The standard of living for many Americans continues to drop as the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report.
Get this, and here's the spin. Jobs in the low paying services sector (professional and business services, food services, and health care) gained in November; while employment for higher paying jobs (construction and manufacturing) continue to decline.
The financial news media continues to celebrate the fact that an increase in jobs paying minimum wage and slightly higher, is better than the loss of jobs in construction and manufacturing paying $15-20/ hour or higher. I just don't get it. Here is another example of Wall Street continuing to celebrate bad news as good.
Here's something I do get. The Department of Labor report said there were 1.4 million people that;
" wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 349,000 discouraged workers in November, little changed from a year earlier. Discouraged workers were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.0 million marginally attached had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities."
Who could possibly be categorized as a "Discouraged Worker? “ How about the highly skilled professionals whose jobs were outsourced. Maybe they "wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months", but did not want to work as a waiter, bartender, or waitress.
Here's the breakdown of the 132,000 new jobs;
Professional and business services: 43,000 (???)
Health care employment: 28,000 ($10 +/ hour)
Food services and Bars: 34,000 (Minimum wage plus tips)
Retail employment: 23,000 (minimum wage +)
Support jobs for oil and gas: 4,000 ($10-20/ hour)
Jobs Lost
Construction employment: -29,000 ($10-20/ hour+)
Manufacturing: - 15,000 ($10-20/ hour+)
This is my take on the recent jobs report. In essence, it was a sad portrayal of less high paying jobs, and more lowering paying jobs.
Also according to the report, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 3 cents, or 0.2 percent, in November to $16.94. Average weekly earnings rose by 0.2 % in November to $574.27. Humm..
$574.27 divided by 40 hours/ week = $14.35/ hour
$574.27 multiplied by 52 weeks = $ 29,862.04/ year
$29, 862.04 @ 15% fed,ss, mdeicare tax = (4479.30)= $25,382.73
$25,382.73 divided by 12 months = $2,115.22/ month or $488.12/ week
I wonder if the Wall Street boys who are about to collect $23 billion in bonuses could live off this income?
