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The World Socialist Web Site reports
The Obama administration, the Democratic Party, and their allies in the corporate-controlled media have hailed the Census Bureau report released [September 13], claiming it demonstrates that the US economy has "turned the corner" and that the supposed "economic recovery" is now providing big dividends for working people and even for the poor.
[...] A careful examination of the figures presented in the Current Population Survey (CPS), the formal name of the study, suggests that the hosannas by Obama and the media are premature. The statistical data is not fabricated, but it has been packaged in the light most favorable to the Democrats in the final two months of a hotly contested presidential election.
[...] Many workers who were limited to part-time work in 2014, or were unemployed entirely, went back to work or worked longer hours in 2015. This does not mean they got a raise. A minimum-wage worker who went from 15 hours of work a week in 2014 to 30 hours of work a week in 2015 would see a doubling in his or her income, a 100 percent increase, entirely from longer hours, even as their pay remained abysmally low.
[...] Most new jobs taken by previously unemployed workers were in the low-pay service sectors, like healthcare, restaurants and bars, nursing homes, retail outlets, etc.
[Continues...]
[...] The only section of the population which saw an outright decline in median household income were people living in rural areas, already lower paid on average than people living in cities or suburbs. Their median household income fell 2 percent, to $44,657 annually, more than $15,000 a year behind people living in metropolitan areas (combining cities and suburbs). During the presidential primaries, these areas saw some of the largest votes for Trump, as well as for Sanders.
[...] Obama and the media also hailed the reported drop in the poverty rate.
[...] If one adds up those excluded from the survey--2.3 million prisoners, 1.4 million nursing home residents, 1.2 million in hospices, and 1.1 million in other long-term care settings--that means that some 6 million people are left out.
In addition, as the Census report explains, "Since the CPS is a household survey, people who are homeless and not living in shelters are not included in the sample." Again, a large group of people, at least half a million and perhaps many more, who are all living in poverty, but not counted in the Census report. [...] [If those folks were added in,] the total number of people living in poverty [would be] closer to 50 million Americans.
[...] "During the 4-year period from 2009 to 2012, 34.5 percent of the population had at least one spell of poverty lasting 2 or more months." The number is staggering: about 110 million people. The official poverty line is absurdly low, set now at $24,250 for a family of four, or $11,770 for an individual. But more than one-third of all Americans fell below that abysmal marker for a significant period of time.
An interviewer on my Pacifica Radio affiliate suggested another reason why the *household* income numbers seemed to go up a bit: Adult children moving back in with their parents and adding their part-time poverty-wage income to the total.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 17 2016, @04:32PM
> Is this minor temporary economic recovery just a ploy
Its a trend that has been running for years.
Romney promised an unemployment rate of 6% by the end of his first term. We've been below 6% for 2 years [nationalmemo.com] and below 5% since last December.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 17 2016, @04:53PM
That must explain the rise of Trump, right, that the economy is actually doing so great?
Obama and Hillary and the Establishment are using statistics to paint a false picture of success, but they are failing because the 99% can see the reality of their own lives, with their own eyes. In other words, they're saying, "Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 17 2016, @06:21PM
No, the rise of Trump is for two reasons:
1) There are a lot of gullible idiots around. That's always been true, but rarely if ever has such a skilled and accomplished conman run for the highest public office in the U.S.
2) The extreme right wing, fascists, and other extremists, encouraged by Trump, are crawling out of the woodwork. For the first time in decades, they are interested in voting.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 17 2016, @07:47PM
> That must explain the rise of Trump, right, that the economy is actually doing so great?
The single strongest predictor of a person's support for Trump is racial anxiety. [fusion.net] Not economic, racial.
The average income of Trump voters [fivethirtyeight.com] during the primary was $10K/yr more than the average income of a democratic primary voter, inline with other republicans and $16K more than the average adult.
> Obama and Hillary and the Establishment are using statistics to paint a false picture of success,
Nope. If the census were deliberately rigged we'd hear about it from legit economists and data scientists, not just the cuckoo brigade.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 17 2016, @06:35PM
First, if you define "unemployed" the way that was traditionally defined ("I want to earn an income but I can't find a job"), then the unemployment numbers are actually around 23 percent--and have been over 22 percent for years and years. [shadowstats.com]
(That's roughly the same numbers as at the depth of The Great Depression.)
