Jobs Report: 5.1 Unemployment Rate Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

The monthly jobs report in the U.S. comes from the Bureau of Labor statistics'(BLS) Current Population Survey(CPS). The CPS is a survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the BLS. The BLS uses the data to provide a monthly report on the Employment Situation in the U.S. This report provides estimates of the number people who are employed and unemployed in the United States.

In August, the economy added an estimated 173,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.1%. This is lower than the estimated 217,000 jobs most economists had expected.Employment in health care rose by 41,000. Employment in financial activities rose by 19,000 in August.
in August. 

Though America has added jobs in recent months, this is a good reason to be optimistic. There is some concern  that the increase in jobs has not been seen as widely in the manufacturing, according to Thomas Hemphill & Mark Perry :

"In September 2012, President Obama announced a national goal to create 1 million new manufacturing positions by the end of 2016. Since that announcement, the US manufacturing sector has created payroll jobs at a rate of only 11,000 per month and fewer than 300,000 jobs in total over the last 27 months. That rate of factory job creation would generate only about 560,000 new jobs by the time Obama leaves office -- a 440,000 job shortfall compared to the president's unrealistic goal of 1 million new factory jobs by the end of next year."

"We'll be lucky if we gain 600,000 jobs by next December. Even in that case, factory employment would only return to the January 2009 level of about 12.5 million payroll jobs, which at that time was the lowest level since the late 1940s, and 7 million jobs below the 1979-peak of 19.5 million factory jobs."


27 thousand jobs in manufacturing mining and logging were lost last month, undoing all the gains from the previous month. The lack of manufacturing jobs is a concern because they provide stability and strength to the economy.

So is the 5.1% number telling us the full story? The number you see in the headlines is referred to as the U-3 number which does not include:

• People who have been out of work for more than a year
• Those in part-time positions for people who would prefer full-time employment
• People so discouraged that they’ve stopped looking for work

When we include these numbers, referred to as the U-6, the unemployment rate is nearer to 10% down from 12% last year. It is important to note that both numbers have been decreasing steadily since the beginning of the recession, and especially within the last two years. It is unclear why the news media only uses the U-3 number in their report.

The unemployment rate drop can also be attributed to fewer people being counted as out of work but instead being considered outside of the workforce. The jobs report’s survey puts the number of unemployed persons down 237,000 to 8 million. The number of people out of the workforce climbed 261,000 to a fresh record of 94 million. We currently have the lowest labor participation rate in decades.

This can be attributed though to increased retirement by the baby boom generation. The survey includes all working age adults (age 16 and up). 94 million includes all stay at home mom's, people in college, and those who are retired.

Why does the unemployment number matter so much right now? The Federal Reserve has waited for the economy to show enough strength to start increasing interest rates. Most economists believed that if August showed strong numbers in job growth that would be the signal to being increases. One concern has been wages, which have not shown much growth for the last year, but which grew 8 cents in the month of August, which is cause for optimism.

While the report may not change views that the U.S. economy remains strong, the global markets remain unsteady including significant decline in China. This instability could further complicate the Fed's decision at a policy meeting mid month.

The reason why the interest rate is so important to job growth as explained by CNN Money:

"One of the Federal Reserve’s mandates is is to maintain full employment. When unemployment rises, it can try to stimulate growth by cutting rates. The idea is that cheaper borrowing makes it easier for consumers to spend and for businesses to expand and hire new workers. The flipside is that higher interest rates and tighter money supply can make hiring less likely. That’s one of the reasons the Fed has been so hesitant to raise rates in recent years, and there’s a risk that a too-early rate hike will cut off job growth."

Overall the continued growth is a good sign for the economy and it is likely we will start to see interest rates increase in September. Most of the indicators for the U.S. economy are showing good signs.

The Fight to Defund Planned Parenthood : What's it All About?

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Yesterday, the ninth in a series of undercover Planned Parenthood sting videos was released.  The video from the Center for Medical Progress features Perrin Larton, a procurement manager for the company Advanced BioScience Resources, which works with a Planned Parenthood clinic in California and provides aborted baby tissue to researchers. Previous videos have outlined Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted baby tissue and organs, which has caused them to come under fire from many groups, politicians and celebrities.

