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September Unemployment Unchanged At 9.1 Percent; 103000 Jobs …

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 103000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase in employment partially reflected the return to …

Publish Date: 10/07/2011 14:52

http://asternglance.com/2011/10/07/september-unemployment-unchanged-at-9-1-percent-103000-jobs-added/

Economy Added 103000 Jobs In September, Unemployment Rate …

Economy Added 103000 Jobs In September, Unemployment Rate Unchanged.

Publish Date: 10/07/2011 11:02

http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/economy-added-103000-jobs-in-september-unemployment-rate-unchanged_b8661

What Could Be Worse Than 9.1 Percent? – Try 16.5 Percent!

The number of part-time workers who want full-time hours rose sharply over the month, to 9.3 million, from 8.8 million in August, and if you add those workers to people that have quit looking because they don’t see hope of getting hired, then the share of unemployed and underemployed among the U.S. workforce rose to 16.5% in September, up from 16.2% in the prior month and 15.8% in May.

"The upturn in this category is discouraging, it’s very discouraging. It shows the broader measure of underutilization of America’s productive capabilities, and reminds us that the labor market hasn’t recovered as much as we thought".

said Harry Holzer, who is a labor economist at the Urban Institute and Georgetown University.

The White House Spin – We Expected Worse

Analysts say about 125,000 net new jobs are needed every month to keep pace with the population growth and maintain the current jobless rate, but the spin is:

"Many forecasters were expecting about 60,000 net new jobs last month, but 103,000 were added!

The Reality

While construction employment rebounded and retailers hired more workers last month, manufacturing payrolls shrank again and government continued its sharp cutbacks.

The ranks of the unemployed in the U.S. remained at about 14 million, but the share of those who have been without jobs for six months or more, the so-called long-term unemployed, rose to 6.2 million from 6 million in August.

The third quarter’s average monthly tally at 96,000 jobs which is roughly the same as in the second quarter, but during the first three months of this year, job growth averaged 166,000 a month.

In September, local education jobs fell by another 24,400, accounting for most of the 34,000 positions lost in government overall.

The Postal Service slashed 5,300 jobs last month.

According to the National Women’s Law Center, women gained only 4,000 of the 103,000 total jobs added in September.

The count of September jobs, over all, was partially inflated by the return to work of about 45,000 striking Verizon workers, just as their temporary absence from payrolls lowered the August job numbers.

How Many Jobs Need To Be Added?

Heidi Shierholz, who is a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington calculated that the economy would need to generate 280,000 jobs every month for five straight years to return to the 5% jobless rate that was in force before the recession hit in late 2007.

Was There Good News?

The professional and business services led the industries in job growth by adding 48,000 to their payrolls last month, and the temporary-help field, often considered a harbinger of broader hiring by companies, rose by about 20,000 last month for the second straight month after weakening earlier in the year.

Healthcare employment increased by 44,000 in September, and the long-declining construction sector added an unexpectedly large 26,000 jobs over the month, almost entirely due to nonresidential building activity.

The Future of the Obama Coalition :: American Renaissance News

www.amren.com11/28/11

White working class voters in swing state were crucial to Obama's victory in 2008, and in 2012, will again make the difference. If the Democrat power brokers are writing off working class whites in favor of minorities, this means …

Occupiers Go After The Democrats Who Praised Them … – TPM 2012

2012.talkingpointsmemo.com11/30/11

Republicans have certainly had a field day with DCCC support of Occupy, and many have dismissed the movement as a pro-Democratic, pro-Obama swell that isn't worthy of GOP attention. But Occupy DC clearly has plenty to criticize at … I'm pretty sure that they don't exactly take Democratic lip service to the occupy movement itself as actually supporting those in need in this country, so I guess I fail to see how this is "ironic." They've been against the corruption and …

The next presidential election is about fifteen months away, and even though the outcome is highly uncertain, we can nevertheless get an early read on the fundamentals, and they don’t look good for Obama.

From 1936 until around 1984, Democratic partisans greatly outnumbered Republicans in the broader electorate, which meant that GOP nominees not only had to win their base, but they also had to do extremely well among independents and carry a good number of Democrats.

That changed however, with the success of the Reagan administration, and the percentage of Democrats in the electorate began to decline.

Today the two are either very close or the same, meaning that both parties now have roughly the same two goals in a presidential election:

Turn out as many partisans as possible, and

Win the independent vote.

This gives us two good metrics to begin looking at Obama’s prospects, so let’s begin with the independent vote.

The Gallup poll offers a weekly breakdown of self-identified independents in the adult population and therefore provides an excellent metric to determine how the president is doing with this critical bloc.

It shows that Obama fell below 50% with independents in the summer of 2009, and since the winter of 2010, he has struggled to stay above 45%.

That’s very bad news for him because in the last forty years, no president has ever been elected in a predominantly two-way race with less than 48% of the independent vote.

* That was George W. Bush in 2004

So What About Obama’s Partisan Base?

The spin leading up to and after the 2008 election was that the president was transforming the electorate by converting new voters, independents, and thinking Republicans into Democrats.

How Is Obama Doing On This Front?

Below is a historical trend-line showing the proportion of the adult population who identify as Democrats and Republicans.

The data point in each graph is the closest poll taken to Election Day, and as you can see, in 2010 the percentage of adults calling themselves Democrats was at its lowest point in fifty years!

And that’s more horrible news for the man in the White House!

Over the last decade, Democrats have won about 90.5% of the Democratic vote and 7% of the Republican vote, so for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Obama will win the same amount.

And let’s also assume that he’ll win a share of the independent vote equal to his approval in the Gallup poll.

That leaves only one more variable to account for, which is the percentage of Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the electorate.

Let’s Use Three Models.

First, a “Very Democratic Electorate", wherein partisan identification breaks down in a similar way to 2008 when it was 39% Democratic, 29% independent and 32% GOP.

Secondly, a “Slightly Democratic Electorate", wherein partisan identification breaks down in a similar way to 2006 and 2000 when it was 38.5% Democratic, 26% independent and 35.5% GOP.

Thirdly, an “Even Electorate", wherein partisan identification breaks down in a similar way to 2004 and 2010 when it was 36% Democratic, 28% independent and 36% GOP.

Using the above three models, we can estimate Obama’s re-election chances, and right now, they certainly don’t look good.