RUSH: The jobs number came out. And I’ll tell you, I have never seen anything like this, either. We now have 92 million Americans not working. We created the equivalent of 1,700 jobs per state in December. One of the highest employment months of the year. December’s hiring traditionally is so good that the experts in the Drive-By Media were expecting 196,000 jobs to be created or begun, recorded in December, and the number came in at 74,000 jobs. So 74,000 jobs, and half of these jobs are part time, meaning under 30 hours. The media is scratching their heads over that. They can’t figure that out.
Have you ever heard of Obamacare? Half these 74,000 jobs, or almost half, it’s statistically very close, are part-time jobs. The unemployment rate, with 92 million Americans not working, with 74,000 jobs created in December. That is the lowest number I think in three years. It’s bad. It is horrible. So 92 million Americans not working. The labor force participation rate continues to shrink, 92 million Americans not working, 74,000 jobs created versus the expectation of nearly 200,000 jobs that they thought would be created. Half the jobs are part time and — are you ready? — the unemployment rate fell to 6.7%. It simply isn’t possible. You cannot have an unemployment rate of 6.7%.
The reason this is important, ’cause that’s the number the low-information voter sees. That’s the number the low-information voter hears about. And that number is down from, what, seven, 7.1%. So the unemployment rate that the government puts out, that one number makes it look like we have a bang-up job creation market that’s just cranked up and going full speed. And the only reason that number is 6.7% is because the vast majority, the 92 million Americans not working, are not counted as unemployed. And do you know why? You do by now. Because the vast majority of them have been unemployed for so long, they’ve stopped looking. And if you’re out of work and you stop looking for work, you are not counted as unemployed. The only way you end up being counted as unemployed is if you are unemployed but trying to find a job.
But we are paying people so much not to work that 92 million Americans can survive with three meals a day and whatever else while not working. Stunning. George W. Bush had at his peak an unemployment rate of 4.7%, and that was a real 4.7%. That was statistically full employment, because the conventional wisdom is that even in a full employment economy, you’re still gonna have people in flux, moving in and out of the jobs, and you’re gonna basically have between four and 5% of the population not working at any given time.
So they say statistically it’s full employment. So they’re asking us to believe that we’re just two percentage points away from full employment? It’s an utter disaster, what is happening in this economy. It’s an utter disaster what’s happening in the job market. It’s a human tragedy what is happening in this country, and it’s happening in the United States of America, and it’s been happening for five years, and there is no end in sight.
Let me put the cherry on top of this. As you will hear in the audio sound bites later on in the busy broadcast, noted Democrats like Chuck-U Schumer and others are actually very happy with the unemployment news today. I’ll give you one guess as to why. It helps them secure new legislation for extended unemployment benefits. For the purposes of extending unemployment benefits, you’re not gonna hear Democrats talk about 6.7% unemployment.
You’re going to hear them talk about how disappointing the job creation was, and they’re going to find a way to blame it on Republicans and the sequester and the shutdown. You know how that goes. They’re gonna say that the Republicans owe it to the people they’re harming to extend unemployment benefits for at least three months. So, once again, absolutely shockingly horrible news is welcomed — greeted with great fanfare and excitement — by the Democrat Party.
The unemployment rate, 6.7%, is the lowest since October 2000. That’s before Obama was elected. The experts thought that it would hold steady at 7%. This is an absolute fake. This is one of the biggest misdirections, the biggest head feints that I can recall. This number is meaningless. It’s literally meaningless. The U-6 number, which counts people no longer looking for work as unemployed, I think is now at 13%, and that is a number much closer to reality.
All you need to do is ask yourselves or anybody else, how in the world can 92 million able-bodied Americans be not working, and unemployment is at 6.7%? Again, your average E! Entertainment network viewer, your average viewer of the HBO show Girls will not know that 6.7% is ridiculous and irrelevant. They’re going to just think, “Oh, wow, the economy’s really going great now! We’re creating jobs left and right.”
That 74,000 jobs created was the biggest month of the year, and 92 million Americans totally out of the workforce. It’s just… If I had any political power, elected political power, this would be the only thing I’d talk about today and how unacceptable this is. I wouldn’t be talking about lane closures and this stuff. But Christie and all that, it’s a perfect distraction from all of this, so will continue to be discussed.