Planned Parenthood's response to the videos has been to claim that they were faked or highly edited. They also made this statement: "The allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Our donation programs – like any other high-quality health care providers – follow all laws and ethical guidelines. Over our 100-year history, we have continually engaged leading medical experts to shape our practices, policies, and high standards – and always will."

To be clear, federal law bans the sale of unborn babies’ body parts and organs.  In fact, it’s considered a criminal act.  However, the law provides a loophole allowing payment for a wide range of services associated with the "donation" of aborted babies organs, including “reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.” Planned Parenthood does receive payment for these "donations" to an approximate total of $23 million per year. Because of these concerns over buying tissue of aborted babies, many conservatives are calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded.

It is important to note that, with the exception of extreme cases, federal money cannot be used to fund abortions. Planned Parenthood however, does receive a large amount of it's funding from the federal government.

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the U.S. They have received scrutiny in the past for some of their practices, including many undercover videos seeking to expose them for coercive abortions, failure to notify parents, and encouraging abortions over other options.

Those who defend Planned Parenthood note that the company provides many other services including contraception, STD/STI screenings, cancer screenings (not mammograms though), and other women's health services. These are the services for which they receive federal funding. According to their annual report, abortions make up approximately 3% of their yearly medical services.

That 3%, however, equaled 327,000 abortions last year. In total it is estimated that there were just over 1.05 million abortions performed in the U.S. in 2011 (the last available year). If this number has stayed even, it would mean that Planned Parenthood performed nearly one-fourth of all abortions in the U.S. last year.  In total Planned parenthood has conducted over 6 million abortions. They are the largest provider of abortions in the country.

So why do people want it defunded? If Planned Parenthood is defunded by the federal government, they would lose approximately $500 million in funding per year. Their total yearly budget is approximately $1.1 billion per year. This means over 40% of their yearly budget comes through federal funding. Opponents believe that because so much of their operating budget comes from the federal government, this means they are thereby funding abortions as well. If Planned Parenthood were not allowed to have federal funding it would deal a serious blow to the company. It is foreseeable that this could cause them to close several clinics throughout the country, thereby limiting their ability to perform as many abortions as they do.

The Senate already attempted a vote to defund Planned Parenthood which failed by a 53-46 margin. This is not the end of the debate in Congress though. The federal government is set to run out of funding September 30th, and members of Congress are threatening to stand firm on Planned Parenthood funding, with some even threatening to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood.

When talking about whether they would seek to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the debates on government funding Mitch McConnell stated, "We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like. I would remind all of your viewers, the way you make a law in this country, the Congress has to pass it, and the president has to sign it. The president has made it very clear he is not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new president, hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood."

We will see over the next few months what will happen with federal funding for Planned Parenthood. For those who are pro-life, Planned Parenthood represents abortion in the U.S. This debate has been waged for decades now and has become one of the most politically charged topics in our country. No matter what decision is made concerning Planned Parenthood funding, this debate will not be over soon.

What's Wrong With the News?

About 50 years ago more than 80 companies controlled the majority of print and television media in the U.S. That number is now down to 6. These 6 mega huge corporations — News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and Comcast have changed the way we receive the news on a daily basis, and that isn't necessarily a good thing.

It isn't fully their fault that most people are ill informed, part of the blame lies with each of us. We have at our fingertips the ability to access nearly limitless amounts of information. Our 20 second attention spans and lack of interest in doing our own research is part of the problem. But part of the issue is the major shift we have seen from print media to online and cable TV news reporting.

Many of the old time newspapers were able to focus on subscriptions which meant quality reporting was their main focus. The more quality reporting you had, with quality writers and columnists, the more subscriptions you could sell. Advertising sales would increase with subscriptions, but the focus was on content. Reporters would dig deep to get scoops on corruption in government, and issues that were affecting the average person.

Then the internet came around and for over 7 years now print media has declined, especially subscription to newspapers. Many will only get the newspaper for coupons or shopping ads on Sunday. Other sections that were once considered must reads go into the recycling bin as boring and out of date.

