Fortune article perpetuates ignorance about part-time jobs, undercounting them by half

One Laura Lorenzetti misinforms us here:

"[T]he number of part-time jobs, while still elevated compared to pre-recession levels, have remained steadily (or stubbornly, one could argue) around the 14 million mark."

The error is inexcusable because the government goes to great pains in the Household Survey to collect the information on part-time and full-time, and anyone can look it up conveniently at the St. Louis Federal Reserve website. The number is double what she writes, and has hit a record high.

"Employed, usually work part time" is here.

It shows the current level at 28.225 million. Lorenzetti is right the level has been steady . . . but at about 27.436 million on average 2009-2013 inclusive, not 14 million, after taking a big jump up from the 25 million level in 2007.

A subset of these are "part-time for economic reasons", here, presently at 6.85 million, still elevated about 2.5 million from the autumn of 2007 and still tracking the sudden jump up in part-time during the late depression.

"Employed, usually work full time" is here.

Lest you think all is fair and rosy about full time as Ms. Lorenzetti wants you to believe because of Friday's headline jobs number and the full-time up-trend since 2010, the employment situation in the last report shows a decline of 735,000 full time jobs and an increase in part time of 465,000, not-seasonally-adjusted for your holiday cheer.

The gap between the last peak in full-time, in 2007, and now is 3.778 million, even as over the intervening seven years we have added on top of that 15.9 million to the civilian noninstitutional population, that is, people 16 years of age and older who are not in prison, the nut house, retirement homes or the military, who can work but don't.

Ho, ho, ho. 

NY Times laments "tax uncertainty" over breaks which expired almost a year ago

As seen at Amazon

This is like lamenting that the Bush tax cuts became permanent two years ago. The only uncertainty is for liberals who still hope to repeal them. When pigs fly.

Here:

"Absent congressional action, a host of business and personal tax breaks expires on Jan. 1. ...

"Negotiators have all but given up culling the government’s growing list of temporary tax measures, making some permanent and jettisoning the most egregious tax giveaways. Instead, the House will vote Wednesday on a measure to restore almost all the tax breaks that expired last year for one year retroactively. That would allow taxpayers to claim them on their 2014 tax returns while forcing Congress to grapple with the issue again early next year."

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Ahem. There's nothing temporary about a tax break which was allowed to expire many months ago. If you've been counting on getting any expired tax break back, you deserve to be disappointed. If Congress decides to reinstate any of them before the end of the year, you've received a gift.

And while we're at it, the New York Times isn't very helpful about telling you what expired. Here's a list:

Health Coverage Tax Credit

Deduction for Charitable Donations from IRAs

Educator Expense Deduction

Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit

Tuition and Fees Deduction.

But the real whopper of this story is that we're supposed to believe that

"Uncertainty alone raised corporate bond prices, lowered growth by 0.3 percentage points a year and raised unemployment last year by 0.6 percentage points."

Investors in popular corporate bond index funds know the first statement completely misrepresents history. Net asset values of intermediates and shorts fell dramatically in the summer of 2013 after Ben Bernanke's ill-timed remarks. That prices have recovered since then masks the fact that prices today are still almost 3% lower for intermediates than they were when the Bush tax cuts became permanent at the beginning of 2013, and a half percent lower for shorts.

As for lowering growth, how anyone is supposed to believe that is beyond me. Government revenues have SOARED to record heights in fiscal 2013 as a result of permanency in the tax code, allowing a positive contribution to GDP from government consumption expenditures for the first time in four years. The 3Q2014 contribution was 0.76, most of that military spending on the war against ISIS, and the 2014 average to date is 0.31. The average contribution from government spending for 2011, 2012 and 2013? -0.45, a subtraction from growth.

Meanwhile unemployment has been falling, mostly as a result of not counting over 6 million unemployed Americans who have given up on finding a job. Adding them back in would take unemployment up from 5.8% to 9.6%, and the New York Times thinks it can detect a 0.6 point contribution from "uncertainty". We should be so lucky.

Food stamp recipient level declines again in September 2014

Those receiving food stamps in September 2014 declined to 46,459,998 according to Friday's report.

The decline is a statistically insignificant 17,000, but year over year the level is 1.8% lower than the 47.3 million who then received food assistance.

The peak month for food stamp recipients was December 2012 when 47,792,056 received assistance. The level has since declined from there by 2.8%.