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Did you ever consider why our unemployment numbers seem so low despite the fact that government subsidies are at an all-time high? With the marked increased usage of food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, section 8 and disability among others, how do any of these trends correlate with a thriving economy?
First, the unemployment number represents only the percent of legal Americans who are ACTIVELY looking for work who can’t find a job. It does not represent the unemployed who simply can’t find an adequate job and simply gave up looking. As the above graph shows, the working participation rate has hit a 35-year-low of 63.2 percent in the United States in 2013, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—clearly identifying that less Americans are working. Ironically, this percentage has not been so low since when Jimmy Carter was in office.
Plus, the number of people considered working also represents those who are forced to take underemployment or part time because they can’t find an adequate job. It should not come as a surprise about the increase in part time employment. Due to Obamacare, this number continues to increase by the day because the law penalizes low-wage employers for hiring full-time workers while encouraging workers to prefer part-time jobs. In fact for those in the bottom quintile of income, the average workweek has shrunk by more than an hour since the recession began. Also the proportion of those in this same quintile with full-time jobs also dropped significantly. In some industries and occupations, the decline amounts to losing five weeks of work a year.
Worse yet, here is a passage form a recent article by the Daily Signal: Obamacare also encourages many low and moderate income workers to prefer part-time jobs. Employees generally work full-time for two reasons: to make more money and to get health benefits. Under the ACA, the government now subsidizes health benefits, but only for workers whose employers do not offer them it. Many workers can now make as much working part-time without health benefits, taking all their compensation in cash, and collecting exchange subsidies as they would by working full-time and taking part of their compensation as employer-provided health coverage. Consequently Obamacare will put downward pressure on both the supply of and demand for full-time jobs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates Obamacare will appreciably shrink total hours worked in the economy over the next decade, finding the largest declines “will probably occur among lower-wage workers.”
This downward trend will make it difficult to become finally independent and create more people on the federal dole by the day. Ironically, that is what Obama wants, and the law is set up in such a way to make it happen. Unfortunately, we are creating a generation of Americans dependent not on themselves but on government. Remember, the American dream represents life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–not a shorter life expectancy under Obamacare, no liberty under the NSA and the pursuit of the next government handout.
Where is this economy headed?