Americans aren’t looking for part-time, crappy jobs, and they aren’t looking for more free time to paint or read. They want the respect and dignity of a full-time, good job. The problem is, U.S. adults with full-time jobs as a percentage of the U.S. adult population right now is 42% — the lowest monthly average since Gallup started our Payroll to Population (P2P) metric in March of 2011.
GDP growth continues to fail expectations. Many economists, both left- and right-leaning, predicted U.S. GDP would grow 3% last year. It only grew 1.9%, which was even worse than the 2.8% growth in 2012 — so the pie shrunk. Now we’re seeing predictions of 3% growth this year. Here is the big question: Based on what?
Seriously, what is driving the upbeat predictions this time? A technology boom we haven’t yet heard about? Automobile exports? Fracking? The return of manufacturing jobs? Millions of “shovel-ready” government projects?
Reality check: The three most important indicators to watch in gauging whether or not America will ever recover from the 2008 financial crash are: if business births begin to outnumber business deaths again, the steady growth of full-time jobs as a percent of the population (P2P), and significant GDP growth.
On all three indicators, America is failing this morning.
Read it all.
(Gallup Chairman's Blog) Jim Clifton–On The U.S. Economy, let's Stop Kidding Ourselves
Americans aren’t looking for part-time, crappy jobs, and they aren’t looking for more free time to paint or read. They want the respect and dignity of a full-time, good job. The problem is, U.S. adults with full-time jobs as a percentage of the U.S. adult population right now is 42% — the lowest monthly average since Gallup started our Payroll to Population (P2P) metric in March of 2011.
GDP growth continues to fail expectations. Many economists, both left- and right-leaning, predicted U.S. GDP would grow 3% last year. It only grew 1.9%, which was even worse than the 2.8% growth in 2012 — so the pie shrunk. Now we’re seeing predictions of 3% growth this year. Here is the big question: Based on what?
Seriously, what is driving the upbeat predictions this time? A technology boom we haven’t yet heard about? Automobile exports? Fracking? The return of manufacturing jobs? Millions of “shovel-ready” government projects?
Reality check: The three most important indicators to watch in gauging whether or not America will ever recover from the 2008 financial crash are: if business births begin to outnumber business deaths again, the steady growth of full-time jobs as a percent of the population (P2P), and significant GDP growth.
On all three indicators, America is failing this morning.
Read it all.