Switching to online media has made many of these companies go away from traditional reporting to celebrity and click worthy news reports. Digital advertising has grown massively with these companies, as they have sought to cover the loss from print media. The focus has shifted from news and print media to online and cable news networks.

We have seen a rise in entertaining news rather than informative. The massive popularity shows like the O'Reilly Factor, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and Last Week Tonight are indicative of this. Trials like Jodi Arias, which were once only covered by local media now become media circuses with live coverage. 24 hour news cycle is forcing news outlets to have news out immediately as events unfold, even if reporting hasn't been completed.

Facebook and Twitter have also had their impact. Focus on social media and mobile has forced content into 140 characters or less idea, leaving readers with the base understanding, but lacking any depth in content. News media outlets like The Huffington Post, Drudge and The Blaze have taken so much of the online focus that much of news has become focused on being viral content.

Since this shift has occurred you are more likely to hear about Kanye West running for president in 2020 than possible ideas to change the tax code. With old print media, there was the opportunity to explain an issue in great depth; now it often must either have a great deal of opinion and controversy or some sort of celebrity pull for it to be front page news.

Some news outlets are focusing on specific demographics, applying themselves to the "left" or "right" in order to get more people watching their networks, or reading their articles.

There is some hope however, with focused news sites like politico and the hill, which focus much less on biased political reporting and more on facts and informing. Aggregate news sites like realclearpolitics can help you weed through some of the distractions to meaningful posts.

These changes to the way news media functions have altered the way we view our country, our government and the world in general. Citizens are less informed while having more access to news media than ever before. The news channels or stations we watch and listen to can also have a major impact on how informed we are as citizens.

As we now face a new presidential election cycle it is more important than ever that we focus on educating ourselves on the issues and candidates, having open minds and hearts, and being aware of the needs of our country. We should challenge ourselves to do better, by being wiser in what we watch, read and listen to.

The Other National Debt No One Talks About

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As we look at the state of the economy some people may be wondering,"Why, if jobs are increasing, are we not seeing other signs of improvement?" Though unemployment was down to 5.3% in July, wages only rose a few cents, and overall they have barely kept up with inflation since the beginning of the recovery.

Part of the problem may be people transitioning into new fields out of manufacturing into retail, healthcare or IT jobs; another is that people have less money after taking care of their bills to spend on the economy. One of the biggest obstacles to our economy is the massive debt burden that most Americans are carrying.

Current as of August 2015

U.S. household consumer debt profile:

• Average credit card debt: $15,706
• Average mortgage debt: $156,333
• Average student loan debt: $32,953

In total, American consumers owe:

• $11.85 trillion in debt
• An increase of 1.7% from last year
• $890.9 billion in credit card debt
• $8.17 trillion in mortgages
• $1.19 trillion in student loans
• An increase of 7.1% from last year

With student loans alone, over 11.5 percent of the $1.19 trillion owed is in default. That number is up slightly compared to the 10.9 percent default rate we saw last year around the same time.

Why is debt such a major obstacle to our economy? When people are paying hundreds of dollars in credit card and student loan payments they don't have the money to buy a new car, put a down-payment on a house or start a business.

While we currently have a national debt of $18.3 trillion which our federal government owes, the $11.85 trillion which we as Americans owe is more concerning. 60% of college seniors have credit cards leaving college, with most of them carrying a balance. This may require them to take jobs that offer a guaranteed paycheck such as in retail versus interning or doing volunteer work out of college.

Student loan debt has been increasing drastically over the last decade as the cost of attendance increases. The worse news is that it can have even longer lasting effects. A recent by Gallup showed that:

"College graduates who carry a high amount of student debt appear to face long-term challenges that stretch beyond just their finances. A new analysis of Americans who graduated college between 1990 and 2014 shows that graduates who took on the highest amounts of student debt, $50,000 or more, are less likely than their fellow graduates who did not borrow for college to be thriving in four of five elements of well-being: purpose, financial, community, and physical."

It is no wonder that individuals offering debt advice like Dave Ramsey are becoming so popular. With so many Americans carrying such a large load in debt, the burden is becoming too great. While many point to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, if we were to have a major crisis right now with mass layoffs it could cripple our economy for years to come. With the current amount of consumer debt there would be a major unavailability of consumer spending to pull us out of a crisis. With 70 percent of our economy reliant on consumer purchases that could be devastating. 

