President Obama was Hemorrhaging Full-time Jobs during his First Year in Office. If you examine the data you will see that President Obama was losing seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted full-time jobs while growing the unemployment rolls. President Trump is doing the exact opposite. "Doctor Trump" has started a full-time job job infusion. Jobs are the lifeblood of an economy and full-time jobs are the "whole blood" of all transfusions. Not all blood is created equal.
President Trump has been shedding Unemployed Workers. The level of unemployed workers under President Obama surged and then was dramatically reduced. This is the story that you are hearing. Some in the media compare it to what happened under President Reagan. What you didn't hear was that President Reagan cut unemployment and increased participation. President Obama cut unemployment and cut participation. This is not the same thing. You also won't hear that during January of this year the workforce population was lowered. A lower population means a higher participation rate than should have been reported. President Trump has seen the number of unemployed workers drop by 1.6 million workers while adding 2.9 million jobs. President Obama had lost three quarters of a million full-time jobs and added nearly one million people to the ballooning unemployed population.President Trump's participation rate is not improving as much as it could be improving because he is swapping jobs for unemployed workers. If President Trump had the same participation rate as any of his predecessors then there would be 2.7 million to 9 million more workers. That is how bad a hand he was dealt.
We are seeing a decrease in the "Effectively Unemployed" worker level. This column has detailed how an unemployment rate of 5% is "Full-employment" and how you cannot compare an unemployment rate of 4.11% and a participation rate of 62.79% with a 4.26% unemployment rate with a participation rate of 65.82% (May 2017 versus May 2017.) The population has grown during the past 10 years. A 3% difference is huge with regard to a workforce population of nearly 255 million potential workers. If you compare the participation rates of the Presidents and the unemployment levels of the Presidents then you can see that we should have millions more participants right now - up to 9 million more.
What is the Real Unemployment Rate? There is a level of unemployment called "U-6" which measures those unemployed and under-employed.This U-6 does not cover those who have stopped looking. This data only goes back to 1994. This column created the U-7 unemployment rate to compare data from the same month and the same time time during one President's term to other Presidents terms. These tables are comparing month four year one data. The U-7 reflects the effectively unemployed. A discussion on U-6 and U-7 developed on my timeline after the release of this May Jobs Report. The official U-6 for May was the lowest for May since May 2006 and May 2007. It was lower than May 2005. The problem is the participation rate is also lower than May 2005, May, 2006, and May 2007. The participation rates for May 2005 and May 2006 were both 65.97%. May 2007 we had a participation rate of 65.82% . The U-6 rates were 8.6%, 7.9% and 7.9% respectively. The U-7 Effective Unemployment rate for this May would be between 8.92% and 9.17%. As it stands, comparing President Trump's first May to other first May data the U-7 Unemployment rate would be between 8% and 11%. Participation Matters .
We are seeing a shift from part-time hiring to full-time hiring. We are seeing unemployed workers become employed workers. This transition is causing the participation rate to stay relatively stagnant. The participation rate sees all participants as equals. The economy likes part-time workers better than unemployed workers and full-time workers over part-time workers. We need to continue seeing improvement in new hires.Hopefully these new hires will be permanent and not seasonal hires. We have a record level of full-time jobs right now. We will hit peak employment either during July or August of this year.We should see participation improve, as well. Is anybody else paying attention?
It's the economy.
This column has had a considerable number of articles inspired by Internet Memes. The Whopper of all Internet Memes, at least at its inception, was the "Number of Jobs Created by President Obama" meme. The authors of that meme made four mistakes; They compared President Obama before the end of his term with Presidents at the end of their terms, they included George H.W. Bush who only served one term; they excluded President Reagan's accomplishments; and they were looking at job creation from the lowest point in President Obama's term in office. That first column was a three-part series "Four Presidents at 81 Months." Seasonal factors impact every President. Every President loses jobs during Month 96 - the month of the new President's Inauguration.What was uncovered after 96 months of President Obama was that he had recovered all of the lost Full-time jobs from the Great recession, that after losing 5 million jobs under his watch he added 14 million jobs. This means that he added 9 million jobs for 19 million new workers
"All participants are created equal." Right now we have roughly 160 million participants for roughly 255 million potential workers. We could have 160 million full-time workers, 160 million part-time workers, 160 million unemployed workers, or any combination of full-time workers, part-time workers and unemployed workers that adds up to 160 million and we would still have 160 million participants, and the participation rate would be the same. Right now we have 126 million full-time workers, 27.5 million part-time workers, and 6.5 million unemployed workers.
The participation rate was an interesting statistic during President Reagan's and President Clinton's Presidencies. Nobody really discussed the participation rate as it was rising. It was during President Bush #43's term in office that the Chicken Little Economists began fretting about it. Those same economists started to dismiss the "Obama Slide" as a result of the Baby Boomers retiring. This column through its "Red, Gray, and Blue" series has shown how older people are working longer and participating more now than prior to the recession. Participation matters.
We are replacing Unemployed Workers with Full-time Jobs. When you examine the accompanying tables you will see that we have the highest level of full-time workers and part-time workers after four mnths in office. You will also notice that President Trump has the fewest unemployed workers while having the largest workforce population.