Sad State of Affairs: 16% of Kids in NY are Neither Working Nor Going to School
And yet the youth vote nationwide helped propel the man whose economic policies have extended such trying times to another four years in office.
Via the Associated Press:
Sixteen percent of teens and young adults in New York are neither in school nor the workforce, part of a national problem that could lead to “dire consequences” for the younger generation’s financial stability, according to a new report.
The latest Kids Count report released Monday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation said high school dropouts are having a harder time landing traditional entry-level jobs in retail and fast-food restaurants due to competition from older candidates with more experience. Front-line service providers add that the recent recession has added to the problem.
“You’re competing with people that are in the workforce now that have diplomas,” said Jeff Nixon, youth services manager for the Buffalo Employment and Training Center. “You’ve got people with college degrees that are competing for some of these lower-wage jobs. And obviously for an employer, if they have a choice between somebody with a college degree and a kid that’s a dropout, that’s a no-brainer.”
Nationally, there are 6.5 million youth 16 to 24 years old who are neither in the workforce nor in school — about 17 percent of that age group, according to the report. New York accounts for 406,000 of those young people, according to the foundation.
Sharpton: Republicans to Blame For High Minority Unemployment, By Intentionally Cutting Agencies Where They Are Employed
Having recently learned that the word ‘incompetent’ is a racial code word, we are forced to refer to Al Sharpton’s latest comments as an example of something much different…
Is it racist to refer to somebody as simply an uninformed dumba**?
Via Radio Equalizer (h/t Weasel Zippers):
“One of the reason that I think people do not understand why unemployment has gone down and in some cases black unemployment and Latino’s has remained stagnant is over the last thirty two months Dr. Hutchinson, they’ve increased jobs and found jobs unemployment has gone down in the private sector. What has not gone down is in the public sector and blacks in particular are disproportionately in the public sector.”
“One of the reasons those jobs have gone down, or have remained down is one the Republicans are cutting a lot of the agencies, where we are the employees are government jobs, government employed and a lot of those jobs go through governors and mayors who are also have had cutbacks. So what we’ve got to do and we addressed that to the President is take on these governors and mayors as well as the private sector on why the private sector is getting all these contract and bailouts and not hiring and correcting the disproportionate amount of their employment does not touch our community and have the President and them support us in that.”
“… the inference he’s making is that blacks don’t really stand a chance in the private sector on their own, that they need government jobs so they can get hired though a system of nepotism or something. Or else they need government coercion in the private sector through contracts and bailouts.”
US Labor Secretary Celebrates Rise in Unemployment by Handing Out Candy to Reporters
Can somebody please explain to me what reason there is for celebrating another uptick in unemployment – to 7.9% – in America?
This tweet just came across from Scott MacFarlane:
And here is the picture:
“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill. The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work. On Tuesday, America will make a choice between stagnation and prosperity. For four years, President Obama’s policies have crushed America’s middle class. For four years, President Obama has told us that things are getting better and that we’re making progress. For too many American families, those words ring hollow. We can do better. We can have real economic growth, create millions of good-paying jobs, and give middle-class families the security and opportunity they deserve. When I’m president, I’m going to make real changes that lead to a real recovery, so that the next four years are better than the last.”
Romney and most Americans see it as yet another sad day in a four-year struggle with the economy and unemployment.
Not the Obama administration.
Generation Opportunity, the largest non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States engaging and mobilizing young Americans on the important economic issues facing the nation, announced non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) 18-29 youth unemployment rate data for October 2012 as the Presidential election nears:
- The youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds specifically for October 2012 is 12.0 percent (NSA).
- The youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans for October 2012 is 21.4 percent (NSA); the youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics for October 2012 is 13.4 percent (NSA); and the youth unemployment rate for 18–29 year old Women for October 2012 is 11.8 percent (NSA).
- The declining labor force participation rate has created an additiona1.7 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
- If the labor force participation rate were factored into the 18-29 youth unemployment calculation, the actual 18-29-unemployment rate would rise to 16.5 percent (NSA).
Don’t worry though, things can turn around after Election Day.
In a press release to CNN, Romney reiterated his five-point plan to create a real recovery in America:
Together with Paul Ryan, I’ve put forward an economic recovery plan consisting of five central elements that will in four years create 12 million jobs.
