RUSH: There's economic news out the wazoo today. Folks, it's all over the ballpark, and none of it is good. Much of it, most of it is being portrayed as good and positive in the media, which of course in a lot of people's minds is going to mean it's good. But it isn't. From the AP, Christopher Rugaber: "US employers added 162,000 jobs in July, the fewest since March. But the gains were enough to lower the unemployment rate to a 4 1/2 -year low of 7.4 percent, a sign that's hopeful in an otherwise lackluster report." Not true. It's not hopeful. There's nothing good about it.
And speaking of CNN, let me find it here because they've done a random act of journalism again. Grab sound bite number eight. I mean, I could tell you this, but I want you to hear this on CNN. Not enough people are watching CNN for this to have impact, so we're gonna give 'em a little amplification here. This was on their program this morning that's anchored by Carol Costello. She spoke with their business correspondent Alison Kosik about the July jobs numbers. Costello said, "Investors are getting their first chance to digest the latest jobs report, Alison. Alison Kosik, the New York Stock Exchange, what do we see?"
KOSIK: The problem is that lower unemployment rate that came in, it may be for the wrong reasons because the number of people counted in the labor participation rate fell, so people literally left the labor force, they gave up looking for work. That's really not the reason you want to see the unemployment rate tip lower. You want to see people getting jobs, and that's the reason you want to see the unemployment rate go lower.
RUSH: You gotta give 'em credit. I mean, she's trying. She pretty got it right. You have to give 'em kudos. (interruption) What'd you say, H.R.? Giving up is never good. Here's the thing. Again, the labor force participation rate, that number is what I'm talking about when I tell you that nine million jobs have vanished since Obama took office. The universe of available jobs in the country is down by over nine million. They just don't exist. It's like enough factories closed that there are nine million jobs, no longer attainable. It's not the jobs are waiting to be filled. They're not there anymore. There's nothing good about jobs in this country.
There's not one bit of news of any substance whatsoever that's good. Nine million plus jobs, we lost some more. That's what she was talking about, labor force participation rate. So the unemployment rate goes down because the number of people out of work divided by the number of jobs available, of course the percentage is gonna come down. If there were nine million jobs still out there waiting to be had, the unemployment rate would be almost 12%, folks. If there were as many jobs today as when Obama took office and the number of people that were working were factored against that number, the unemployment rate would be almost 12%.
That's how bad it is, and Alison Kosik got it right. The unemployment rate went down because it's a mathematical phenomenon here. It has nothing to do with jobs being created, and it's one of the fallacies in the way this number is reported. You would think that if the unemployment rate went from 7.6% to 7.4%, that we're adding jobs -- and your average low-information doofus out there is going to think just that.
But it's the exact opposite.
The labor force participation rate makes up two things: Jobs that have vanished and people no longer looking for jobs, because there aren't any that they want. In addition, the number of jobs that were added (162,000, a modest increase) was the fewest number of jobs per month since March. But Rugaber here in the AP is entirely disingenuous (and maybe dishonest, I don't know) when he then writes, "The gain was still enough to help lower the unemployment rate."
The gain? Those 162,000 jobs have nothing to do with the unemployment rate going down. That 162,000 doesn't compensate anywhere at all for the jobs being lost and closed down. Ladies and gentlemen, we used to be told that it took 200,000 jobs a month to lower the unemployment rate. Just two months ago we were told that 175,000 jobs created in May were too few to lower the unemployment rate.
Well, to grow it -- to get on a job-creation rate that would start making a dent in the actual jobs lost beginning in 2009 -- would require 500,000 jobs a month. In fact, you go back to the eighties and the Reagan recovery, and that's what you'll find. You'll find that in any real economic recovery. There is no economic recovery when 162,000 jobs are added. So CNN, God bless 'em, swerved into the truth; AP is continuing to present BS.
