Outside of the federal government's Bureau of Labor statistics, the Gallup polling organization also tracks the nation's unemployment rate. While the BLS and Gallup findings might not always perfectly align, the trends almost always do and the small statistical differences just haven't been worthy of note. But now Gallup is showing a sizable 30 day jump in the unemployment rate, from 7.7% on July 21 to 8.9% today...
This is an 18-month high.
...Gallup also shows an alarming increase in the number of underemployed (those with some work seeking more). During the same 30-day period, that number has jumped from 17.1% to 17.9%.
The reason for the jump is crystal clear. As Forbes contributor John Goodman observes:
University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan [asserts that] ObamaCare discourages hiring, discourages full time employment and discourages businesses from becoming large rather than small. At The New York Times economics blog he writes:
“...the Affordable Care Act ... creates explicit taxes on employers, subsidies for layoffs and various implicit taxes on employees with many of the same economic characteristics as taxes on employers.”
According to Mulligan’s “calculations.... we might then expect the act to contract the 2015 labor market by about 3 percent rather than expand it.”
That’s a loss of 4 million jobs!
We may be seeing the tip of that iceberg now. The next BLS unemployment report is scheduled to be released on September 6th. Gird your loins.
Hat tips: RF and BadBlue Real-Time News.
the crash is coming...
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