By 117,000 Jobs Created, We Actually Meant 76,000 Jobs Lost
A little jobs math from The Washington Post, as President Obama pivots to jobs (again!) and embarks on his Pivot to Jobs-themed Midwestern bus tour:
The White House and much of the chattering class cooed on Friday when unemployment dropped to 9.1 percent and 117,000 jobs were reportedly created in July. But these numbers, upon closer inspection, show no progress on the jobs front.
Buried in the job stats was a number—193,000—that dwarfed all the rest. That is the number of workers who left the job market. If 193,000 left and only 117,000 jobs were added, we lost 76,000 jobs. Moreover, this is not an aberration.
Read the whole thing.
More Reason on the politico jobs obsession here. And hey, remember in 2009 when we put a big scary Obama face on our cover and said that the economy was not on the mend?
Via Instapundit.
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If you didn’t sound the alarm on lost jobs Bush was losing them up, then be an adult and stfu. Someone might mistake you for an opportunistic partisan sheep.
You missed the point. This is the most blatantly racist attack on Obama ever.
i don’t think the point is that he’s losing jobs or creating them. it’s that he says he’s doing something that he’s not- and is actually completely unable to do.
Don’t worry, we saw you were a partisan sheep, and it wasn’t even a mistake.
Seriously, weren’t you around these parts during the Bush years? The only things libertarians could have ever remotely liked about Bush were the policy reforms he utterly failed to implement. The same goes for Obama.
Go away Fake Tony. You won’t sound like the real Tony until you learn to believe the drivel you spout.
+1
then be an adult and stfu.
Are you implying that Bush got a pass here at reason between 2002ish (about the time hit and run started) and 2008?
Cuz i can assure Bush got no pass.
Reason has earned the right to criticize Obama any day of the week.
On a side note, have you Tony earned the right to criticize Bush? I think not.
The only fringe bennie of being a Libertarian on H & R is being always right because the guy in power – no matter the team – is always fucking wrong.
Well, during Bush the decline wasn’t nearly as fast nor as large. So I’m guessing the speed with which the decline is occurring and the acceleration since Bush could play a roll in why they are talking about it now.
Bush lost 1.5% over 8 years. Obama has lost 1.9% over 4. Now you can argue what Bush did had a significant impact on the last 4 years and be correct in doing so, but to argue that Reason is somehow at fault for not paying attention to a drop over 8 years that is significantly less than the drop over the last 4 years is fucking retarded at best.
did had,hmmm not sure about that.
Obama has lost 1.9% over 4
Obama has been in office less then 3 years (about 2.6)….not 4.
Those are participation rates. And yes he’s only been here 3 years, but I’m hoping to the Easterbunny and Toothfairy that we don’t lose too many more in the next year.
I’m hoping to the Easterbunny and Toothfairy that we don’t lose too many more in the next year.
I am hoping we lose about 2 million more jobs…all of them government jobs and government contractors.
Libertarianism seems to be mostly about destruction. Am I right? Also hate and sarcasm. And really bad jokes. I can do all of those things. Do you need new members? Will I have to watch cartoons?
Yes, you are completely right. Libertarianism is only about destruction. We won’t be happy until the world is a smoking ruin. Well observed.
Libertarianism seems to be mostly about destruction. Am I right?
Failed troll is failed.
and the roads (did someone say roadz) will become a white-line nightmare.
Kudos for hero.
A union job is a job forever.
Who ever argued that this wasn’t status quo? If you wish to live in the past, go ahead. That makes you satisfied. Satisfy yourself. Leave the rest of us alone. Oops, (our)contract requires an tiny some of money. My benefits are amazing.
That explains everything. Racism is so viciously ubiquitous in this country that people are intentionally quitting jobs, buying less, and otherwise tanking the economy just to make the second black president look bad.
+1
+[Black President]1
I prefer to call him the 44th (mostly) white president. To ignore half of his heritage is racist.
Reason has showed terrible judgment with this post. The economy is on the mend, our credit rating is AAA+++, and to say otherwise is foolish.
I thought it was AA+-ungood.
I wuv you, too, Mr. Geithner! A million million xoxoxoxo’s, 4EVER & 4EVER!!!!
STOP SPOOFING ME, GODDAMMIT!!!