More than half (again, more than half) of the 74,000 jobs created were temporary, part time and temporary — and 20,000 fewer women held jobs in December. According to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of employed women 16 and over declined by 20,000 from November to December. The number of women employed dropped from 67882,000 to 67,862,000, in November to December. Barack Obama.
Grab me audio sound bite number 21. Yesterday afternoon at the White House during his announcement of the first five promise zones, President Obama…
OBAMA: We’ve gotta make sure this recovery — which is real — leaves nobody behind. And that’s gonna be my focus throughout the year.
RUSH: This is simply incompetence and irresponsibility (and prevaricating, lying, whatever you want to call it) on parade. “We’ve gotta make sure this recovery — which is real — leaves nobody behind. And that’s gonna be my focus throughout the year,” with 92 million Americans not working, 74,000 jobs created when the experts expected 196,000 jobs. Half the jobs created are temporary — and while this burgeoning recovery is going on, we’re not gonna leave anybody behind.
We have to extend unemployment benefits for yet another three months.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This number of people not working, labor force participation rate, is a record 92 million people. This labor force participation rate plunge equals, on a percentage basis, where we were in 1978. Now, I realize many of you are too young to remember 1978.
We were in the second year of Jimmy Carter’s administration — and, folks, things were so bad back then that the “misery index” was invented as a way of expressing how bad it was. Interest rates were in the 12 to 14% range. Inflation was double-digit.
I mean, it was an absolute, total, utter disaster. Jimmy Carter was giving speeches from the White House about the national malaise. He was telling everybody turn down the thermostats and wear sweaters because the Middle East was restricting oil delivery. It was absolutely disastrous. It was on the heels of mess caused by Watergate, but it was, again, the policies of a liberal Democrat president. This is Jimmy Carter’s second term is what’s happening here.
Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter’s second term, if he had won.
So we’re now statistically right where we were in the middle of the Jimmy Carter disaster, and especially when you look at the similarity as a percentage basis was the labor force participation rate. All of this is just awful as an American, knowing that these are real people affected by this. These are real human beings who are affected by all of this — and yet inside the Beltway, they’re looked at as statistics or recipients of extended unemployment benefits.
And we have the Democrat Party telling us, “The most humane thing we can do is continue to pay them not to work,” and when somebody suggests, “Well, maybe we ought to start finally focusing on reviving the job market, they’re mocked and laughed at and made fun of.” You know why? Because in Washington it’s now considered so impossible, it’s just an over the top suggestion. “You mean jobs? That’s not gonna help anybody! We can’t wait for that to happen.”
That’s a small indication of how distorted and bastardized normalcy has become.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the audio sound bites on the employment situation. They figured this out at CNN on their own today. I guess this is their early morning show. One of their cohosts, Kate Bolduan, is talking to Christine Romans, who is the chief business correspondent, about the December job numbers. Kate Bolduan said, “The Labor Department’s just released the December jobs report, the final jobs report of 2013, and here’s Christine Romans with the detail. Hello, Christine!”
ROMANS: A big miss. Economists really got this wrong: 74,000 jobs created in the month, last month of the year. Only 74,000! You remember you had economists all week revising upward their expectations, close to 200,000. Here’s the real shocker: The jobless rate drops, drops to 6.7%.
BOLDUAN: Which we should be cheering!
ROMANS: How can that be? The lowest jobless rate since 2008 basically? More than half a million people just left the job market. Just stopped looking for work — 74,000 jobs. That is a big disappointment. You look at the jobless rate. It fell in part because people simply gave up.
RUSH: Wait just a second. What just happened there? Who do they have her telling the truth about this? This is CNN. Why in the world are they being truthful about this? CNN just went out there and told their audience the truth from top to bottom about the unemployment numbers. Well, here’s why. Chris Cuomo, the other cohost let the cat out of the bag.
CUOMO: That’s gonna be a problem. It’s gonna affect policy now, because they’re fighting over the second those unemployment benefits right now, and this speaks immediately to the need for the extension.
