Which states had coronavirus lockdowns?

August unemployment by state. See if you can spot the non-lockdown states. pic.twitter.com/ZIjon8L3gJ

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 18, 2020

Want some discouraging news?

The Daily Mail is full of scary headlines, charts, and graphs about how bad is the U.S. economy and Covid-19 here.

"68 percent of those that are currently unemployed can now bring home more money than when they were actually employed…"

In Maggie's Farm, Dr. Joy Bliss reports,

I spoke with one of my local pharmacists today. He was harried. I asked him what was up. He told me all four of his assistants had taken a leave from work, then got copies of their unemployment papers from the government.

They are all getting $1600/week from COVID unemployment, and he only pays them about $1000/week.

He is an immigrant from Russia. He was not happy with the situation. Stereotypically cranky Russian. Asked me "Where is the work ethic?" How did he even know about that old fashioned phrase?

Dr. Bliss then links to an article by Michael Snyder linked to by Tyler Durden in Zero Hedge. Snyder writes in part,

Over the past couple of months, 36.5 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and Congress understandably wanted to do something to address this unprecedented spike in unemployment. But by giving all of these unemployed workers a repeating 600 dollar bonus on top of existing unemployment benefits, Congress has actually created a very powerful incentive for Americans to be unemployed and to stay unemployed for as long as the bonuses last.

According to a group of prominent economists at the University of Chicago, 68 percent of those that are currently unemployed can now bring home more money than when they were actually employed…

Just consider what restaurant and hotel workers must be thinking about now. According to CNBC, the average unemployed worker in that industry is now eligible to collect “182% of their previous wages”…

...Just recently, Facebook conducted a survey of “86,000 small and medium-sized business owners”, and the results of that survey were quite startling…

About a third of small businesses forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic say they won’t be able to reopen due to an inability to pay bills or rent, a Facebook survery has found.

More than half of the business owners surveyed by Facebook have also said they don’t expect to be able to rehire the same amount of workers that they employed prior to the pandemic.

More specifically, the survey discovered that just 45 percent of all small and medium-sized business owners plan to rehire the same number of employees that they previously had.

Read more here.

Two ways to bring unemployment down

Gerard Vanderleun posted this very informative information at American Digest.

COSTELLO: I want to talk to you about the unemployment rate in America ..

ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It's 7.8%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that's 14.7%

COSTELLO: You just said 7.8%.

ABBOTT: 7.8% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 7.8% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that's 14.7%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 14.7% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that's 7.8%.

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE! Is it 7.8% or 14.7%?

ABBOTT: 7.8% are unemployed. 14.7% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, Congress said you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!

ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.

COSTELLO: To whom?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ALL of them are out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment rolls that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how they get it to 7.8%. Otherwise it would be 14.7%. Our govt. doesn't want you to read about 14.7% unemployment.

COSTELLO: That would be tough on those running for REELECTION

ABBOTT: Absolutely!

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have people stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like an ECONOMIST!

COSTELLO: I don't even know what the hell I just said!

ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like our CONGRESS!

Duh!

Secretary of State John Kerry says that the United States is not in a rush to decide whether or not to approve the Keystone pipeline. He appeared jointly with Canada's Foreign Minister in Washington. Kerry can't decide if all those jobs would be in our national interest. After all, people seem relatively calm and happy with food stamps and unemployment checks, and they vote Democratic. They can buy Heinz Ketchup with their Snap card, too.

Disinformation

Roger L. Simon is absolutely right when he points out that

let’s do away forever with the silly unemployment statistic (as in today’s 6.7% unemployed). It has no relevance to anything and is a form of disinformation. The labor participation rate is the true story.

And what is the story of the labor participation rate?

According to Zero Hedge, the latest figures show the labor participation rate at 35 year low.

Currently a record 91.8 million Americans are no longer looking for work.

2013 Numbers

Robert Samuelson posts some 2013 statistics. Sources are at the end of each statistic.

In October, there were almost 5.7 million "missing workers" -- people who had dropped out of the labor force but, under trends prevailing before the Great Recession, would have had jobs or been looking for work.

Counting them would have raised October's unemployment rate to about 10 percent, instead of the reported 7 percent (the Economic Policy Institute).

A low-end iPhone has 240,000 times the memory of the computers on Voyager 1, which is now nearly 12 billion miles from Earth (New York Times, Sept. 13).

Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of online Americans use social networking sites, up from 8 percent in 2005. There are few differences by educational attainment: 67 percent of high-school dropouts are users compared with 72 percent of college graduates (Pew Internet & American Life Project).

Go here to read more statistics.