Under Donald Trump black unemployment goes back up. You kind of knew this was going to happen, didn't you?

And in the blink of an eye, black unemployment rises to 7.7% in one of the largest increases in years. #JobsReport https://t.co/ApeCuVU2uj pic.twitter.com/O1R9CUlRC4

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) February 2, 2018

Oh Donald Trump should never have said this.

Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018

Because obviously that shifted everybody's attention to black unemployment, which was all but guaranteed to go up with a racist in the White House.

So gee, what does Donald Trump have to say to Jay Z now?

Just another reminder that Trump's comments about bringing down black unemployment were completely full of shit.

Donald Trump has not implemented any policies thus far that really help anybody except his rich friends and of course himself.

Nor is there any real evidence that will change.

Donald Trump fudges the facts in Twitter fight with Jay-Z. That's right, the president of the United States is in a Twitter fight with a rapper.

Courtesy of CBS News:  

Jay-Z sat down for a wide-ranging interview with CNN's Van Jones on "The Van Jones Show" in which the two discussed the president's economic record among African-Americans and minorities. The unemployment rate among black Americans is 6.8 percent -- the lowest it has ever been, but far above the 3.7 percent rate among whites. 

Jones asked the rapper whether or not it was fair for Mr. Trump to "say terrible things but put money in our pockets." 

Jay-Z disputed that assessment, saying, "it's not about money at the end of the day. Money doesn't equate to happiness, it doesn't. That's missing the whole point." 

"You treat people like human beings. That's the main point," Jay-Z said. "It goes back to the whole thing -- 'treat me really bad and pay me well.' It's not going to lead to happiness, it's going to lead to, again, the same thing. Everyone's going to be sick."

Trump apparently missed that part where Jay-Z said the jobs did not make up for his blatant racism.

So he tweeted out this:

Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018

Once again that is the guy in the White House getting into a Twitter spat with a black entertainer.

But here's the thing, the black unemployment numbers were already rapidly going down BEFORE Trump took office.  

As you can see the both the black AND white unemployment numbers started to drop right around 2010, when PRESIDENT OBAMA'S policies kicked in.

If Trump had inherited a spike in unemployment, and then saw it reduce under his administration, he might have some legitimate bragging rights.

But this is like taking over the wheel from a captain who just steered the vessel safely through an enemy mine field, and then taking credit for a trouble free voyage.

Besides, exactly WHAT policies has Trump put into place that he could possibly credit for a reduction in the black unemployment rate?

No seriously, I'm asking.

Alaska now has the highest unemployment rate in the country. Gee, lucky us.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

Alaska's unemployment rate is now the highest in the country. 

The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in May was 6.7 percent, according to preliminary numbers from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. 

That's up just slightly from April's 6.6 percent. Nationally, the unemployment rate last month was 4.3 percent, a 16-year low. 

Alaska came in at No. 51 after all other states and the District of Columbia, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Jesus we're not even just in 50th place, we are at 51st place after DC.

I imagine if we suddenly decided to make Puerto Rico a state that we would then slip to 52nd.

The article goes on to explain that due to the seasonal nature of much of the work up here, that our unemployment numbers are always high and hard to calculate, but I would argue that there is definitely something different happening up here right now.

My job is typically recession proof and pretty stable, but lately even I have had to deal with a lack of supports and services that I rely on to do my job effectively.

There is very little in the way of negotiating power for employees and all over the state folks are seeing overtime and benefits cut from businesses that have always been seen as great places to work.

This may in part be due to the oil money drying up, or simply due to too many years of Republican control, but right now things are getting tight.

In other words if you were thinking that now is the time to move to the Last Frontier, I would suggest you put those plans on the back burner.

Autonomous commercial big rigs means the loss of jobs for 1.7 million truck drivers.

Courtesy of DC Velocity:

The proliferation of self-driving, or autonomous, tractor-trailers threaten the jobs of nearly 1.7 million commercial truck drivers, according to a study published late last month by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). 

The study, released Dec. 20, said the jobs of between 1.34 million and 1.67 million truck drivers would be at risk due to the growing utilization of heavy-duty vehicles operated via artificial intelligence. That would equal 80 to 100 percent of all driver jobs listed in the CEA report, which is based on May 2015 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the Department of Labor. There are about 3.4 million commercial truck drivers currently operating in the U.S., according to various estimates. 

The report also predicted that between 165,300 and 495,900 jobs held by light truck or delivery service drivers would be at risk because of autonomous vehicles. That represents between 20 and 60 percent of the CEA's universe of 825,000 driver jobs. Fewer of those drivers are likely to be displaced, because they operate in more densely populated urban areas where the risk of pedestrian deaths or injuries would be greater if autonomous vehicles were used. In addition, many delivery drivers operate over short distances, so labor costs would be less of a factor. 

CEA estimated that, on a net basis, the use of autonomous vehicles enabled by artificial intelligence would threaten between 2.2 million and 3.1 million full- and part-time driver jobs of all types; the figure includes approximately 364,000 self-employed individuals driving with ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft.

Once again, whether we like it or not, this IS our future. 

This article really caught my attention because I had a guy about 23 years old asking if I thought becoming a trucker was a good career move, and I told him bluntly that I don't think the job will exist in the next twenty years. 

This article essentially supports that conclusion.

And this is just one example of how automation is going to reduce the need for human workers in the very near future.

Donald Trump can talk about bringing jobs back until he is orange in the face (Oops, too late!) but the simple fact is that with these new advancements in computer technology and automation, there are going to be fewer and fewer jobs available for carbon based life forms.

