Economy Adds 144,000 Jobs in August

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Economy Adds 144,000 Jobs in August
16
Fri, 09-03-2004 - 4:45pm
Jobless Rate Dips

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Sept. 3, 2004 — America's payrolls picked up in August, with the economy adding 144,000 jobs, slightly less than economists were forecasting and highlighting the slow and uneven recovery in the labor market that jobseekers have braved.

The unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent last month from 5.5 percent in July. But the drop in the jobless rate in August came as people left the work force for any number of reasons, the Labor Department reported Friday. Economists were predicting the jobless rate to hold steady in August.

The gain in payrolls was short of the 150,000 net jobs that economists were calling for. However, it represented the biggest jobs gain since May and marked the 12th month in a row that payrolls grew.

Job gains for July were revised up to 73,000, still a lackluster number but an improvement from the 32,000 advance first estimated. Payrolls for June also were revised up to show a larger gain than first reported...

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/ap20040903_679.html





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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 1:56pm
That depends:

If you are unemployed and your benefits have run out you don't count in the statistics.

If you find a job for minimum wage which won't support one let alone a family.



If both you and your spouse are employed full time but do not have health insurance and your child gets sick.

If you are a single working father with two children and the child care expenses cost 50% of your take home pay.

If you find your adult children and their family moving back home because they have no where else to go.

The answer to that question would be NO!

Please take an honest look at those people in your own community that are really suffering. Open your heart and mind to the reality.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 2:18pm
People who are self-employed aren't included in the statistics either. This is a huge group of employed individuals.

As far as the individual people in your community who are having a hard time: Do you think these people didn't exist when President Clinton was in charge?

After all this country has been through in the last four years, our economy has rebounded fabulously. Thank you President Bush.

I remember President Clinton bragging about his unemployment figures when he was running for re-election. Today's figures show lower unemployment than the figures that President Clinton touted. Look it up.


Edited 9/4/2004 2:22 pm ET ET by iminnie833

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 3:06pm
What I asked the OP was to use their heart and mind to look at these individuals at a human level. Instead you fire back political rhetoric. That tells me a lot about the motivation behind the post.

Caring for and about other human beings IMO is what this world should be about.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 3:23pm
I am used to the left wingers trying to portray a gloom and doom economy for political reasons. If you are not a left winger, and only care about the plight of individuals, and made these same comments when President Clinton was in charge I will apologize.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 5:38pm
IMO this has no relevance in our current discussion but FYI: the political leanings of my family included all spectrums from far right to far left. The debates we have are informative and exhilarating. We debate the issues without allowing it to get personal. While we don't agree and never will we learn a lot from each other.

The political discussions did not affect what I was taught from childhood to adulthood.

I was taught to care about other people from my parents and extended family for as long as I can remember. Caring for others should not be and never has any relevance to ones political position within my family then or now.

I accept your limiting apology with my own exception. Human kindness has nothing to do with being right or left. It should be part of the human condition.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sat, 09-04-2004 - 7:00pm

Human kindness has nothing to do with being right or left. It should be part of the human condition.


Very wise words...thank you.


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