Neu Math!
Hey! My math is good enough to recognize that the WaPo can’t do math. Just ‘cuz there are two numbers, and one is bigger than the other, doesn’t mean you get to subtract to get a third number that means anything.
Please do NOT feed the sockpuppet.
Which one?
The one that posted first on this thread. THAT one.
What about regular puppets?
Re: Chupacabra,
As long as you don’t feed the sockpuppet, I won’t care what you do to spice up your love-life.
My working theory is that Tony is a Op-Ed columnist at the NYT, ghostwriting as one “Paul Krugman”.
Dow finishes down 633 points or 5.53%. Ouch. Hope none of you were planning on retiring soon.
I already invested my life savings in China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited.
Nah, I’m vested in South Sea Company.
I was hoping to invest in the California Hi Speed Rail to the Middle of Nowhere Company, but then I found out I’m already invested in it as a US taxpayer, except I don’t get any stock or anything.
Just imagine how bad it would have been if the debt ceiling wasn’t passed!
I doubt it would have been much worse. Everyone knows the debt ceiling deal was all smoke and mirrors. Nothing really changed. The only difference is Obama didn’t have to shut down non-emergency services.
Sarcasm font. Wingdings.
We need a sarcasm meme on this board.
Do they sell Mexican bonds?
I think i would buy those before investing in the US stock markets.
By the way where is shrike?
I am wondering how he will blame this on Big Christ-fag.
I don’t blame Reverend Wright for any of this!
Seems like a good place to put this. Good thing I barely have any money.
Dow Jones industrial average plunges 600 as market rout continues
Gold marching towards $2000.
The gold bubble is almost as big as the education bubble…
Might have a long run before it pops.
My theory:
Gold will continue to rise as confidence in fiat currencies falls.
The USD is finished as a reserve currency. It will be replaced by a virtual currency – a basket of currencies and commodities, one of which will be gold.
The price of gold, as part of the basket, will be effectively fixed within a narrowish range*, although its value as against specific national currencies will rise or fall inversely to the rise or fall of those currencies against the basket.
*Its value at that point will be significantly higher than it is now.
Bitcoins are taking a fucking beating…
You would think a virtual deflationary currency would do good right about now.
So are Pt and Pd. Everyone’s selling those and bitcoins to get gold. Weird. Pretty pleased I bought Au and Ag in ’08 right about now.
I sure hope biotech finds me a way to be able to physically and mentally continue to work past 80.
ObamaCare is bringing this to a free clinic near you.
Oh, okay. I feel much better about my stock-heavy retirement portfolio then.
I still can’t believe my stupid-good luck with my IRA. I left the rollover transfer sitting in cash where it was before Friday, not convinced that the market was done evacuating its bowels. Of course, were this a bull run, I’d be cursing my hunch.
Sometimes it’s a good thing that I do listen to the voices in my head.
Nah, soon we’ll be back to the good old days where your choices will be go to work or beggar you kids. I may actually have to have kids.
I’m planning to “have” robots and work within the system to adopt them.
I’m sure that as we speak, the government is working toward ensuring that people have fewer non-working years at the end of their lives.
Don’t worry. It’s not Obama’s fault. He’s been a responsible spender his entire Presidency.
I guess with Obama the buck doesn’t stop with him.
Now, let me be clear: The blank check stops here.
Barrack W. Hoover.
Er, if he’s Hoover, then I would hate to see who will succeed him as FDR. That’s some scary shit.
Michelle Bachman.
Right now, I’m very glad I don’t have to try to find a real job for five years or so.
I’m a tad confused by the phrasing “workers who left the job market.” Does that mean ‘folks who stopped working and left their jobs’ or ‘jobs that vanished’? If it means the latter, then, yes, the WaPo take on this is correct. However, if those jobs are still there then this not a simple addition/subtraction deal, as far as I can tell.
There’s no way to even approximate the number of jobs, only the number of employed and unemployed workers.
People use the number of unemployed people who either start looking or give up looking as a proxy for the number of jobs that are actually out there.
How good a proxy it is, I couldn’t say. But I think its not a bad indicator, at a pretty gross level, of whether employers or adding or dropping positions.
I believe you are correct. Leaving the job market doesn’t mean a job was lost.
