(The Economic Collapse Blog)—A lot of people are really confused about the state of the U.S. economy right now. Large employers are conducting mass layoffs all over the country, and those that are searching for work are having a very difficult time. But meanwhile, the Biden administration and the mainstream media continue to insist that the unemployment rate is low and everything is just fine.
So what can account for such incongruity? Hopefully by the time you are done reading this article you will have a much clearer view of what is really going on out there.
On Friday, the BLS released the employment numbers for the month of February. Zero Hedge is calling it “the most ridiculous jobs report in history”…
Last month we though that the January jobs report was the “most ridiculous in recent history” but, boy, were we wrong because this morning the Biden department of goalseeked propaganda (aka BLS) published the February jobs report, and holy crap was that something else. Even Goebbels would blush.
We were told that the U.S. economy added 275,000 jobs last month. But if you dig deeper into the report, you will find that the number of native-born workers actually fell by 560,000 last month.
And over the past 3 months, the number of native-born workers has fallen by a whopping 2.4 million…
But wait there’s even more, because now that the primary season is over and we enter the heart of election season and political talking points will be thrown around left and right, especially in the context of the immigration crisis created intentionally by the Biden administration which is hoping to import millions of new Democratic voters (maybe the US can hold the presidential election in Honduras or Guatemala, after all it is their citizens that will be illegally casting the key votes in November), what we find is that in February, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560K to just 129.807 million. Add to this the December data, and we get a near-record 2.4 million plunge in native-born workers in just the past 3 months (only the covid crash was worse)!
So where is the “job growth” coming from?
If you can believe it, the BLS is claiming that 1.2 million foreign-born workers were added during the month of February alone…
The offset? A record 1.2 million foreign-born (read immigrants, both legal and illegal but mostly illegal) workers added in February!
Are we actually supposed to believe such nonsense? I find it hard to believe that more than a million foreign-born workers were added to the system in a single month when layoffs are at such extremely high levels.
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas we just witnessed the highest number of layoffs during the month of February since the Great Recession…
Layoff announcements in February hit their highest level for the month since the global financial crisis, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The total of 84,638 planned cuts showed an increase of 3% from January and 9% from the same month a year ago, with technology and finance companies at the forefront.
From a historical perspective, this was the worst February since 2009, which saw 186,350 announcements as the worst of the financial crisis was seemingly coming to an end.
We really do have an employment crisis in this country, but those in positions of power are trying to convince us that what we can see with our own two eyes isn’t actually real.
In other words, they are gaslighting us really hard. One of the ways they do this is by how they classify those that are not working.
When an adult is not working, they are classified as either “unemployed” or “not in the labor force”. In February, 6,458,000 Americans were considered to be officially “unemployed”. If that number was accurate, that would be good news.
But another 100,285,000 Americans were considered to be “not in the labor force” in February. When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 106,743,000 Americans that are not working. In other words, nearly 107 million Americans do not have a job right now.
Let me try to put that number into proper perspective. During the Great Recession, that number never even reached 90 million.
So right now, the number of Americans not working is far higher than it was at any point during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Meanwhile, conditions continue to get even rougher for those that are actually working.
The cost of living has been rising much faster than our paychecks have, and that is putting enormous stress on households from coast to coast.
Recently, I was stunned to learn that a 160 square foot home in Las Vegas is renting for 950 dollars a month…
A tiny home in the Las Vegas Valley is creating a big stir.
Nestled between two apartment blocks, the 160 sq ft tiny home, listed for $950 a month, has received more than 113 inquiries from eager renters.
That is absurd.
But this is what years of reckless money printing have done to us.
Housing has become more unaffordable than ever before, and this isn’t just happening in our heavily populated metropolitan areas.
If you can believe it, an average home in Bozeman, Montana now sells for more than a million dollars…
Bozeman, Montana, a small city of about 56,000 people, has seen home prices soar on the back of increased migration to the area, catapulting demand for properties.
A single-family home in the area rose by nearly 40 percent to more than $1.16 million as of February, according to the Bozeman Real Estate Group.
At the same time, paychecks are stagnating or even falling in some cases.
In fact, it is being reported that “48% of 2,000 US companies surveyed lowered pay for certain roles” in 2023…
But some are finding an unwelcome surprise as they scan listings for open roles. A salary bump is all but impossible; in many cases, wages seem lower than their previous pay – even for the same jobs.
They aren’t imagining things. A 2023 report on pay trends from ZipRecruiter showed 48% of 2,000 US companies surveyed lowered pay for certain roles.
The middle class is being systematically ripped to shreds.
With each passing day, more Americans are joining the ranks of the poor, and homelessness and hunger are absolutely exploding all over the nation.
What we are experiencing is the direct result of years of very foolish policies.
Unfortunately, much worse is on the horizon. The remainder of 2024 will be excruciating, and 2025 will be even more painful.
Sound off about this article on The Economic Collapse Substack.
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