In other words, the U3 measure of unemployment can decline for two different reasons: the economy can create more employment opportunities or people become discouraged and stop looking for jobs. Discouraged workers move into the U6 category where they are counted as unemployed until they have been discouraged for more than one year when they are no longer officially considered to be part of the labor force. The U6 unemployment rate can rise as short-term discouraged workers are dropped out of the U3 measure and moved into the U6 measure, and the U6 rate can fall when the workers become long-term discouraged and are officially removed from the labor force.
Think about this for a minute. The BLS admits that the US unemployment rate that includes people who have been discouraged about finding a job for less than one year is 13.2%. The official line is that the US economy has been enjoying a recovery since June 2009. How is there a recovery when 13.2% of the population is unemployed?
This question becomes even more pointed when the long-term -- more than one year -- discouraged workers who cannot find jobs are included in the measure of unemployment. The US government does not provide such a measure. However, John Williams (shadowstats.com) does. His estimate produces a 23.2% rate of US unemployment. An increase in the number of long-term discouraged workers is consistent with the drop in the US labor force participation rate from 66% in December 2007 to 63% in November 2013.
There is no such thing as a recovery with 23.2% unemployment.
So, if there is no economic recovery, why are stock and bond prices so high, at all-time records? The answer is simple. The Federal Reserve is printing $1,000 billion new dollars annually and the newly created money is going into the bond and stock markets, driving them to high bubble levels.
So here sits the US economy with substantial unemployment, with massive trade and budget deficits that are taxing the US dollar's credibility, with the labor force participation rate declining because there are no jobs to be found, and we are enjoying economic recovery with bond and stock prices at historic highs.
If this isn't enough of a puzzle, consider the official second estimate of third quarter GDP growth. According to this estimate, the US economy expanded at a 3.6% rate in the third quarter; yet official U6 unemployment is 13.2%.
And if you believe the government, there is no inflation either. Yes, I know, your grocery bills go up each month.
Keep in mind that many of the new November payroll jobs could reflect seasonal hiring gearing up for the Christmas sales season. Remember, the payroll survey counts one person with two part-time jobs as two jobs.
Economic recovery requires a growth in real median family income and/or an increase in consumer debt, and, except for a rise in student loan debt, there is no sign of either.
US real median household income has declined from $56,189 in 2007 to $51,371 in 2012, a decline of $4,818 or 8.6%.
US real per capita income has declined from $29,554 in 2007 to $27,319 in 2012, a drop of $2,235 or 7.5%.
How do consumers take on more debt in order to finance their consumption when their real incomes are falling? The growth in consumer credit outstanding is due to student loan growth.
I have not seen the establishment's explanation of how recovery can occur without growth in real purchasing power either from rising real incomes or rising consumer indebtedness.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 1,277,000 fewer seasonally adjusted payroll jobs in November 2013 than in December 2007.
How it is possible for the economy to have been in recovery since June 2009 (according to the National Bureau of Economic Research) and there are 1,277,000 fewer jobs today than existed six years ago prior to the recession?
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