Most of us get nearly all our income from our jobs. Only 44 percent of adults work 30 hours or more a week, according to Gallup’s survey of the work force. Ten million fewer are working now than when Barack Obama became president.
It took until last March to create as many new jobs as were lost during the Great Recession. For every person who’s found a job, two have left the labor force.
Few new jobs are as good as those lost. In 2012, men working full-time year round earned less (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than they did in 1973, Businessweek said.
About 7.3 million Americans work part time because they can’t find a full-time job. Roughly 25 percent of involuntary part-time workers live in poverty, according to University of New Hampshire Prof. Rebecca Glauber.
The unemployment rate has fallen to 5.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s “a big lie,” wrote Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton on his blog. If you’ve quit looking for work after four fruitless weeks, or work as little as an hour a week, BLS doesn’t count you as unemployed, he notes.
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