The 193,000 is people who stopped looking for jobs*. That’s what left the job market left. FFS Rubin has a serious problem with facts.
* Which is still really bad, but has no effect on the net number of people employed.
Yes it does. It is the denominator in the unemployment percentage for cryin’ out loud. If they claim there are fewer workers, unemployment goes lower – even though less people are working.
Uh, the larger the denominator, the lower the resulting number.
1/1 > 1/193,000
They drop the people who have left the workforce from the calculation altogether.
The real unemployment is 24.6 million unemployed/150 million in the work force = 16% unemployment.
Now if we drop the 10.7 million who have given up looking from both the unemployed and the workforce, we get 13.9 million/139.3 million = 9% unemployment.
Neither. It means folks who said fuck it, I’m staying home and jerking off for a living.
There’s a subsidy for that.
^ this ^
Repetitive motion injuries? No thanks.
Disability, dude. You’ll still be cashing checks, so its all good.
Alternate hands, take regular breaks, and don’t do to much overtime.
PRESENT!
Hire an assistant.
If someone just leaves their job, but that job is not restaffed (restaffing which would be covered in the 117,000 jobs created) then the net result is a significant loss of jobs.
Obama fucking sucks.
Every year under that twatknuckle we just get worse.
2nd Annual Recovery Summer, going full steam ahead!
I prefer the Steam Summer Specials, which enabled me to get all GTA games for $15 (including GTA IV and all DLC), and FO3 GoTY for $7.50. My god so many cool mods. I’m running around the DC wastes with an Enfield and a G3.
Is that still going on? I need to get fallout 3.
U6 versus U3
This isn’t so surprising is it?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more stupid:
by Robert Reich
http://www.csmonitor.com/Comme…..ond-rating
Don’t like the message, shoot the messenger. A rich tradition among authoritarian fucks throughout history.
Yep. A private company issues it’s own opinion for it’s own reasons, and somehow they’re the villain. I’m not arguing that hopefully people take their extremely poor recent track record into account when deciding how much weight to give to their assessment, but that is for each individual investor to decide.
Reich acts like there’s some kind of world-wide gov’t law forcing everyone to heed the advice of S&P. It’s like if I said Robert Reich is a douche and no one should listen to him, and many, many people take me up on that suggestion, and then he comes out and says somebody ought to make me shut up.
I think a more charitable read is that he is appalled that the same company that felt the need not to sound the alarm in 2008 despite risks is now, during a shaky economy, rushing to give a judgment that might harm the economy.
Or something. It’s a bizzare piece.
I think you’re being excessively charitable. The company that was slow in 2008 to sound the alarm is now still being slow to sound the alarm.
This downgrade is just the first of many, IMO. Federal government debt should be a junk bond or worse level investment, because many of the people in Congress are some of the most fiscally irresponsible people on the planet. You can’t keep on living that far outside your means and be in denial about it and expect it to turn out well.
So, what S&P did is anything but rushing to judgment.
So the markets are irrationally and stupidly finding a safe haven in US bonds?
I see that perspective, but the market (the world, really) obviously places value on S&P’s ratings, so they’ve obviously forgiven them their past transgressions for the mortgage-backed-securities (MBSs) debacle.
It’s easy to see why. MBSs are such a hodge-podge of “bonds” a few defaults on mortgages were expected and even factored in. It was just when “a few” became “a lot and all at nearly the same time” that the trouble started.
Actually, there is a law (though not world wide) forcing people to heed the advice of S&P: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nationally_Recognized_Statistical_Rating_Organizations
But Reich is still a douche because S&P’s NRSRO status makes the government culpable for the adverse effects of a downgrade.
The ratings agency wasn’t doing it’s job in 2008, when it gave Wall Street’s riskiest securities a AAA rating, and it’s not doing its job now by hurting the US economy with an unnecessary downgrade.
What exactly is Reich getting at? Does he think the S&P rating is too high? Should the US be downgraded more? Because that was the problem with their securities ratings in 2008. They were rating junk as investment grade.
I was thinking that, too. If they tend to overrate large institutions, then the U.S. should be downgraded even more, right?
It doesn’t have to go that way, he could just be saying “they are wrong a lot” without specifying the direction.