Fact Check: 'Illegal Alien Facts'

I've run across this picture posted on Facebook a half dozen times now, and I wanted to do a little research to fact check it's claims. Many Americans have the impression that most illegal immigrants are here just to live off our welfare system. So I wanted to check, are these "facts" true?

The first fact claims that more than 43% of all food stamps are given to illegals. According to estimates by Pew Research Center, there are currently 11.3 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., which has stabilized after decades of massive growth. According to the Department of Agriculture, 46.5 million Americans are on food stamps. Right there we can easily see that the first claim cannot possibly be true. Mathematically there aren't enough illegal immigrants in the U.S. to equal 43% of food stamp users.

On the claim that 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angelos are for illegal immigrants, several groups have fact checked this claim and found it to be only half true. Illegal immigrants are more likely to flee jurisdiction before being arrested, so warrants would remain open indefinitely but we don't have accurate statistics on what the most recent data is.

The next claim is that less than 2 percent of illegals are picking crops, but 41 percent are on welfare. Politifact found this claim to be mostly false. While only 2 percent of illegals are involved in picking crops according to a 2007 report, it is far from reasonable to even consider that as many as 41% are on welfare. Politifact continues:

"According to a 2007 report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter immigration laws, 40 percent of illegal immigrant-headed households used any "major welfare" program in the previous calendar year.
   
But it’s important to keep two bits of context in mind:
   
• This statistic addresses households headed by an illegal immigrant. However, many of these households include American citizens within the family, often children who were born in the United States and who received citizenship at birth. Indeed, given the web of restrictions on the granting of government benefits to illegal immigrants, most of the "welfare" benefits being counted in the CIS table are going to citizen children, not to adult illegal immigrants.
   
• We suspect that when many people hear the term "welfare," they think of cash benefits. However, very little cash assistance is going to illegal immigrants. According to CIS, less than 1 percent of illegal-immigrant-headed households included anyone receiving direct government cash assistance, such as Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or state-run cash aid. This is not surprising: Illegal immigrants are generally barred from receiving such payments.
   
Instead, 27 percent of such households received coverage from Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor, while 33 percent received food assistance, such as free or reduced-price school lunches, food stamps, or benefits from the Women-Infants-Children program (WIC). As noted earlier, many of the recipients of these programs were actually citizen children of illegal immigrants."

The next claim is that 2/3 of all births in California are to illegals on Medi-Cal. This was found to be a false skewing of data which focused just on Los Angelos and included all births to hispanics.

Number five says that nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties in U.S. are illegals. Politifact found that "The closest but unverified estimate we could find for illegal occupants in HUD housing is less than 1 percent nationwide. The claim of 60 percent is ridiculously false."

Next we look at whether more than 39% of California students grades 1-12 are illegals. A Center for Immigration Studies report (2011) gives the percentage of school age “illegal and U.S. born children of illegals” in California as 14%. The math on this one just does not add up, and is rated false.

The post claims 75% of LA’s Most Wanted are illegals. According to the LA Times (to which many of these facts were first falsely attributed), the LAPD, states this is simply not true.

More than half of all gang members are illegals. This one seems to come from a 2008 study funded by the Justice Department. The Center for Immigration Studies found that 25 to 50 percent of gang members arrested in northern and western Virginia were removable, and usually illegal aliens. We simply do not have the data available to determine the validity of this claim. However since there are around 1.4 million gang members in the U.S, it seems unlikely that the claim would hold up nationwide.

US companies using illegals in 2005 profited over 2.36 trillion dollars. The total U.S. economic output in 2014 was just over 17 trillion dollars. While illegals do make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force, it seems unlikely that they would drive that much economic growth. Legally however, companies are required to check to see if their workers are here legally.

US Taxpayers are footing the bill for ALL illegals. Currently 43% of all Americans aren't paying federal taxes, but all of us (illegals included) are paying taxes. We all pay sales tax, and if we own property we pay property tax, (even if we're renting, our landlords pay property tax). I'm sure many illegal immigrants would love to be here legally and wouldn't mind paying back taxes just to have that right.