There is already talk about creating a minimum income, or mincome, for non-working people so that they can live in relative comfort while machines do the heavy lifting.

Personally I am somewhat confident that my job will not be taken over by automation until well after I am too old to adequately perform my duties anyhow.

 As for the rest of humanity, well I would suggest that learning to program computers and repair circuit boards might be a good place to start. Though I think we know it is only a matter of time before machines will evolve to take those tasks over as well.

So now unemployment has dropped below 5% and wages are on the rise. I think President Obama is just doing this to irritate the Republicans.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

After years of scant real gains despite steadily falling unemployment and healthy hiring, wages picked up significantly last month, a sign the job market could be tightening enough to force companies to pay more to attract and retain employees. 

The half a percentage point increase in average hourly earnings in January was the brightest spot in a generally positive Labor Department report on Friday, which showed job creation slowing from the white-hot pace of late 2015 even as the unemployment rate fell to an eight-year low of 4.9 percent. 

The last six months were the best extended period for employee paychecks since the recovery began six-and-a-half years ago.

Just a reminder that before Obama took office we were losing approximately 651,000 jobs per month.

Didn't Romney promise to bring unemployment down under 6% if HE were elected?

Well good thing we elected the Democrat isn't it?

Just a little something to keep at the ready for that Thanksgiving conversation with your conservative family members.

Courtesy of Vox:  

President George W. Bush inherited 4.2 percent unemployment in January 2001. That rate had grown to 7.8 percent when he left office eight years later and hit 8.3 percent in the first full month of Obama's presidency. 

The quick rise and dramatic fall of the unemployment rate during the Obama years is unusual. In the past 50 years, there's only been one other president — Ronald Reagan — who saw a bigger swing between high and low unemployment during his terms in office. 

(Under Reagan, unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent in December 1982. By his final full month as president, it had fallen to 5.3 percent.)

So the takeaway is that President Obama cleaned up the mess left by the LAST guy the Republicans  managed to put in office, and that he is sort of like Ronald Reagan, only better.

Sounds like the makings of a good old fashioned Thanksgiving fistfight to me.

Just some more facts for the conservatives to ignore, or argue are inaccurate.

Courtesy of Vox: 

As of this month, the unemployment rate is now lower than it was at any point during Ronald Reagan's administration.

You know that SHOULD be impressive, even to conservatives.

However since the "party of Reagan" would never elect Ronald Reagan in 2015 perhaps they will find this data unimpressive.

After all the important thing about Reagan was that he was white.

New interview with Eric Thompson is a must see.

This new interview with Alaska Dispatch is far more detailed than the ones that Thompson has given before, and it also serves to really allow you to understand his situation, including his feelings of betrayal and sadness at how he was treated by both the McKenna brothers and the media.

I am also including a link to his Go Fund Me page so that you can see his progress, and perhaps donate if you have not done so already.

President Obama's administration has presided over the best private sector job growth in American history. I know, right?

Courtesy of Forbes:  

Bob Deitrick – “President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President. So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’ 

As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan. 

President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his 6th year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration. 

We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015. A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.” 

Damn! That is going to make a lot of conservatives tear their hair out before slipping quietly into the soothing embrace of denial.

Now as interesting as I found this data, and boy did I find it interesting, I was also pretty amazed by this tidbit in the same article. 

Labor participation is affected much less by short-term job creation, and much more by long-term demographic trends. As this chart from the BLS shows, as the Baby Boomers entered the workforce and societal acceptance of women working changed, labor participation grew. 

Now that ‘Boomers’ are retiring we are seeing the percentage of those seeking employment decline. This has nothing to do with job availability, and everything to do with a highly predictable aging demographic.

What’s now clear is that the Obama administration policies have outperformed the Reagan administration policies for job creation and unemployment reduction. Even though Reagan had the benefit of a growing Boomer class to ignite economic growth, while Obama has been forced to deal with a retiring workforce developing special needs. During the 8 years preceding Obama there was a net reduction in jobs in America. We now are rapidly moving toward higher, sustainable jobs growth.”

In other words that whole "Real" unemployment that Fox News talks about as being people who have "just given up" and are no longer seeking employment, is NOT the result of lazy ass millenials who are discouraged by a lack of jobs and are now sitting on their asses playing X-Box all day and eating Cheetos, it is due to the Baby Boomers retiring and dropping out of the job market permanently.

Your morning wake up call.

Mitt Romney's post debate euphoria comes to a crashing halt. Update!

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:  

The cheering stopped on Mitt Romney's campaign plane Friday morning. 

The day before, aides had whistled and clapped when the Denver control tower commended the Republican presidential nominee's debate performance. It was a rare moment of exuberance for a campaign that had fallen behind President Barack Obama in a number of polls. 

The euphoria ended after the morning report that the nation's unemployment rate had dropped to 7.8 percent, its lowest level in Obama's presidency. Romney and his team sat stone-faced and quiet on the flight to Virginia's coal country, taking in the good news for the country that's bad news for their political prospects.

I have been hearing some conspiracy theorists suggest that Obama already knew about the unemployment numbers before stepping out on that stage in Denver.

I don't know about that, but I do know that this news made the Right Wing apoplectic.

They were in fact SO pissed off that they simply refused to accept the validity of the numbers. Which eventually ended up making them look like poor losers and lunatics.

Like I said I don't KNOW for a fact that the President knew of the numbers ahead of time, but I will say it certainly would not surprise me to learn that one of the best three dimensional chess players of all time was several moves ahead of his opponent.

Update: BY the way here are some polling numbers that might put some minds to ease as well, from close of business Friday.

And of course there's also this.

I'm feeling pretty good, how about all of you?