You will notice that the numbers (and trends) of USA.gov and those of ShadowStats look radically different in the graphs linked above and there's a reason for that.
USA.gov--even when they're not purposely jiggering the numbers to make the current administration look better--use HORRIBLE methods to get their numbers. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [shadowstats.com]
.
Those people who have looked and looked and looked and looked and have come to realize that, in the midst of a cratering of the USA's output of tradeable goods[1], they are simply wasting their time and money looking for a job that doesn't exist--those people aren't counted as "unemployed".
(That's Neoliberal Bill Clinton's doing.)
[1] The old term "depression" isn't useful any more; the 1 Percent can still be extracting significant amounts of wealth from the economy while PRODUCING NOTHING.
...and, since the stock market speculators are doing well, the "economy" is clearly doing fine; take no notice of those millions and millions of people without jobs who can contribute nothing to the economy.
...and, of course, there are folks like the 2.4 million USAians in prisons (many for ridiculous things like possession of personal amounts of recreational pharmaceuticals) who can't contribute to the economy but who aren't counted either.
.
For over a decade, after each month's economic report, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy Paul Craig Roberts, PhD, [wikipedia.org] now an independent journalist, has had to come up yet another way to explain that they're lying to you and that things haven't actually improved. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [paulcraigroberts.org]
Independent journalist Dave Lindorff has also taken looks at this deception, noting the work of ShadowStats’ John Williams.
He points to how USA.gov has tried to compartmentalize its data [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [counterpunch.org] --after which they "report" a now-better-looking compartment (compared to the way the numbers were reported in previous generations).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 17 2016, @07:57PM
Why do you think that shadowstats guy isn't lying with statistics?
He's clearly including marginal numbers in his calculation, like students and retirees. The baby boom generation is the largest part of the workforce and they've been rapidly retiring over at least the last decade. They really shouldn't be counted.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Non Sequor on Sunday September 18 2016, @11:45AM
Why do you think that shadowstats guy isn't lying with statistics?
He's clearly including marginal numbers in his calculation, like students and retirees. The baby boom generation is the largest part of the workforce and they've been rapidly retiring over at least the last decade. They really shouldn't be counted.
Take a look at https://azizonomics.com/2013/06/01/the-trouble-with-shadowstats/ [azizonomics.com]
Shadowstats is completely bogus.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @05:42PM
Reminds me of the cuckoo right's fascination with "unskewing" the polls.
That didn't work out so well for Romney, but they are trying to do it for Trump too.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/return-unskew-polls-donald-trump-edition [rightwingwatch.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @07:05PM
1) That's 1 blogger's opinion.
...and has that blogger ever done any actual work and had that work cited by someone else?
Y'know, by people in the field who lend him credibility.
2) There are dozens of rebuttals there to his claim.
(With over 200 comments total!, he needs to offer a page view without comments and one with a limited number of comments.)
3) That page isn"t about EMPLOYMENT numbers.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Sunday September 18 2016, @09:08PM
I don't care much for economics but some data based economics can be reasonable. Shadowstats has no claim to being data based because if any distinct external source of data were used, it would show up as a differently shaped graph when compared to the CPI data series. That point is valid regardless of whether or not I know anything else about Mr. Aziz's work, whatever it may be, and the rebuttals aren't relevant to this point.
Now that said, establish for me why shadowstats is your preferred source of information on employment numbers and adds more to the conversation than the range of employment, underemployment, and workforce participation metrics maintained by BLS.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:21AM
if any distinct external source of data were used, it would show up as a differently shaped graph
You didn't look closely enough at the chart.
Don't like Williams' results?
Here's another guy who ran the numbers and said, again, USA.gov's numbers have a HUGE error. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Sunday September 18 2016, @04:25PM
Would he have actually lowered unemployment, or would he also have had bullshit numbers released that just happened to show that unemployment went down?
No one believes those numbers except for the people who want to believe them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 18 2016, @05:44PM
> No one believes those numbers except for the people who want to believe them.
And statisticians. But what do professionals know?