December payroll employment rises (+155,000); unemployment rate unchanged (7.8%)

[realism101]

7. Economists

Economists on Bloomberg this morning indicated that the payroll tax increase will cause a 1% annualized drag on the economy. For an economy that is growing at a lackluster 2%, this represents a 50% loss of economic growth. Not good.

Economists also say that in order to grow the economy, about 200,000 new jobs need to be created each month. The average for 2011 was 153,000 and the average for 2012 was 146,000.

Together, these numbers create a bleak picture.

Another interesting stat to look at is BLS's Not in Labor Force, Want Job Now (NILFWJN). While that particular statistic has only been kept since 1994, it set a new record in 2012, at almost 7,000,000 people.

All of this stuff is available on a great resource, FRED, the Federal Reserve Economic Data website, http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/.