When the U.S. economy is the envy of the world

[econoclast]

1. We have the cleanesy dirty shirt

"We are doing better than Greece and Portugal!"

Not much of a rallying cry.

And that glowing jobs report ...


Truth is We actually LOST 150,000 Full Time jobs last month.

Full-Time employment DECLINED by 150,000 in the most recent employment report.

Employed, Usually Work Full Time:
Oct - 119,632,000
Nov - 119,482,000

A decline of 150,000

Numbers come from the Household survey...the same data set that the Unemployment Rate comes from.

They are easily accessible via the St Loius Fed's website. Data is Series LNS12500000.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS12500000

In fact, looking at this data series for Full Time employees we see that the high water mark for Full Time Employment was way back in November 2007 when Full Time Employment hit 121,876,000

We are STILL 2.3 MILLION Full Time Jobs short of that all time high set seven years ago. And we just lost 150,000 full time jobs last month.

So yeah, we are doing better than Greece and Portugal, but there is still lots of work to do.