The Labor Department has released its official statistics for the month of March -- and at first glance those statistics look good. The government says 192,000 new jobs were created in March, and the number of employed people rose by 476,000 (from 145,266,000 in February to 145,742,000 in March). Unfortunately, those numbers aren't even enough to account for the growth in the civilian labor force of 503,000 people (from 155,724,000 in February to 156,227,000 in March).
That means that the number of unemployed people did not fall in March, but actually rose by 27,000 people (from 10,459,000 in February to 10,486,000 in March), and the official unemployment rate remains the same as it was in February (6.7%). Last year the official unemployment rate fell by 1.2% (from 7.9% in January to 6.7% in December), but this year the economy can't seem to make any headway in lowering the unemployment rate further (and it has remained mired in the 6.7% range for about 4 months now).
Why can't the economy produce the kind of robust job creation that will lower the official unemployment rate? After all, the Republicans have told us that the key to job creation is to let the rich and the corporations keep more of their money -- and we know that both are currently making record-breaking profits and have fatter bank accounts than ever before (with corporations currently sitting on more than a trillion dollars). Why isn't that money being used to create jobs?
The reason, of course, is that low taxes and high profits don't create jobs. The only thing that creates jobs is a rise in demand for goods/services that is high enough that new workers are required to meet that demand. But demand is low. It is low because the median wage is falling and inflation growing (which means workers have less to spend), and because of the huge cuts in government spending forced by the GOP (which takes money out of the economy, and a smaller economy means less demand). In short, the economy is still being crippled by Republican austerity and "trickle-down" policy.
Here is the demographic breakdown of the official unemployment figures:
Adult men...............6.2%
Adult women...............6.2%
Teenagers (16-19)...............20.9%
Whites...............5.8%
Blacks...............12.4%
Asians...............5.4%
Hispanics...............7.9%
Less than HS grad...............9.6%
HS grad...............6.3%
Associate's degree, some college...............6.1%
Bachelor's degree and higher...............3.4%
And here are the other relevant statistics for March:
Size of the civilian workforce:
156,227,000
Official number of unemployed workers:
10,486,000
Official unemployment rate:
6.7%
Number of marginally-attached workers (unemployed, but no longer included in official government statistics because they haven't looked for work in four weeks):
2,168,000
More realistic unemployment number (official count + marginally-attached):
12,654,000
More realistic unemployment rate:
8.1%
Number of underemployed (working part-time because full-time work is not available):
7,411,000
Total number of unemployed/underemployed:
20,065,000
Unemployment/underemployment rate:
12.8%
