Bitter Clingers for Bernie

For John, BLUF:  Economics, unemployment, should be the big issue for all the Candidates.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Writing in The Weekly Standard, Mr Christian Lowe asks "Did Guns Doom Hillary In Michigan?"

Yes.  Next question?

While The Second Amendment, which Ms Clinton seems to want to abolish indirectly, rather than by a straight forward repeal, was a key factor, we should not ignore the U-6 Unemployment Rate.  The U=6 rate, which is around 10%, includes those marginally attached to the Labor Force.  Over a million fellow citizens.

Among the marginally attached in February 2016, 599,000 were discouraged workers. Discouraged workers are people not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. Among discouraged workers, 363,000 (60.6 percent) were men.

Among the remaining 1.2 million people marginally attached to the labor force, 624,000 (51.8 percent) were women. This group includes people who did not actively look for work in the prior 4 weeks for such reasons as school or family responsibilities, ill health, transportation problems, and other reasons.♠

Here are the Unemployment (U-3) Rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):

	Overall	Males	16 to 19 Years Old
Caucasian	4.6	4.4	14.3
Black	8.0	9.2	21.4
Asian	3.9	N/A	N/A

Last Modified Date: March 04, 2016

This chart of unemployment rates for February 2016 (not seasonally adjusted) plainly shows that the Black segment of our population is suffering an unacceptably higher unemployment compared to other segments.  This requires action, to attempt to ameliorate the problem.

Right now only Candidates Sanders and Trump are talking to this problem of unemployment.

But, it is a national problem.  Even if it is more accentuated in some regions.  We should all be concerned, especially when one segment or another of our People are having significantly different economic outcomes from others.  Where are the other Candidates on this?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, 1.8 million people marginally attached to the labor force in February 2016 on the Internet at this location (visited March 12, 2016).