In 1 Out Of Every 5 American Families, Nobody Has A Job

unemploymentBy Michael Snyder

If nobody is working in one out of every five U.S. families, then how in the world can the unemployment rate be close to 5 percent as the Obama administration keeps insisting? The truth, of course, is that the U.S. economy is in far worse condition than we are being told. Last week, I discussed the fact that the Federal Reserve has found that 47 percent of all Americans would not be able to come up with $400 for an unexpected visit to the emergency room without borrowing it or selling something. But Barack Obama and his minions never bring up that number. Nor do they ever bring up the fact that 20 percent of all families in America are completely unemployed. The following comes directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

In 2015, the share of families with an employed member was 80.3 percent, up by 0.2 percentage point from 2014. The likelihood of having an employed family member rose in 2015 for Black families (from 76.4 percent to 77.7 percent) and for Hispanic families (from 85.9 percent to 86.4 percent). The likelihood for White and Asian families showed little or no change (80.1 percent and 88.6 percent, respectively).

For purposes of this study, families “are classified either as married-couple families or as families maintained by women or men without spouses present” and they include households without children as well as children under the age of 18.

Digging into the numbers, we find that there were a total of 81,410,000 families in America during the 2015 calendar year.

Of that total, 16,060,000 families did not have a single member employed.

So that means that in 19.7 percent of all families in the United States, nobody has a job.

And of course there are lots more families that are “partially employed.” In other words, maybe the wife has a job but the husband does not.

So based on these numbers, it would appear to me that the true rate of unemployment in this country is vastly higher than 5 percent, and John Williams of shadowstats.com agrees with me. According to his calculations, the broadest measure of unemployment in the U.S. would actually be sitting at 22.9 percent if honest numbers were being used.

But let’s not just focus on where we are.

Let’s take a look at where we are going.

According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, job cut announcements by big companies in the United States were up 32 percent during the first quarter of 2016 compared to the first quarter of 2015, and it appears that the job losses are going to continue to mount as we roll into the second quarter. For instance, late last week Intel announced that it is going to be laying off 12,000 workers

As it navigates its path into the future, Intel, the 47-year-old corporation best known for making microprocessor chips that power personal computers, has announced significant changes to its business.

On Tuesday, Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich said in a letter to employees that the company over the next year will cut its 107,300-person global workforce by 12,000 people, or 11 percent.


10 Strategies to Survive and Thrive During Economic Collapse - Subscribe To Get Your Free Copy
Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL

Those are good middle class jobs, and they are exactly the kind of jobs that we cannot afford to be losing.

Meanwhile, the “retail apocalypse” appears to be accelerating once again.

Bloomberg is reporting that teen clothing chain Aeropostale is preparing to file for bankruptcy.  Aeropostale currently operates more than 800 stores across the nation, and it is unclear if any of them will be able to stay open as this process plays out. But of course it isn’t just Aeropostale that has gone bankrupt lately. Here are a few more examples of major retailers that have recently filed for bankruptcy

April 16, 2016: Vestis Retail Group, the operator of sporting goods retailers Eastern Mountain Sports (camping, hiking, skiing, adventure sports), Bob’s Stores (family clothing and shoes), and Sport Chalet (general sporting goods), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It will close all 56 stores and stop online sales.

In the filing, it blamed the going-out-of-business sales at “certain Sports Authority locations,” plus the weather, which had been too warm, and trouble with switching to a new software platform. It’s owned by private equity firm Versa Capital Management LLC.

April 7, 2016: Pacific Sunwear of California, clothing retailer with nearly 600 stores and derailed ambitions of skate-and-surf cool, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. PE firm Golden Gate Capital, a lender to the company, agreed to convert over 65% of its loan into equity of the reorganized company and add another $20 million in financing. Wells Fargo agreed to provide $100 million of debtor-in-possession financing.

March 2, 2016: Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It said it would close 140 of its 450 stores, including all stores in Texas.

Just because the stock market has been doing well in recent weeks does not mean that the crisis has passed.

In fact, many experts believe that the crisis of 2016 is just getting started.  Albert Edwards of Societe Generale is one of them

But what I do know is when in the last few weeks I have heard that Janet Yellen sees no bubble in the US, when Ben Bernanke hones and restates his helicopter money speech, and when Mario Draghi says that the ECB’s policy of printing money and negative interest rates was working, I feel utterly depressed (I could also quote similar nonsense from Japan, the UK and China). I have not one scintilla of doubt that these central bankers will destroy the enfeebled world economy with their clumsy interventions and that political chaos will be the ugly result. The only people who will benefit are not investors, but anarchists who will embrace with delight the resulting chaos these policies will bring!

All over the world, the underlying economic fundamentals continue to deteriorate. Here in the U.S., retail sales have been extremely disappointing, total business sales have been steadily falling, corporate revenues and corporate profits continue to plunge, and corporate debt defaults have soared to their highest level since the last financial crisis.