We will produce more of the energy we need to heat our homes, fill our cars, and make our economy grow. We will stop President Obama’s war on coal, his disdain for oil, and his effort to crimp natural gas by federal regulation of the very technology that produces it. We will support nuclear and renewables, but phase out subsidies once an industry is on its feet. We will invest in energy science and research to make discoveries that can actually change our energy world. By 2020, we will achieve North American energy independence.
We will retrain our work force for the jobs of tomorrow and ensure that every child receives a quality education no matter where they live, including especially our inner cities. Parents and students, not administrators and unions, need to have greater choice. Our current worker retraining system is a labyrinth of federal programs that sprawls across 47 programs and nine agencies. We will eliminate this redundancy and empower the 50 states and the private sector to develop effective programs of their own.
We will make trade work for America. We’ll open more markets to American agriculture, products, and services. And we will finally hold accountable any nation that doesn’t play by the rules. I will stand up for the rights and interests of American workers and employers.
We will restore fiscal sanity to Washington by bringing an end to the federal spending and borrowing binge that in just four years has added more debt held by the public than almost all previous administrations combined. We will put America on track to a balanced budget by eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending programs back to states where they can be managed with less abuse and less cost, and by shrinking the bureaucracy of Washington.
Finally, we will champion small business, the great engine of job creation in our country, by reforming the tax code and updating and reshaping regulations that have suffocated economic growth.
What do you want America? A President who celebrates mediocrity in America, or a President who will bring back exceptionalism to this great nation?
Michelle Obama: We’re in the Midst of a Huge Recovery
If recovery means placing more people on food stamps than at any other time in our history, or seeing record numbers of people dropping completely out of the work force, then yes, we are in the midst of a huge recovery.
Via CNS News:
First Lady Michelle Obama said in a radio interview on Friday that the United States is in the “midst of a huge recovery” because of what “this president has done.”
Pablo Sato, co-host of Pablo & Free on WPGC 95.5, a Washington, D.C.-area hip-hop radio station, asked the first lady: “Mrs. Obama, you know what, in your words, tell us what you think the state of the union is in right now?”
Mrs. Obama said, “I mean, we are seeing right now that we are in the midst of a huge recovery. Right? Because of what this president has done.”
Median family income – significantly lower.
Gas prices – significantly higher.
National debt- $6 trillion greater.
Real unemployment – nearly doubled.
Food stamp spending – also nearly doubled.
Welcome to the huge recovery, America.
Reuters Poll: Romney Gains Four Points Since Debate
Weren’t the liberals in the media trying to convince us that the race was over just a week ago?
President Barack Obama’s lead over challenger Mitt Romney has narrowed to just two percentage points since the Republican’s strong performance in their first debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.
In more bad news for Obama, one in five voters said the Democrat’s performance in the contest in Denver on Wednesday made them feel more negative about him and almost a third said they felt more positive about his Republican challenger…
Obama had led Romney by 6 percentage points in the poll released on Wednesday and the edge narrowed to five points – a 48-43 percent lead for Obama – in polling up to Thursday. That was the first including a day of interviews after the meeting in Denver…
More than 9 out of 10 registered voters – 91 percent – said they had seen, heard or read something about the debate, and 54 percent said they thought Romney had done a better job.
Allahpundit at Hot Air also unveils this brutal ad. Not a word is uttered, and yet it speaks volumes about the need to put the Obama experiment behind us as a nation.
Watch…
New Romney Ad – ‘Dear Daughter’
President Obama’s policies are making it harder on women. Over 5.5 million women are unemployed and their individual share of debt is over $50,000. That’s what Obama’s policies have done for women.
Here is the ad…
The Real Obama Second-Term Agenda
NY GOP: Obama Out of Gas, Out of Ideas, and Out of Time
Today the New York GOP released the following statement on President Obama’s failed economic policies and the dismal August jobs report:
Last month’s jobs numbers are out, and they spell bad news for Barack Obama and worse news for the American people.
368,000 more Americans have dropped out of the workforce, bringing the total number of Americans not in the labor force to 88,921,000. The unemployment rate of 8.1% remains above the 8% threshold that Obama promised the Stimulus Package would prevent us from reaching.
The graph below demonstrates the plummeting rate of participation in our workforce since Obama’s inauguration.