Trying to make it look like, "Well, it's not a whole lot of growth, but it's growth happening out there, 'a hopeful sign in an otherwise lackluster report.'" But what of the kind of jobs are being created? We've talked about the this, so it will not come as a surprise to you. Here are the ballpark numbers. So far this year, 900,000 jobs have been, quote/unquote, "created." That's how many people have found work. How many of 'em...?
Rachel, take a wild guess. You don't pay much attention to news until you're here. You're a good case history here. I mean, you do but... (interruption) Don't misunderstand. (interruption) No, no, no. She's got a family, and she's out running around. She's really busy. Okay, 900,000 jobs created so far this year. How many of them are full time, do you think? (interruption) It's 200,000. Over 700,000 of the jobs created this year are part time, which means what?
They don't qualify for benefits.
They don't qualify for Obamacare.
Some of these jobs are part time because employers are downsizing, and they are converting full-timers to part-timers. But most of the new jobs this year are part time. Our old buddy Jim Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute points out that the quality of jobs created was a big complaint by the Democrats when Bush was in office. Retail and restaurants, two of the lowest-paying sectors, accounted for more than half of all job growth in this 162,000 jobs created last month.
Retail and restaurants, two low-paying sectors, accounted for more than half of the jobs. It's a part time economy. What we really have is people leaving the job market. If the labor force participation rate were what it was in July of 2012, last year, the unemployment rate would be 7.8%. If the labor force participation rate were what it was in January 2009 when Obama took office, it would be 11%, not 7.4%.
Some people have now become comfortable not working. It's a result of government-encouraged dependency. Fully 4.2 million people have been out of a job for over six months -- 4.2 million people! Every one of them now... By the way, people are getting mad at me when I say this, when I say that they're all eating. I get e-mail, "Well, what do you expect them to do, starve?" Yeah, that'd be kind of good because maybe they'd be forced to go out and find work.
No, I don't expect them to starve.
Open your minds. I'm trying to make a point. There's no incentive to go out and find a job. There's no disincentive to being unemployed if you have very little ambition. Being unemployed in this country meant he didn't eat. It's why you had to go out and find a job. It's a number of other things. Being unemployed today, you still have your cell phone and your TV. It's a factor. It matters.
"That's not true!"
I'm giving you a fact-of-life observation.
"Yeah, but it sounds like you disagree with it. It sounds like you think people ought to be starving. It sounds like you want to go back to the days when you were a kid, when being out of work really meant pain and suffering."
Well, no. I mean, change is change, and it happens. But I understand human nature, and if you don't have to work for anything, you won't. It's not good for America, is the point, and it's not good for anybody. So 953,000 jobs created in 2013, and 77% are part time. 731,000. Another way of looking at it: For every full-time job created, there are four part-time jobs created. I don't care how you slice it, the jobs news isn't good.
Let me add one other statistic to this: The Senate amnesty bill, the Gang of Eight pathway-to-citizenship immigration bill, according to the vaunted Congressional Budget Office, says that there will be 46 million immigrants in America by 2033. That's just 20 years. In 20 more years, 46 million new people will be thrown in to this economy and job market. Stew on that while we take an obscene profit time-out.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: What do you mean? No, I've not left the economic news. I'm just moving on to this CNN thing. I've got a lot of stuff. I wish I could mention everything first today. I want to stick with the Benghazi thing, it's fascinating.
I was telling Snerdley, Snerdley came in today, and I said, "Have you heard about the latest news involving the millennials?" And he said, "No." According to a study from the Pew Research Center, 36% of the kids in the millennial generation -- that's age 18 to 31 -- 36% are living at their parents' homes. That is the largest number in 40 years. And 21.6 million young adults are still living at home. These are the people who are voting for Obama. If people under 30 weren't allowed to vote, Romney woulda won in a landslide. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just giving you interesting statistical information.
My point is, I don't want to hear about a roaring economy. I don't want to hear about great economic news. I don't want to hear about the unemployment numbers down, all kinds of jobs being created. There's nothing happening out there that equals progress in the traditional sense at all. We have a major transformation and regression taking place.
So, no, I was gonna split up the economic news.