He’s trying to do what you say, but if you follow the mistakes S&P had made to their logical conclusion, it’s that the US backed bonds are rated too high.
What does Robert Reich have against the US Treasury?
It’s a bit strange for sure. I could see if he argued “who cares what S&P thinks, look how wrong they were in 2008” but he doesn’t do that. He says they are “not doing their job” by issuing the downgrade. WTF?
I could give you that. A, “Look, these assholes have been wrong more often than not lately, so I appeal to the bond markets to take this with a giant grain of salt”. That would be OK, because he’s presenting a case, and asking for voluntary consideration of the facts he lays out.
Instead he goes full retard and basically sounds like S&P has gone off the deep end and somebody should shut them down.
Why are private parties allowed to have opinions about the government, anyway?
The downgrade didn’t reflect the behavior of markets, it instead gave the markets a jolt that might not otherwise have happened. It was explicitly described as a reaction to the political environment. That does add uncertainty (the thing tea partiers claim is the big problem in the economy), but it doesn’t reflect the relative security of the US. The action is plausible especially if you compare us with normal times, so maintaining AAA could be considered grading on a curve. But look where those fleeing the stock market found refuge. Still the safest bet in the world, even if no bet is as safe as it was 5 years ago.
Re: Montani Semper Liberi,
Maybe that we should not give too much credence to what S&P says.
Oh, and it was all the Tea Party’s fault!
“Oh, and it was all the Tea Party’s fault!”
Dunno about that, but it can’t be Obama’s fault.
Teh stupid is strong here. Reich can’t seem to recognize how bad of a sign it is that the same guys that didn’t downgrade wall street’s malinvestments in time apparently consider US sovereign worse.
When and how America brings down its debt shouldn’t matter to Standard & Poor’s.
He is right S&P has no business telling how to lower the debt…of course the S&P did not downgrade US bonds because the US brought down the debt in the wrong way…they downgraded US bonds because the US didn’t bring down its debt at all.
“He is right S&P has no business telling how to lower the debt.”
Sorta.
They do have every right to editorialize, since they are paid to make those sorts of judgments for their customers.
I rate the US as a BB investment.
When and how America brings down its debt shouldn’t matter…
If America had any actual plans to actually bring down the debt in any fashion, Reich might have a point. All of the plans under discussion increase the debt, to varying degrees.
I’ve never understood this fucking logic. Because they overrated shit based on political pressure to produce good news then, we should assume they’re underrating things now because… why, exactly?
I mean, if they were consistently making errors in both directions, fine, they’re unreliable. When the errors are all in one direction, though, there’s a conclusion we can draw from that.
You know what’s going to be worse? When they readjust the teacher filings assumption for July. I’m betting there was a pretty large pencil fuckin’ in that set of assumptions…
If you know a better way for me to get re-elected than to blame my problems on everyone else and lie about my accomplishments, I’d like to hear it. Really, I would.
Well, you could cut spending. . .nah, that would never work. Just keep bullshitting–I’m sure it’ll work out just fine. People don’t like to work, anyway.
I didn’t ask for a way to get reelected that involved actual policy. If I wanted to cut spending, I wouldn’t have become president.
Fair enough. I say squeeze the country for all it’s worth, then refuse to leave office when you get clobbered in 2012.
Er, yeah, 2012 election. Don’t hold your breath for that. If I make things bad enough, I can suspend elections under the guise of “things are too bad now, we can’t afford any more instability.”
What America can’t withstand right now is any change.
It can’t withstand any change not administered by me.
Scary graph: http://research.stlouisfed.org…..es/CIVPART
according to that graph, we’re headed back to the 50s. Time Warp!
And this doesn’t take into account the huge # of illegal immigrants who have repatriated for lack of work. Those housekeeping and kitchen jobs, in the millions, have been filled, largely with legal immigrants and US citizens, and the numbers are still shitting the bed.
we are well and truly fucked if we think for a second that the current administration, paired up with the dunces in the House and Senate, are gonna pull us out of this mess.
Well. And. Truly. Fucked.
I dunno.
I would think “left the job market” means people who were unemployed and stopped looking.
Could be wrong, though.
Maybe they were replaced — and then EATEN — by an ATM machine.
FEED ME A CAT
God bless ’em. They make my numbers look better.
