Cutting through the unemployment mush

[WVPATX]

The U6 unemployment rate measures those who want to work but can't get a job. After Obama's 6 years in office, the U6 rate is still higher than at any time in this century.




Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
2000 7.1 7.2 7.1 6.9 7.1 7.0 7.0 7.1 7.0 6.8 7.1 6.9 2000
2001 7.3 7.4 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.9 7.8 8.1 8.7 9.3 9.4 9.6 2001
2002 9.5 9.5 9.4 9.7 9.5 9.5 9.6 9.6 9.6 9.6 9.7 9.8 2002
2003 10.0 10.2 10.0 10.2 10.1 10.3 10.3 10.1 10.4 10.2 10.0 9.8 2003
2004 9.9 9.7 10.0 9.6 9.6 9.5 9.5 9.4 9.4 9.7 9.4 9.2 2004
2005 9.3 9.3 9.1 8.9 8.9 9.0 8.8 8.9 9.0 8.7 8.7 8.6 2005
2006 8.4 8.4 8.2 8.1 8.2 8.4 8.5 8.4 8.0 8.2 8.1 7.9 2006
2007 8.4 8.2 8.0 8.2 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.4 8.8 2007
2008 9.2 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.7 10.1 10.5 10.8 11.0 11.8 12.6 13.6 2008
2009 14.2 15.1 15.7 15.9 16.4 16.5 16.5 16.7 16.7 17.1 17.1 17.1 2009
2010 16.7 17.0 17.0 17.1 16.6 16.5 16.5 16.5 16.8 16.7 16.9 16.6 2010
2011 16.2 16.0 15.8 16.0 15.8 16.1 16.0 16.1 16.3 16.0 15.5 15.2 2011
2012 15.1 15.0 14.5 14.5 14.8 14.8 14.9 14.7 14.7 14.5 14.4 14.4 2012
2013 14.4 14.3 13.8 13.9 13.8 14.3 14.0 13.6 13.6 13.7 13.1 13.1 2013
2014 12.7 12.6 12.7 12.3 12.2 12.1 12.2 12.0 11.7 11.5 11.4 11.2 2014
2015 11.3 11.0 10.9

 

[WhiteTailEER]

It's also decreasing


wvu

 

[WVPATX]

Re: It's also decreasing

Tell that to the millions of Americans that can't find work. He's been in office for 6 years for goodness sake. We have almost $19T in debt and so very little to show for it. Yellen has helped corporate profits and rich investors, but no help for middle America. And the one sector that showed good middle class wage growth was energy which Obama had virtually nothing to do with. In fact, if he had his way, fossil fuel use would disappear.

 

[WhiteTailEER]

They are your numbers ... and they are clearly decreasing

They increased during the Bush years, continued increasing for a couple years after Obama took office but are now decreasing.

The conclusion is clearly that the trend has been reversed.

Maybe you should have found data that better supported whatever point you were trying to make.

 

[WVPATX]

Re: They are your numbers ... and they are clearly decreasing

9.1% when he took office, in the midst of the financial downturn and 10.9% now. Not a good trend in my mind. Keep trying.

 

[WhiteTailEER]

Re: They are your numbers ... and they are clearly decreasing

Originally posted by WVPATX:
9.1% when he took office, in the midst of the financial downturn and 10.9% now. Not a good trend in my mind. Keep trying.

Really? He took office in 2008?

I'll try to explain and help you out.

You see, the general elections are every 4 years in the first week of November, so he was elected as president in November of 2008 by receiving the requisite number of electoral votes (we'll leave the electoral college for another time). However, those that are elected don't actually get sworn into office until January. So it wasn't until January of 2009 that Obama took office.

Assuming your numbers are in order by month, the rate would have been 14.2% when he took office and are down to 10.9% now. Not great, but not too bad either considering the way it was trending.

Keep trying.

 

[bornaneer]

You almost had me fooled......

but your performance today snapped me back into reality.

 

[Keyser76]

Stating facts isn't a performance.

Guess he failed the litmus test?

 

[Original Mountaineer1]

Anyone can find work


there are low paying jobs all around. The problem is how does one replace their $50,000 job with a $24,000 job and make ends meet?

The long-term unemployed that I know lost good jobs and either due to their lack of formal education or a reduced need for their skill set, can't replace their salary.

Not sure Yellen's policies have had any impact to date on corporate profits or rich investors. She hasn't changed much of anything. As far as the middle class, the Fed's policies have kept mortgage rates low, inflation in check, and my 401k has been growing. What else can the Fed do?

 

[WhiteTailEER]

I never tried fooling anybody

Originally posted by bornaneer:
but your performance today snapped me back into reality.

What performance?

WVPATX posted the data, are you reaching a different conclusion from this data? It's pretty clear to me.

When did Obama take office and what does the data say for that date? What does it say for the most current date? Is that better or worse?

What was the trend when Obama took office? What is the trend now?

There's no performance, the data is right there.

If you're at all competent with Excel, go ahead and plug the numbers in and plot the graph. It won't show anything any different than what I'm saying.

This post was edited on 4/3 2:20 PM by WhiteTailEER

 

[bornaneer]

Thanks for the support on the LABOR FACT I posted earlier.**

wvu

This post was edited on 4/3 3:54 PM by bornaneer

 

[bornaneer]

I never said a word about your comments to WVPATX in this thread...

It's about your overall kool-aid slurping. That fact is hard to deny since your comments speak for themselves.

 

[WhiteTailEER]

Wow, that's totally on me, I don't see how I could have gotten confused

Originally posted by bornaneer:
It's about your overall kool-aid slurping. That fact is hard to deny since your comments speak for themselves.

Especially since you posted the comment in THIS THREAD. Silly me.

It's funny being called a kool-aid slurper when all I've done is try to look objectively at data that has been presented. You claim I "almost had you fooled", presumably because I looked at something else objectively and fell on the side you support. But I guess I wasn't slurping kool-aid then, only when I look at something else objectively and fall on the side you don't support.

You apparently can't look at data objectively, but I'm the kool-aid slurper.