BOLDUAN: Your fact —
ROMANS: 13.1% is the underemployment rate. That means… Some people call that “the real unemployment rate.” So that means those are people who are out of work. They’re working part time, but they’d like to be working full time.
RUSH: When is the last time CNN talked about the “real” unemployment rate, folks? That 13.1%, that’s the U-6. The letter U, dash, 6. In Bureau of Labor Statistics jargon, the unemployment rate that is reported every month is the U-3 number. That’s what’s 6.7%. The U-6, that’s 13%. That counts everybody out of work, whether they’re looking or not. CNN never reports that number. They never tell the truth about this.
But they did today, and Chris Cuomo let the cat out of the bag. Why? Because the Democrats want an extension in unemployment benefits, and they actually want it for the whole year, not just for three months. So to make it appear as… I mean, you can’t have the news be all that good. “Well, look at the unemployment rate! Wowie zowie, Christine! It’s down to 6.7%!”
“Hey, Kate, that is really cool, man. Obama’s got this economy really cooking!”
And Chris Cuomo comes in and says, “Well, yeah. I mean, we’re really going gangbusters. I guess we don’t need the extending unemployment benefit.”
They can’t have that. So CNN tells the truth about how bad it is because what the Democrat Party wants is an extension of unemployment benefits, whatever it takes. And of course they know their audience is a bunch of low-information whoevers, so this is just made to order. Here’s Chuck-U Schumer on Capitol Hill today with Senate Democrats, a press conference to talk about unemployment benefits.
SCHUMER: We particularly hope that the Republican majority in the House will not just block anything we do, if we’re able to come to an agreement. If they do, it’s gonna hurt them in the election. It’s a different America. It’s a different political structure than it was even a year ago.
RUSH: That’s right.
SCHUMER: Issues like the deficit and Obamacare are important.
RUSH: Yeah?
SCHUMER: But helping average people —
RUSH: Right.
SCHUMER: — getting the economy going, and creating jobs is now number one.
RUSH: Wait a minute.
SCHUMER: They block things like unemployment insurance and minimum wage at their peril.
RUSH: See, it’s the Republicans’ fault, folks. All of this is the Republicans fault ’cause they’re blocking everything that’s designed to help people. It’s all the Republicans’ fault. So we’ve gotta extend these unemployment benefits, because now, finally now creating jobs, that’s number one. It’s worse than even it was last year, Chuck says.
It’s been trending this way for five years, folks. It’s been trending in this direction ever since Obama’s first major policy initiative, which was the $1 trillion stimulus that was designed to put everybody back to work, rebuilding roads, rebuilding schools, repairing bridges, you name it. That didn’t work, and nothing else has worked. Three? He’s pivoted the jobs four or five four or five times. He’s done it at least once a year, and he’s now starting his sixth year. And at least once a last year Obama says, “My focus now is laser-like on job creation.” Once a year he does that.
I sit here, folks, and I ask myself, “How do they keep getting away –” this is real life. They’re lying about real life. How did they get away being in power — of course I have the answers, but I still ask, they’re in power for five years, they are creating the policy that causes this, and they continue to get away with transferring the blame to the Republicans. Obama has done it via the Limbaugh Theorem, the constant campaigning, the appearance that he’s not even in Washington governing. That’s how he’s done it. Make it look like he’s still fighting this, powerful forces out there that he doesn’t name, Republicans and Bush, maybe, but powerful forces working against him.
He’s working so hard, he’s trying, and he’s gonna keep working until he finally gets it. And people, “He’s a great guy. He’s working hard for us, he’s trying. Those Republicans, they continue to want us to suffer and be in pain.” The Democrats pull that off with the assistance, obviously, of the media. But you sit there, I sit here and say, “At some point there’s gotta be an awakening.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Given these unemployment numbers, you know, Obama’s gonna need more than five… What are they called? Not poverty zones. Promise zones! Promise zones. With these numbers he’s gonna need a lot more than five. He’s gonna need one at least every state so he’s gonna need 57 promise zones. He’s gonna need one in Puerto Rico, too. Five promise zones is not gonna handle this.
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