Greensboro News Record protects Obama punishes Governor Pat McCrory, Glaring example of media bias, Obama SOTUS unemployment, NC unemployment, Baby boomers blamed again, Sloppy reporting or lies?

 
“Greensboro News Record editorial states ‘An occasional look at political claims that take shortcuts with the facts or don’t tell the full story.’  The News Record should practice what they preach.”…Citizen Wells

“11.4%: What the U.S. unemployment rate would be if labor force participation were back to January 2008 levels.” …James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, June 2013

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″

I suspected that the recent Greensboro News Record reporting on the NC unemployment rate and reasons was an attempt to discredit NC Governor Pat McCrory and his plans to create jobs.

I was ok with the News Record reporting the truth about the drop in the unemployment rate in NC. It was the truth. Mostly due to working age folks dropping out of the labor force.

Too bad the News Record does not apply the same standard to Obama. Instead, they use regurgitated AP lies that attempt to portray the drop in the labor force as mainly due to baby boomers retiring. That lie has been revealed here and at other sites such as Zero Hedge.

From the Greensboro News Record editorial January 28, 2014.

“Fact check on the State of the Union Address”

“An occasional look at political claims that take shortcuts with the facts or don’t tell the full story.”

“REP. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS of Washington, in her prepared Republican response: “Last month, more Americans stopped looking for a job than found one. Too many people are falling further and further behind because, right now, the president’s policies are making people’s lives harder.”

THE FACTS: She leaves out a significant factor in the high number of people who aren’t looking for jobs: Baby boomers are retiring.
It’s true that a large part of the still-high unemployment rate is due to jobless workers who have given up looking for a job. There are roughly three people seeking every job opening, a circumstance that can discourage others from trying.
But one big reason people aren’t seeking employment is that there are so many boomers — the generation born in the immediate aftermath of World War II — and therefore more than the usual number of retirements.
As of December, the economy had gained 3,246,000 jobs since Obama took office in January 2009. When he was inaugurated, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent and on the rise.
It peaked at 10 percent in October 2009 and has been inching down ever since, to 6.7 percent this past December.”

Read more:

http://www.news-record.com/news/local_news/article_e422165e-888f-11e3-829d-001a4bcf6878.html

From the Greensboro News Record January 28, 2014.

“Report: NC jobless rate falls to 6.9 percent”
“North Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent in December, its lowest level in more than five years, but Tuesday’s news came with signals that the rapid fall was related to thousands of discouraged people giving up on finding work.”

“Gov. Pat McCrory and state House Speaker Thom Tills, a fellow Republican from Mecklenburg County, on Tuesday credited tax cuts and fewer business regulations that GOP lawmakers approved this year for sparking an economic comeback.”

“But economists warn the fast fall in the unemployment rate has a lot to do with thousands of jobless workers no longer counted because they have become discouraged about the prospects of finding work and have given up.

Since December 2012, 13,414 more people are on payrolls and more than 124,000 fewer people were listed as unemployed, the report shows. That suggests that just 11 percent of the drop in unemployed workers resulted from the jobless finding work, said Allan Freyer, an analyst with the Budget & Tax Center, a part of the liberal-leaning NC Justice Center.

The state’s population of working-age adults who are looking for jobs also shrank by nearly 111,000 over the year. That means North Carolinians in the working-age population who are either employed or actively looking for jobs is the lowest since before the national recession started in December 2007.
As more people give up on finding work, that makes the unemployment rate look better because they’re no longer being counted, said Patrick Conway, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”

Read more:

http://www.news-record.com/news/north_carolina_ap/article_97849be3-1c83-55f3-98a5-fce1d20f1cf5.html

From Zero Hedge January 8, 2014.

“This Chart Is A True Representation Of The Employment Crisis In This Country”

“The civilian labor force in the US has been causing bouts of hand-wringing and head-scratching. It represents the official number of people working or looking for work. It’s what the officialunemployment rate (U-3) is based on. If labor force participation drops – if for whatever reason, millions of people are no longer counted as part of the labor force, as is the case in the US – it’s a troublesome indicator for the economy and the real employment picture.

It also makes the unemployment rate, now 7.3%, look a lot less awful: if you’re not counted in the labor force, and you don’t have a job, you’re not counted as unemployed. There are millions of people in that category. And their numbers are growing, not diminishing.

“The irony of the U-3 unemployment statistic is the fact that while unemployment has gone down 30% since its 2009 peak, we have the lowest labor force participation rate in over 3 decades,” observed Ralph Dillon, Vice President at Global Financial Data, in an email. “The markets and politicians celebrate the official unemployment rate, but you have to be concerned with the trend that is most indicative of the health of the employment situation in this country: the downward trend of those who want to work and can’t.””

“The chart (Global Financial Data) juxtaposes the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate since 1980. After the financial crisis, suddenly, for the first time in history, they both started moving in lockstep. Downward.

““This chart is a true representation of the crisis of employment in this country,” Dillon wrote. The diminishing labor force participation rate – the officially available labor pool, however unrealistic it might be – has been driving down the unemployment rate for the first time in history.”

People 55 to 64 years old, the first forget-about-retirement generation, are staying in the labor force to an ever greater degree. In 1992, only 56.2% were still in the labor force, in 2012, 64.5% were. Similar for older folks. The participation rate for people 65 to 74 years old jumped from 16.3% to 26.8%. Reality is this: fewer people can afford to retire.

But who is not making it into the labor force? Young folks. The participation rate for those 16 to 19 has plunged from 51.3% in 1992 to 34.3% in 2012. OK, the BLS explains that by an increase in school attendance, and that would be a good thing. But the 25 to 54 year olds? Even among them, participation rates dropped from 83.3% in 2002 to 81.4% a decade later.

Among the 18 to 34 year old “Millennials,” those lucky ones who’re official counted in the labor force, unemployment has been a nightmare, with double digit unemployment rates, still, nearly 6 years after the financial crisis, reported the youth advocacy group Young Invincibles. It’s even worse for the 16 to 24 year olds, whose official unemployment rate is still 15%!”

Read more:

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-01-08/%E2%80%9C-chart-true-representation-employment-crisis-country%E2%80%9D

Some common sense from Citizen Wells.

Ignoring facts from the US Government about the trend of retirement aged people working longer, there are more younger people entering the work force age group than would leave if all people turning 65 retired at once.

There are only 85% of those turning 65 still alive.

More people were born in the early nineties than in 1949.

Still not clear?

Read more:

http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/labor-force-participation-collapse-from-younger-dropouts-not-retirees-zero-hedge-nails-it-more-younger-people-born-to-replace-older-labor-force-should-be-increasing-not-decreasing/

For their Orwellian misrepresentation of the US unemployment which protects Obama, the Greensboro News Record is awarded 4 Orwells.