So today, I read in Forbes yet another egg head economist, Bill Conerly, raving about how "total employment ... now exceeds the pre-recession level."
By "pre-recession" I assume the guy means before the Banking Crisis of 2008 or at True Peak GDP, which came at the end of Q4 2007.
Let's have a look at reality instead of Conerly's Ph.D.-in-economics fantasy.
Employment incidence of workers to working age population shows that Americans have fallen back to 1987 Reagan era employment levels.
Mind you, Employment Incidence accounts for approximately 80% of the workers who contribute to GDP. Employment incidence reveals the ratio of jobs added or lost to total population growth of all who can work legally from an age standpoint.
Employment incidence has fallen an eye-popping -6.1% since Peak True GDP, hit in Q4 2007. The annualized decline from the peak has run at slightly -1% a year ( -0.95%).
From when Nixon slammed shut the gold window in August 1971, peak employment incidence hit at the end of November 1999, during the end of the Clinton Good Times. Since hitting the peak, employment incidence has fallen a jaw-dropping -10.8%, falling at a rate a bit more than three-forth's of -1% a year (-0.79%).
If we were to assume that as many Americans who were working at the peak of the Clinton Good Times would like to work today, then there are almost 17 million Americans who want to work but who are out of work right now! There are two full New York Cities worth of American workers sitting idle!
Here is how our projected unemployed Americans who would like to work compare to the top 15 cities of the USA by head count.
Eleven Philadelphias sit idle every day! So too, twenty San Francicsos idle every day!
17 million Americans kicking about wanting to work is one-fifth of all Germans, one-quarter of all Brits, one-third of all Koreans, almost half of all Canadians, not quite three-fourths of all Australians and all Dutchmen. That's right, 17 million willing to work Americans constitute the entire population of the Netherlands!
With fewer workers and True Wages falling, is it any wonder that True GDP has fallen a walloping -42.8%, falling at an annual rate of -8.9%!
Relative to a growing population, is it any wonder why ever fewer Americans are buying cars?
To read this chart, the lows are the better numbers. The Drive ratios compare how many Americans there are for each new car and light truck sold.
Should it surprise you that entrepreneurs running firms like Uber seek to capitalize on ever poorer Americans by creating the renting economy rather than the owning one?
So who can you thank for wrecking the economy? You can thank successive U.S. Congresses during the Bush-Obama Bad Times for crossing the Rubicon pushing True Debt to True GDP to 100% to fund unneeded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can thank Alan Greenspan and his successor Ben Bernanke for inflation of the biggest credit bubble in mankind's history.
Note: The data excludes proprietors, private household employees, unpaid volunteers, farm employees, and the unincorporated self-employed.
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