Where Are My Keys?

Weekly IUC takes a big tick up..

This week the number comes in at 383,000, and the four-week average moves up to 374,500.  Not a good sign as we head into the Summer hiring period.

Along those lines, Instapundit has a reader who shares this information with us:

I work at a large semiconductor company who does a LOT of business with Chinese firms (odds are many if not most of the electronic devices you have that say “made in China” on it buys it’s most expensive parts from us). recently orders have dropped precipitously. We are expecting to reduce the workforce before the end of the quarter by dropping contractor (temp) labor. We are entering what for the semiconductor industry is the Christmas sales season and the orders are going DOWN! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

IUC creeping back up?

This week's number is 370,000, a small jump up from last week's revised number.  The four-week average is now at 375,000 (the average has been between 363,000 and 384,000 all year).

Weekly IUC holds steady at 388,000..

Not much change from last week, which showed little change from the week before.  Is 375,000-400,000 the new "normal"?

Why does the Left even pretend to care about the budget and deficits?

It's pretty obvious that they don't:

Last summer, as part of the agreement that resulted in raising the federal government’s debt limit, Congress passed the Budget Control Act, which set spending caps for future years. These spending caps represented “cuts” in the Washington sense; that is, spending was allowed to increase, but not as fast as might otherwise have been projected. When it has suited their purposes, the Democrats have been champions of the Budget Control Act. Thus when House Republicans adopted a budget that would have spent less than the maximums under the BCA, Democrats alleged that the budget “violated” the Act. They thus turned the Budget Control Act on its head, pretending that the maximum spending levels agreed on in the Act–caps–were actually minimums.

Now, with no fanfare and no press coverage, the Democrats are attempting to negate–effectively, to repeal–the Budget Control Act by adopting spending bills that exceed its limits. Harry Reid and his Senate confederates have offered a bill to increase spending on the Post Office, S. 1789. The bill has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as increasing the federal deficit by $34 billion, and no provision has been made to recoup that money somewhere else in the budget. (Of course, we don’t have a budget because the Democrats in the Senate won’t pass one. But spending could still be cut somewhere else.)

Read the rest for a great piece by Jeff Sessions.

The word of the CBO is gospel, right Lefties?

At least that is what you told us during the Obamacare debate.  Still feel the same today?  If not, why?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Friday that President Obama’s 2013 budget will hurt the economy in the long term, arguing the larger deficits it would produce would reduce the amount of capital available to businesses.

After five years, the CBO says, the Obama proposals would reduce economic output by between 0.5 percent and 2.2 percent.

Larger deficits caused by the budget would cause the government to issue more bonds, sucking up private capital to finance its debts and thereby reducing the funds businesses could use to expand and hire, the CBO said. An increased tax on capital gains included in the president's plan would also tend to reduce private capital, it says.

Definitely a good idea..

Provided there aren't abuses.  We have a ton of people out of work, whose skills are eroding day by day.  I can understand the predicament: take a job that may not pan out (which would cause you to lose your benefits), or not take the new job at all (because of the fear of losing the benefits).  This plan seems to address both issues.

The plan is modeled after a Georgia program called "Georgia Works." Under the plan, workers who have lost jobs can be placed in other temporary jobs as trainees for short periods to retain their skills or gain new ones while receiving jobless assistance. About a third of the time, those workers wind up getting hired full-time.

A number of states are combining unemployment benefits with on-the-job training, including North Carolina, New Hampshire, Utah and Missouri.

A senior administration official said those states would be eligible to apply for the federal demonstration project. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the program before an administration announcement.

As always, the Devil is in the details.

If the job does work out, I think the employee should have to pay back the monies received while "double dipping".  There also need to be safeguards to ensure the double dipping actually stops.  Stories in the news recently suggest we might have some challenges enforcing this.

I like the plan, and think it can actually do some good. 

Weekly IUC at 386,000..

Pretty much holds steady from last week, but we see the four-week average tick up to 374,750:

What will this do to the already fragile automotive industry?

This will cause some pain to every car maker and parts supplier around the World:

 

 

Weekly IUC data ticks back up..

This week comes in with 380,000 new claims:

The four-week average increases a bit to 368,500, which continues its sideways trending.  Also of note, this is the highest the number has been since January.  Is this a "blip", or the beginnings of a new trend?

 

Incredible graph..

Check out this graph on the labor force participation rate I found over at Calculated Risk:

What caught my eye was the participation rate in 1990 (dark blue, to the left in each age demographic) and how that compares to the 2010 and 2020 (projected) rates.  Those are the orange and red to the right of each age demographic.

Look at how the "young" (age demos under 50) has fewer (in many cases significantly fewer) people participating in the labor force, when you compare 1990 to 2010.  But look at what happens when you go over 50: in every instance, there are more people in those age groups participating in 2010, than were in 1990.

Let that sink in for a few minutes. 

The "young", (up to age 49) are participating in the labor force in lower numbers over the last 20 years, while the "old" (over 50) are increasing.  Significantly.

So what happens when those "old" people die or drop out of the labor pool?  Who is there to pick up the slack?

The era I grew up in, where you got a "real" job in your teens, bussing tables, cutting lawns, selling clothes in the mall, working fast food, etc. are gone.  16-19 year old participation has dropped from around 54% in 1990 to around 35% in just 20 years.  Why?

For most of the "young" demographic, 2000 wasthe high-water point (that's the green bar).  It's interesting to note that while each segment shows a slight decline from that year, compare that to the "old" demographic groups, where participation has exploded.

I understand the older groups.  People are living longer, they are bord, they get a job at Walmart as a greeter.  Many have also seen a sizable hit to their nest egg, and continue to work out of necessity.  I seriously doubt that the "old" guys are taking jobs from the 16-19 year olds (I haven't seen Grandpa bussing tables at Hooters lately, or Grandma selling clothes at Victoria's Secret).

Why don't today's youth have jobs?

I have no doubt that the concept of "work ethic" is much stronger in the older worker than in the younger slacker.  I also get that Mom and Dad are giving Junior more and more, creating less of a need for Junior to have a job for some walking around money.

The old saying, that something unsustainable can't go on forever, terrifies the daylights out of me when I look at this chart.  I'll be in that 45-49 group later this Spring.  When I look at what is happening in the groups behind me, I worry.

A lot.