All of these numbers are screaming that a major economic downturn is here, and with each passing week things look even more ominous for the second half of 2016.

*About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*


Activist Post Daily Newsletter

Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL
Free Report: How To Survive The Job Automation Apocalypse with subscription

12 Comments on "In 1 Out Of Every 5 American Families, Nobody Has A Job"

  1. Social security and Disability accounts for 65 miilon who do not have jobs (retired or disabled).
    There are about 120 million households, with 25 million without jobs. Those on pensions (the SS 65 million plus the millions on teachers and other public service pensions) are about 35 million households.

    So if 20% of household have no workers, the largest amount are retired households. 20% of households are about 25 million households (out of about 120 million) but there are 35 million households with a retiree.

    In some of those households, a family member is still working.

    Conclusion: there are more than enough households with pensions and disabilities and non-Social Security penisons (like teachers) to make up the 1 in 5 where no one works. But that’s boring and won’t arouse outrage and sell ads!

    • The FACT, you cannot discern the difference between fact and opinion proves you cannot be relied upon for any accurate data/information.
      FACTS have reliable sources that can be proven through test and investigation that have shown credibility in their means and methods.
      What you have attempted here, once again dale, is a regurgitation of disinfo that is REALLY just opinion.
      If you are trying to take the high ground spouting some fake authority you better come equipped with the information and all it’s sources, supporting data as if you were proving a case in court.
      Otherwise, it’s just wind !

      • I thought it obvious that the source of Social Security data is the Social Security website. The data on the percent of households who have a working member, etc is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most people who are informed on these subjects do not require sources for well-established facts.

        There is no disinformation: 65 million of the 100 million not working are on Social Security. Millions more, such as myself, are teachers, etc, who have their own pension programs. And of course, there are millions of stay at home spouses who have spouses working and are staying home. You should not need a source for such claims. You yourself know many households where the father works and mom stays home and takes care of the ids.

        My facts can be checked at BLS and Social Security, tho I am surprised you would doubt them. But check it out. I do not lie; I do not make things up; I do not mininform. I have corrected the false impression that 100 million (who want work) are not working. This includes the 65 milloin on SS, and the tens of millions who are on non-SS pensions and those who have only one member of the household who works. I stand by my claims, based on the sources given, and I challenge you to refute anything I have said with credible sources. You are in denial: you want to believe that 100 million want work, when more than 2/3 are retired or disabled, and many more choose not to work in one job households. You just want to feel outraged, even if the facts do not support your beliefs. So do your factchecking on the number of SS recipients, other pension recipients, and households with only one member working: it is very close to 100 million.

      • He is a shill that spends most of day spewing “facts”…errr doing his JOB.
        The anger melts away when you realize you’re trying to rationalize with a robot following his programming.

        • I dont even bother reading any dale ruff posts anymore. I cannot be bothered with shillery and stupidity. I just vote down and move on. Hopefully Disqus will delete this paid idiot and he can come back under yet a different name.

        • Appropriate — dick·ard. You need to confer with your partner “Common Sense” to learn how to post without a profile. Making your (commenting) activity private is really a dead-giveaway.

          Why did you capitalize “job”? Is it because your role model Common Sense capitalizes a word or two?

          Robots do not follow their programming — they execute a program.

          Just curious… In what state did you get your education?

      • It appears that you do not have a profile. So… how is it that you can post a comment?

        Talk about false advertising! “Common Sense”

  2. ” how in the world can the unemployment rate be close to 5 percent ”
    simple. Liars lie about lying.

  3. This is all part of the globalists scum to make things unaffordable or just barely so, especially in these new boxy apartments they extract an arm and a leg.
    Keep half the population on a form of dependency or hire them as military to keep the perpetual oil wars thinning the herd.
    It is my hope that the hemp industry will turn things around.

    • I doubt that Common Sense will give me a true answer so let me also ask you: It appears that you do not have a profile. So… how is it that you can post a comment?

  4. Not only has the lies, disinfo, fraud and corruption grown to unbearable levels from the manipulators within our system, these mentally unbalanced people have begun to believe their own BS and think they can actually survive as parasites after they have killed the host.
    Through unchecked and endless corruption these criminals have taken a once vibrant and healthy system and turned in into nothing more than an extortion racket. As decent people became fed up with the criminals and vacated their positions to distance themselves from the crooks and all they have distorted, these vacancies were taken up by more crooks who are drawn to these positions like a scavenger to a dead beast. This is one of our faults in becoming disgusted with their vile actions and leaving when we should be ousting them.
    Much like a garden when the weeds are at a level that makes it impossible to remove them the only alternative is to plow everything under and begin again.
    The corruption levels are the same when Rome collapsed. An empire is decline.

Leave a comment