Overall this internet meme is rated false. Some of the claims have half truths. Others were flat-out lies. If you see your friends post this meme, please refer them to this article.

Are We Headed for Another Recession?

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average(DOW) plummeted more than 1,000 points Monday morning. This fall in the stock market affected millions of Americans’ retirement plans, and many had fears of a recession returning. While stocks regained some of their lost ground by Monday afternoon, continued uncertainty over the global economy could have further impact.

The DOW is an indicator of U.S. industrial strength. It is one of the most watched stock indexes in the world, containing many massive companies like General Electric, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Exxon.

This all started with concerns over slowing growth in China's economy. China is the world's second-biggest economy. For two decades the country has seen explosive growth which has been the engine for the global economy. Their government is deep in debt from massive infrastructure growth. The country’s national debt rose from $7 trillion in 2007 to $28 trillion by mid-2014.

As their economy slows, their need for materials from other countries slows, and the effects can be felt world wide. There are many concerns that this could lead to a recession. A recession is considered two quarters of negative economic growth in a row. Historically we have seen a recession about once every five years since World War II. This window of time has lengthened, though, in the past couple of decades as times of growth have lasted longer due to the strengthened ability for the global economy to take a hit.

So are we now headed into the next recession? Well that depends on who you listen to. Most analysts are referring to the recent dip in the stock market as a market correction. Many people believe that the stock market's prices were inflated, meaning they cost more than they were actually worth, and that a correction like we saw yesterday was very necessary for the long term stability and strength of the stock market.

Some however look at the news coming from China as another signal of a stagnating economy that may fall back into a recession. In the U.S. wages have stagnated for years, and there are concerns over the direction of the future of the economy.

The reason most analysts aren't concerned over a major economic downturn is that the U.S. Economy has been gaining strength, especially in the energy sector where the U.S. has recently become the top oil and natural gas producer in the world.

Others point to new innovation with companies like Apple and Tesla to fuel new economic growth in the U.S. The bottom line is, though the market dipped, the economy is most likely not heading for a recession this year.

Hillary Clinton Email Scandal: What Is it and Why Does it Matter?

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In March of this year Hillary’s use of a nongovernmental email setup was revealed to the public by the New York Times in a report that has prompted a major controversy that still hangs over her presidential campaign, and will for the foreseeable future. Some are calling for a full scale investigation and charges to be brought, while others think it's no big deal.

So what became of the emails in question? After a request from the State Department (which came nearly two years after she had left office) Clinton turned over more than 30,000 messages to the agency that she and her team deemed to be possibly work-related that were on a private server she had used for official State Department business. Clinton and her staff also destroyed 31,830 messages that they decided were "personal." The private server was then wiped clean, and after two months of requests was finally turned over to the Justice Department for analysis.

When asked about whether she knowingly wiped the server Clinton responded by saying "“I don’t know, I have no idea,” she said. “Like with a cloth or something?"

The real controversy is whether or not her private server was used to store classified documents, which is a federal crime. This is laid out in 18 USC 1924 — that “whoever . . . becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.”

We now know that many of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails would automatically have entered the world with “classified” status. So far at least 30 email threads since 2009 immediately deserve that designation based on the context in which they were written, according to a report by Reuters.

The reason why using a private server is such a massive concern is because of the lengths that the government goes to to protect classified documents. If it was ever found that her server was compromised, then that could have meant a massive leak of classified information on diplomatic negotiations and national security issues.

The FBI began it's investigation into the matter in July, after the inspector general expressed concerns over whether information had been compromised. The probe is in the beginning stages and is focused on ensuring the proper handling of classified material.

As it concerns her candidacy for presidency, there will be questions of whether a person who already has allegedly mishandled classified information should be granted authority over the armed forces and all intelligence agencies as commander in chief.

Hilarious! Bad Lip Reading Does the Republican National Debate

If you missed the first Republican debate, bad lip reading has you covered. The national debate hosted 10 candidates including current front runner Donald Trump. Bad lip reading spoofs the debate in a fantastic way. From Trump to Huckabee to a round of songs for each candidate you don't want to miss this.