Now if they’d leave this mortal coil, that would be super. We don’t talk about it much around these parts, but we don’t have enough money to pay for Social Security or Medicare, so the more people die, the better.
Carnival! Carnival!
“It all made sense, up until Box…”
There’s really no way the 193,000 leaving the job market helps the numbers at all. Even if you assume that the entire 193,000 retired comfortably, that means that the 117,000 were simply replacing retirees and it’s still a net loss of 76,000.
I have a feeling, however, that many of the 193,000 “left the job market” by timing out on their unemployment benefits and moving back in with their parents.
The unemployed who are not looking for jobs don’t count as “unemployed” for the statistics. So say there are 20 MM unemployed & looking for a job in a country w/ a “workforce” of 100 MM (20% unemployment). Then 1 MM of the unemployed stop looking for work. Suddenly the country has a “workforce” of 99 MM, and 19 MM unemployed. (19.2% unemployment).
Just before close:
S&P 500 1,119.46 -79.92 -6.66%
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
I stole that “four score and seven” shit from Satan. And I’m a goddamned American ICON!
As any Heinlein reader can tell you, the Greek was mistranslated. It was “Zeta, Zeta, Zeta!!!–thus giving the true Number of the Beast to be (6^6)^6.
10,314,424,800,000,000,000,000,000,000?
I needed time to think, to get the memories from my mind
What did I see, can I believe, that what I saw that night was real and not just fantasy
I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t got this one, Warty. Thanks!
“Buried in the job stats was a number?193,000?that dwarfed all the rest. That is the number of workers who left the job market. If 193,000 left and only 117,000 jobs were added, we lost 76,000 jobs.”
Strictly speaking, that’s incorrect.
While I don’t approve of politicians playing with these number for political purposes, the Post should do it either.
You can’t conclude from 117k (new jobs) minus 193k (labor force participants leaving the labor force) that 76k jobs were lost.
The Labor Force Participation rate includes the employed and unemployed–the figure doesn’t have anything to do with actual jobs.
WaPo is comparing apples and oranges.
In other words, what they’re really saying is 193,000 Mexicans headed south
Right, technically the 193,000 jobs were already lost many moons ago- when those people were first added to the list of Unemployed. Subtracting the number just gives you “76,000 more people gave up looking for work, than got new jobs during the time period.” Which is interesting, but not the same thing.
No, that’s not what that means at all. The unemployment rate is:
TotalEmployedPeople/TotalPeopleSeekingEmployment
If 193k people leave the denominator of that equation because they are no longer looking for a job, it makes the unemployment rate drop. But not because new jobs were created. It dropped because workers were lost.
The unemployment rate currently being quoted is bogus because the minute jobs become available these workers will re-enter the workforce, keeping unemployment higher than otherwise imagined and suppressing wages.
Umm, no.
The unemployment rate is:
Unemployed/Labor Force
where:
Unemployed means you are not employed and you have actively sought employment in the past 4 weeks (i.e. sent out resumes or filled out applications, had an interview, or contacted an employment agency);
Employed means you have done any work for any pay in the past week (i.e. if you mowed your neighbor’s lawn for $10, you’re employed); and
Labor Force is the total of employed and unemployed.
If you have not worked in the past week, and you have not actively looked for work in the past 4 weeks, then you are not considered unemployed, and therefore are also not included in the labor force. The 193k people are dropped from both the numerator and the denominator of the equation.
The chickens are coming home to roost!
Is Obama promising a chicken in every pot now?
Pot, and booze; maybe a little blow when we can afford it. Not smack, though.
The only thing that blows is you.
(Directed at the handle, not the poster.)
Whereas my cocaine abuse is somehow more… acceptable.
To reinforce a few previous commenters, the above post is simply wrong. The 117k number is net jobs created. The 193k number is the number of people who left the labor force. Participants in the labor force are those who have a job or are currently looking. It is not correct to subtract 193k from 117k–the actual lost jobs have already been subtracted from the net jobs estimate.
That’s correct. However, the more important point is the effect that the new class of circle-jerkers has on the unemployment rate.
Another thing is that people who were trying to be productive are now doing jack shit.
Sorry. Were you expecting trenchant and honest economic analysis from Reason via Instapundit via Jennifer Rubin?