These numbers are devastating, but don’t take our word for it: the President had access to this data before his speech last night, and purposefully left it out, without so much as a cursory mention of America’s unemployed.
The debate over this President’s economic record is over. When Barack Obama should have been focusing on jobs, he was wasting time and money on Obamacare and the failed $800 billion stimulus package, passed with the votes of Dan Maffei, Bill Owens, Louise Slaughter, Nita Lowey, Tim Bishop and Kirsten Gillibrand.
The President is out of time. In November, Barack Obama will join America’s swelling ranks of unemployed when voters send Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to Washington.
Romney: "If Last Night Was the Party, This Morning Is the Hangover"
The August unemployment report is out, and as it has been for the entire Obama presidency, the numbers are ugly. Bloomberg reports that while the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%, it was the result of even more Americans leaving the labor force out of desperation.
To be exact, 368,000 more Americans left the workforce.
The number of those in the working-age population participating in the labor force has dropped to the lowest number since 1981. Remember that next time the administration wants you to believe Republicans want to take America back decades.
Additionally, the number of payroll jobs rose by a scant 96,000 last month, far less than the projected 130,000. And of course, according to Bloomberg, the number of payroll jobs in July had to be revised downward after initial estimates – a consistent tactic from the administration.
The jobs report prompted this response (perhaps his best so far) from Republican candidate Mitt Romney:
“If last night was the party, this morning is the hangover. For every net new job created, nearly four Americans gave up looking for work entirely. This is more of the same for middle class families who are suffering through the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. After 43 straight months of unemployment above 8%, it is clear that President Obama just hasn’t lived up to his promises and his policies haven’t worked. We aren’t better off than they were four years ago. My plan for a stronger middle class will create 12 million new jobs by the end of my first term. America deserves new leadership that will get our economy moving again.”
What is it they say in sports when discussing a coach on the hot seat? Whether or not you believe he is the reason for the team’s losing, a change has to be made. Do something, don’t do nothing.
America needs a new head coach.
Obama Campaign Manager Says Americans ARE Better Off Under Obama
Yesterday on Face the Nation, liberal Democrat, and Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association Martin O’Malley answered the question Obama’s advisors would not. When asked by Bob Schieffer if he can honestly say we are better off now than four years ago, O’Malley responded, “no”.
“Today’s admission by Democratic Gov. O’Malley that Americans aren’t better off today than they were four years ago is more proof that President Obama’s policies aren’t working. President Obama’s failure of leadership has led to 42 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent, 23 million Americans struggling for work, $5 trillion in new debt and a $716 billion cut in Medicare to fund Obamacare.
“While Team Obama continues their campaign of fear and division, we are talking about the big issues that Americans face. That’s why we have a plan to strengthen the middle class and create 12 million jobs, protect Medicare, and cut the federal deficit so our economy can start growing again.”
Today however, Obama surrogates have a new tone. Stephanie Cutter answered the same question resoundingly on NBC’s Today show.
“Absolutely”, she said.
Being better off now than four years ago means twenty-three million Americans that are unemployed, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work, is a good thing to the Obama administration.
That doesn’t sound better to any sane person, but then Cutter is prone to lying. Consistently.
Bloomberg News recently reported on the changes between then and now:
Almost every group is worse off than it was three years ago, and some groups had very large declines in income,’ Green, who previously directed work on the Census Bureau’s income and poverty statistics program, said in a phone interview today. ‘We’re in an unprecedented period of economic stagnation.
Worse, the President who likes to portray himself as a champion of the poor, pitting Americans against each other with his rich versus poor rhetoric, is raising poverty to all new levels.
The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.
A Romney campaign spokesperson responded to the claim that Americans are better off than they were four years ago, stating:
The middle class has been crushed under President Obama, but he doesn’t seem to get it. Gas prices have doubled, incomes have dropped, poverty is headed toward fifty-year highs, and chronic unemployment is at unprecedented levels. But the Obama campaign now has a clear message for Americans – you’re doing well, you just don’t know it. Americans deserve a president who understands we’re not better off and has a plan to fix it.
The Obama campaign has been nothing but perpetual smoke and mirrors, and outright lies. Now they’ve resorted to telling Americans that they really are just doing fine.
This doesn’t feel fine.
