"Drugged America"

Many Americans are too drugged-out to work

A slew of reports finds a fresh reason for the chronic inability of American companies to fill skilled jobs: not a lack of skills, and hence a training-and-education crisis, but a surfeit of drug abuse. Simply put, prime-working age Americans without a college diploma are often too drugged-out to get the best jobs. Opioids remain at high levels, but the surge in drug use is now heroin and the powerful contaminant fentanyl.

The reports suggest a circularity to the crisis in America's rust and manufacturing belts: the loss of jobs and wage stagnation has led to widespread disaffection, alienation and drug abuse; and drug abuse has led to joblessness, hopelessness and disaffection.

Data: Jed Kolko / Indeed, CPS data; Chart: Chris Canipe / Axios

But the numbers are all over the map. Some employers and economists say up to half of job applicants do not clear drug tests; others say it is 25%. In the chart above, Indeed economist Jed Kolko, using data from the U.S. Current Population Survey, found that 5.6% to 5.7% of working-age adults didn't work last year because of illness or disability, an unknown percentage of which were because of drug use.

What was evident, Kolko told Axios: A "clear, steady upward trend in illness/disability as reason for not working among prime-age adults. And even more striking, the level and trend are very similar for men and women, even though most of the attention on this issue is going to men."

But the anecdotal and economic evidence is compelling.

• LinkedIn's Chris Cutter found a West Virginia company where "up to half of applicants either fail or refuse to take mandatory pre-employment drug screens." The executive of another company called the drugs epidemic "probably the biggest threat in manufacturing, period."

• "In Congressional testimony earlier this month," Cutter writes, "Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen related opioid use to a decline in the labor participation rate. The past three Fed surveys on the economy, known as the Beige Book, explicitly mentioned employers' struggles in finding applicants to pass drug tests as a barrier to hiring."

One hopeful note: In a note to clients on July 5, Goldman Sachs's Jan Hatzius said a hard look does not show that the current unemployed are in fact permanently unemployed. "We see little basis for writing off the remaining pool of unemployed, whose rate of drug use has not risen nearly as much as one might think from the surge in drug deaths," the note said.

The Lies Continue With Jobs Report. When Will Government Start Reporting The Actual Numbers?

Latest jobs report is pure fraud and fantasy

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Wayne Allyn Root

Hello. I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. Here we go again. The latest jobs report came out last week, and it’s pure fraud and fantasy — lies and propaganda passed off as “good news.” The reality is this new jobs report is a disaster for America and our middle class.

The “facts” released by our “honest and transparent government” report 248,000 new jobs created, beating expectations by a mile. The “facts” report unemployment dropping to 5.9 percent, the lowest rate since 2008.

It’s as if President Obama is saying, “If you like your job, you can keep it.”

But you can’t. It’s no more truthful or realistic than “If you like your insurance, you can keep it.” Same fraud. Same lies. Same propaganda. Same banana republic mainstream media reporting lies, fantasy and propaganda as truth.

Here are the real facts about the latest jobs report.

First, the reason unemployment dropped to the fantasy level of 5.9 percent is that 315,000 more Americans dropped out of the labor force last month.

Where did they go? Most of them dropped off unemployment to get on welfare, food stamps or disability. Job categories used to be listed as policeman, fireman, scientist, butcher and baker. Now we should add “government dole.” Millions of people get up late, watch Judge Judy and Dr. Phil and get off the couch for the first time all day to open the mail to find their government check. This is the Obama economy. Obama uses the fact that millions of Americans are not working as a reason to lower the unemployment rate.

Where will America get the money to pay for all these welfare, food stamp,disability and Social Security checks for citizens who will never work again? We’re already broke. This just adds to the crushing unsustainable $18 trillion debt.

This isn’t good news. It’s a disaster.

Adding to the misery, the labor force participation rate just dropped to the lowest in 36 years. There are now 92.6 million working-age Americans not working.

This isn’t good news. It’s a disaster.

Like those late night infomercials say: “But wait. There’s more!”

How can 248,000 new jobs be a good thing if average hourly wages are stagnant or dropping? Because they are. That fact was buried in the latest jobs report.

Even the Americans lucky enough to have a job are drowning in quicksand. As Democrat Bill Clinton just admitted, “The average family is making less, adjusted for inflation, than they were the day I left office.”

The middle class isn’t getting richer, it’s getting poorer. Even Clinton understands that under Obama the middle class is struggling to survive and struggling to pay bills — that’s if they still have a job.

This isn’t good news. It’s a disaster.

The bad news is coming in waves. The media forgot to tell you that inside last week’s jobs report was this nugget of reality: The only people being hired are your grandparents; 230,000 of the new jobs went to those in the 55- to 69-year-old age group. In the prime working-age group of 24 to 54 years old, 10,000 jobs were lost.

Holy freaking Batman! What is happening? It means grandma and grandpa are desperate and willing to take grandson’s low-wage job to survive until Social Security kicks in. Or perhaps they need to work until the day they die to supplement Social Security. But that’s very bad news. The U.S. workforce is now the oldest in history. If grandpa or grandma has to work (out of desperation) until the day he or she dies, there will never be any decent jobs for the grandkids.

This isn’t good news. It’s a disaster.

But I’ve saved the two worst bits of news for last. What good is the news of 248,000 new jobs, if they are all part-time or low-wage jobs? Four of the 5 new jobs were in the lowest-quality categories.

Obama is creating a nation of desperate, government-dependent minimum wage workers. If you lose your $100,000 job, get ready to clean toilets, flip burgers, mow lawns or work at The Gap — because that’s all that’s available among the new jobs.

That’s if there are any jobs at all. I believe the numbers of new jobs are pure fraud, made up out of thin air. Want proof? The government’s own JOLT report came out on Tuesday. It says that monthly hiring has plummeted, dropped off a cliff.

It was down 294,000 positions last month. That’s the worst drop since 2010 — and the third worst number since the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008.

So now I ask you: How could there be good news about jobs created at the same time the government’s own report shows a severe halt to hiring? Somebody’s cooking the books, folks.

And how come the mainstream media only reports on the fraudulent report showing jobs created but never mentions the other report showing plummeting hiring? Good question. The media is obviously in on the fix. The media has a conflict of interest. The media is big business. The media is owned by billion-dollar companies. Their advertisers are billion-dollar companies. Their own media companies are publicly traded on Wall Street. They are in on the fix. They desperately want you to believe all is well, so their advertisers keep spending and so their stock prices don’t plummet. They need to keep the Ponzi scheme going. Can you spell “banana republic?”

Welcome to Obama’s America: where up is down, where bad news is reported as good news, where old is the new young (because only old people work anymore), where minimum wage is this president’s obsession because minimum wage jobs are the only jobs in the Obama economy, where it’s good news that people stop working and join the welfare rolls because they are now more likely to vote Democrat and where, as Nancy Pelosi claims, “Food stamps, unemployment and welfare are the best ways to grow the economy.”

Oh, my God! This, folks, is an unmitigated disaster. This, folks, is the murder of the middle class.

And this latest jobs report is pure fraud and fantasy.

I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. See you next week for another dose of raw truth. God bless America.