What you imbeciles fail to comprehend is the sheer, unadulterated genius of my economic corpus.
Who was smart enough to repackage mercantilist fallacies as new theoretical insights? Me. Who was crafty enough to realize that debating like a sophist creates more converts than debating like a logician? Me. Who paved the way for econometrics and making hackneyed theories based on ex post facto statistics? Me. Who polluted the field of macroeconomics for decades with no end in sight? Fuckin’ me.
Because you see, those rat fucking classicists failed to understand the beauty of math in economics. Especially functions. Goddamn do I love me some polynomial functions. I mean, have you seen the consumption function and the multiplier effect? It’s based on algebra and stuff. Does it matter if it’s logically sound or cogent? Hell no. Like Milton Friedman said, the mark of a good theory isn’t whether it’s logically sound but whether it can be tested with econometrics.
So all you little shits parroting Mises and Rothbard need to shut your goddamn mouths. I went to Cambridge and I have a sexy mustache; what are your credentials?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
And a Nobel Prize.
Sorry my eyes aren’t too good. Matt and Trey, is that you?
Is it just me or was Obama’s speech today not just bad but terrifyingly bad. So bad that in a better age people from his own party would intervene and get him to either resign or agree not to run again. Forget politics for a moment, I can’t see a single thing about that speech that makes me think he has any idea what he is doing.
You *watched* to it?!
You’re a brave man, or you have nothing heavy to throw at your TV.
You *watched* to it?!
It was made of awesome! You could see George Soros’ hand jammed up Obama’s ass, all the way to the elbow, and EVERYthing — !!!
Obama spoke how Warren Buffet thought of our rating.
Shortly thereafter, S&P downgraded Buffet’s company.
Coincidence? I think not.
It must be obvious to anyone but the blindest Obama supporters that his speech was all about him. He made a baseless promise there would be no downgrade if the debt ceiling was raised. Then, there was a downgrade. Didn’t S&P think about how this downgrade would affect his credibility?
The left must know what a joke he’s become. That’s why the 2012 election is going to get very ugly. They won’t/can’t turn their backs on him, but also can’t really defend him, so their assault against the other side will achieve a level of political nastiness that I have not seen in my lifetime. Can’t wait.
Michael Moore to Obama: ‘Show some guts,’ arrest S&P head
Teh stooopid… it burrrrrnz us…
Which way does Mikey think this is going to drive the ratings again? He’s a ‘get it all done at once’ guy, isn’t he?
It isn’t fascism when we do it.
OT: Booze and pirates.
As any Heinlein reader can tell you, the Greek was mistranslated. It was “Zeta, Zeta, Zeta!!!–thus giving the true Number of the Beast to be (6^6)^6.
I think the unemployment figure understate the problem rather significantly.
Job market bad… and here is the libertarian pro-jobs policy! Oh wait, no, just another bit of evidence supporting the enlightening thesis “Obama bad!”
That is right Tony. Just leaving people alone and not taking their stuff via taxation or regulating their businesses out of existence would ever allow people to create any wealth or jobs. Nope. Wealth is only created when the government takes money from one group and gives it to another via a “jobs policy”.
Don’t. Feed. The. Sock. Puppet.
Please.
Never mind that Obama hasn’t actually gained net jobs… he’s still the best president we’ll ever have.
The problems the economy is having right now are not as minor as taxes and regulations.
“YOU NEVER REALLY LOVED HIM, DAMN YOU! NONE OF YOU — !!!”
[::flings self tearfully onto bed, sobs into nearest stuffed animal::]
Seems to be that what Obama meant was we lost 76,000 jobs… the unemployment rate would be 11.5 percent not 9.1 percent. Moreover, this is just another way the spin doctor is helping Obama look better in a bad situation, in which it did not work this time.
One more number: 174,000 work visas issued.
We are told that 10k baby boomers are retiring each day. While this does not create a “new” job, it does create a fillable vacancy. Thats 300k jobs a month, 3.2 million a year. Are employers leaving these openings vacant, or are they simpply disappearing into the ether. Even if you cut it in half, that could be 1.6 million unemployed returning to the work force. ???
I think the promises are being tried but there is too much giving to the other side of the party. We need Jobs NOW.