Analysis Of August Jobs Report

     The unemployment data released yesterday was dismal, giving anyone with even a modicum of intellectual honesty cause to admit that after five years of Obamanomics, the nation is in worse economic health than when Mr. Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. And with the coming implementation of ObamaCare, one should not expect that the employment situation is going to do anything but deteriorate further.
     The overall jobs added to the economy in the month of August was 169,000, short of economists lowered expectations of 180,000, and not even in the same ball park for recoveries from previous recessions. The modus operandi of  post-World War II recessions has been robust economic growth within ten months of their official end, which for the Obama recession was over four years ago. Robust economic growth means a Gross Domestic Product that is growing at over four percent, not the struggling two percent of the Obama recovery. A robust recovery also includes job growth that approaches, or in the case of the Reagan recovery, exceeds half a million jobs a month.
     Two data points from Friday's jobs report that are very concerning are the number of part time workers in the work force and the overall work force participation rate. The number of part time workers who desire full time work increased by thirty percent over the previous report, not exactly a sign of a recovering economy. The work force participation rate is the percentage of working age adults that are employed, which has now dropped to its lowest level in thirty five years. There are now 90 million people not working in this country who meet the requirements of being employable. Ten million more than when President Obama began his term in January of 2009. If the work force participation rate was the same as it was when President Obama first took the oath of office, the unemployment rate would be almost 11 percent.
     Remember in the beginning of his first term when President Obama was trying to sell his almost trillion dollar stimulus plan to the United States Congress and the American people? He said that passing the stimulus would ensure that by the end of his first term the economy would be adding half a million jobs a month and the unemployment rate would drop below six percent. Not only did his promises not come close to being realized, but in many ways the country is in worse fiscal shape than when he first darkened the threshold of the Whit House with his "Hope and Change." Ten million people have given up looking for work in the Obama economy and have dropped out of the work force, companies are switching more full time workers to part time because of ObamaCare, there are now a record 100 million people on some sort of government assistance and the federal government has been borrowing itself into financial oblivion while Ben Bernanke continues to print 85 billion dollars a month to buy government bonds just to prop up a stock market that has become dependent on the sugary liquidity provided by an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
     The worst loss of the Obama tenure has been the loss of the very thing he promised, i.e., hope. The American people's expectations have been lowered below the threshold of what was once the standard of economic excellence and dominance that was assumed to be the constant companion to the liberty we use to enjoy in this great nation. Sadly, both our economic excellence and our liberty seem to be slipping further out of reach with every passing day of the Obama presidency.