Millions of jobs. No. **Tens** of millions of jobs are what's needed.

[Stinky The Clown]

Until we see that, there is no real economic recovery for every one of us.

A good stock market is not a good economy.

Good corporate profits :gack: affect few actual people in immediate ways

Housing prices are closer to actual people

But without JOBS there simply is no real economic recovery.







And please don't be duped by official unemployment numbers. The government has been lying about this for as long as I can remember, and I'm old. Today's unemployment, while not at Great Depression levels, is close enough that the distinction is without meaning.

[RKP5637]

1. Very well said! I absolutely agree! Also what are needed are real jobs, not

part time and minimal wage jobs. We need to get back to substantial jobs, not creating a bunch of low paying SH** jobs and saying "there," problem solved.

To many people I've had to explain that the stock market going up has little to do with their success. For the most part it means some people are making some cash, but that does not translate into greater pay for most people or job creation. Americans need to learn WTF is going on.

Also, people need to get a grip and realize the government lies all over the place about this. Also, the metrics used for performance measurement are ridiculous. Figures are always twisted to hell and gone.

[HereSince1628]

2. People who have retirement accounts do benefit.

For the unemployed who are in their late 50's and into their 60's re-employment is probably not going to happen. The only thing that can help them is recovery in their investments. I for one am not going to complain about a market recovery, rather I think we need the jobs recovery to join it.

We desperately need jobs to come back to the US and that will not happen soon unless their are major policy changes that create an advantage to domestic labor force.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. No one is "complaining" about a sound stock market.

Please don't conflate the push for jobs in the OP as somehow "complaining" about the stock market. That said, the simple fact is that not all that many people are sufficiently invested in the market that it affects their daily lives.

And here's another fact: the chronic unemployed who had a small retirement portfolio have been living off that for a while now. Its mostly gone.

What we need are JOBS.

[HereSince1628]

8. I take exception to the part of your assertion because it ignores retirees and

persons with retirement visible within their time horizons and who are desperately trying to rebuild their savings.

"not all that many people are sufficiently invested in the market that it affects their daily lives" just doesn't seem accurate. Perhaps you could give some parameters around the definition of 'many.'

52 million people in the United States ARE 60 years of age or older and they ARE affected by just how their retirement investments perform.

Perhaps because they are OLD, they just are no longer worthy of being considered because they are no longer important to the workplace??

The current federal administration and the Congress seem perfectly pleased to give little in the way of protection of SS, Medicare and Medicaid to people they seemingly care little about.

Retirees and soon to be retirees may not be the majority, but they are "many" in most common sensical consideration of 52 million.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. I wouldn't know about people in their 60s

:sarcasm:

[HereSince1628]

13. I think you agree that 52 million is "many"

[Kat45]

21. Not all of these 52 milion people have retirement investments.

Many people never made enough money to save substantially for retirement. Yes, there are a number of people with retirement savings and the market is important to them, but I think it's erroneous to believe that everybody in that age range has investments in the market. Many of us are screwn when it comes to retirement. (No I'm not quite to retirement age yet, but I only have a tiny bit of a 401k because I've only ever had one employer who offered them. I've also spent the past 10 years either under- or unemployed so I've had to spend my other savings on daily living expenses. Yes, screwn.)

[fasttense]

26. Retirees who have stock are very few.

"The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate."

Unless you are in the wealthiest top 10%, you are not likely to have stocks even as a retiree.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

[Donnachaidh]

3. wait -- I hear someone dragging out an achievement list as we speak

Who CARES that millions are out of work -- we've got a LIST! :sarcasm:

[Brickbat]

4. IIRC, about 75 million jobs are needed to "erase" the "bikini graph."

[hobbit709]

5. Full time with benefits jobs.

[midnight]

6. They are too busy finding ways to talk us into shouldering the pain of

their thievery....

[pinqy]

9. Which Unemployment figures do you go by, then?

If the official numbers are lies, then what data do you use? Gallup's numbers match the government numbers within their margins of error, and shadowstat's numbers are BS derived from official numbers with arbitrary and unsubstantiated additions.

[TheKentuckian]

16. Duplicate the measurement used in the Depression era and you'll come to a disturbing result.

Apples to apples, I bet we are in the 16%+ area.

[pinqy]

18. Except there was no measure during the Depression.

The US did not consistantly measure Unemployment until 1941. Prior to that, the Census had questions on Occupation, but there were no monthly or even annual measures. The numbers cited for the Depression weren't calculated until 1948, using methods that are still used today. The definition has tightened up some, and before 1967 "looking for work" did not have a set time limit (currently last 4 weeks) and it did allow the inclusion, at the interviewer's discretion, of what we now call "discouraged workers."

But let's look at your claim of 16% range. For March, the rate was 8.8%, calculated as Unemployed/Labor Force...13,542,000/153,406,000 = 8.8% To figure out how many people we'd have to add to get 16% we have to solve (U+X)/(L+X)=0.16 (we have to add to numerator and denominator because Labor Force consists of Employed + Unemployed so anyone we add has to be represented in both). So: U+X = .16L + .16X; .84X = .16L - U; X = (.16L - U)/.84 Solving: X = (24,544,960 - 13,542,000)/.84 = 11,002,960/.84 = 13,098,762 In short we'd have to add 13 million people, nearly double, to the Unemployment count. But as of March, there were only 6,509,000 people not working and not counted as unemployed who said they wanted a job. (none were actually trying to work, and most were not available and/or hadn't looked in over a year). So even adding everyone who claimed they want a job (regardless of whether they could take one or not and regardless of how truthful they might be) only raises the rate up to 12.5%. So where are you getting 7 million more people from? You'd have to count either people who don't want a job (which is ridiculous) or some people who have a job (even more ridiculous).

And even back in 1948 when the Depression rates were estimated, just saying you wanted to work wasn't enough to qualify as unemployed.

Most people trying to claim higher numbers use the U-6 measurement, but that includes all marginally attached (which was not a concept until 1994, though the subset of discouraged was inconsistantly used before 1967) and "part time for economic reasons," which has never been part of unemployment calculations.

Source=Table A-1 of the Employment Situation

[Broderick]

10. Stock markets are great for 401k, IRA, etc

BUT, people are cashing them in at a premium and penalty to pay bills now.

[Hotler]

11. Never going to happen. The American dream is dead.

I see no hope.

[Javaman]

15. my feelings exactly...

I can't think of an industry or group of industries that can create that kind of job growth along with a livable wage.

Just not going to happen.

The corporations sold their souls to 3rd world countries for cheap labor.

[OhioChick]

19. You're absolutely right n/t

[Chris_Texas]

14. Yes

[dkf]

17. How many illegal immigrants do we have?

Problem solved.

[leftstreet]

20. Are you serious?

Was that satire? I'm never sure

[badtoworse]

23. Why should we have millions of illegal immigrants competing with our citizens for jobs?

People here are desparate for any job. I don't buy the argument that there are jobs that only illegals would do.

[GSLevel9]

22. but...

for there to be millions of jobs there must also be PROFIT for small businesses.

It works like this:

The local cinema has full theaters every night and they hire 10 new ushers and 10 new cashiers and 10 new janitors.

Those 30 people pay their bills, buy Starbucks and buy from the local grocery store.

Then Starbucks hires a new barista and the grocery store hires 2 new cashiers.

Once u water a garden... things grow. Problem is... where do you get that first can of water?

[toddwv]

24. So what you're saying is that we need a Carter not a Bush.

[donheld]

25. And Walmart/McDonalds jobs will do the trick