings growth anemic

The Stalling Obama Economy: Incomes Falling, Unemployment  High, Low-paying Jobs, and Average Earnings growth anemic

The economy is adding jobs, though not enough to bring down the sky-high unemployment rate. But it’s not just the quantity of jobs that’s a problem, it’s the quality, too.

– Despite the pickup in hiring, average earnings have continued to moderate and are up just 1.9 percent over the past year.

– Real after-tax per capita income, or real take-home pay, has fallen in two of the past three months and is down modestly over the past year.

Why are incomes falling in real terms? It’s because “a disproportionate share of the jobs that have been added over the past two years have been in relatively low-paying industries” such as in the retail, leisure, hospitality, temp, and home healthcare industry. Hiring in those sectors has accounted for 40.7 percent of the jobs added over the past two years. By comparison, these industries account for just 28.9 percent of the workforce. Not only is average hourly pay relatively low in these industries, but a large proportion of the jobs tend to be part-time.