5 Million New Jobs?

Every time I hear Obama make the claim that he's "created" 5,000,000 of them I shout - in so many words - at my TV: They're all part-time and minimum wage jobs, you idiot! What good are they?

In truth?  They're all part-time and minimum wage.  Welcome to Obama's America:

A Part-Time, Low-Wage Epidemic
The jobs gained recently by the U.S. economy are disproportionately low-paying, insecure ones.
By Mortimer Zuckerman, Wall Street Journal

As Americans head to the polls, they face a disastrous new normal: For the first time, the U.S. economy has shifted in the direction of a part-time, low-wage workforce.

The number of Americans now working part time has soared to 8.3 million—up 313,000 in the past two months alone. With economic growth declining or stagnant for quarter after quarter, many companies feel it is too risky to take on people full time.

This has created an army of "underutilized labor." America's narrow unemployment rate is 7.9%, but it is 14.6% when accounting for involuntary part-time workers. The number of Americans working full time has declined by 5.9 million since September 2007, while the number working part time has jumped by 2.6 million.

Over the same period, according to the National Employment Law Project, low-wage occupations have grown nearly three times as fast as mid-wage and higher-wage ones. Whereas lower-wage jobs were 21% of losses during the recession, they have accounted for 58% of new jobs since—and these have the highest proportion of part-time jobs. By contrast, mid-wage occupations were 60% of recession losses but have been only 22% of recovery growth. Higher-wage occupations were 19% of jobs lost and have been 20% of jobs recovered.

The lower-wage occupations that have seen the most growth include retail salespersons, food-preparation workers, laborers and freight workers, waiters and waitresses, personal- and home-care aides, office clerks and customer representatives. Over the past two years, the food service, retail and employment-services industries have added a total of 1.7 million low-wage jobs, fully 43% of America's net employment growth. [link]

The lower-wage occupations ... [account for] fully 43% of America's net employment growth.

And Obama talks about it like he's proud of it.

Instead of being ashamed.

The harsh reality?

There's no reason to think it's going to get any better.

We are rapidly becoming a nation of part-time minimum wage workers.  And welfare recipients.

How's that going to bring about a happy ending?

Four more years!  Four more years!  Four more ...