US Employment History by Sector

 In the last half century US policies have profoundly changed the way Americans earn their daily bread.  This post quantifies a few of those changes.  The data comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Nonfarm labor payroll surveys.  Previous posts here and here summarize the difference between the  BLS "nonfarm" and BLS "total" labor reports.

 Chart 1:  Total "Nonfarm" US employment showing Government and Private sectors
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Measuring Unemployment and Job Growth

A Long Road Ahead .... NYTimes

Chart 1: *METHODOLOGY: Total nonfarm payroll employment, seasonally adjusted, is from the Current Employment Statistics survey. The employment-to-working- age-population ratio used, 59.36%, is the June 1990-Nov. 2007 average; the working-age population is based on the Current Population Survey, and is projected to grow at the 2000-10 average, 0.103% a month. Recovery job growth rates are based on the periods Jan. 1993-Dec. 1999 and Jan. 2004-Dec. 2006.

Seth W. Feaster/The New York Times 

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (projections calculated by The New York Times based on B.L.S. figures)
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US Employment and GDP

We are a nation of 308 million souls of which approximately 140 million or so are "employed" full time or part time.  Chart 1 shows some of the major categories the US Bureau of Labor uses to monitor America's labor situation  (Click for larger charts)

Chart 1 US Employment Categories

There’s Class Warfare, All Right,” Mr. Buffett said...

There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

This is the first post in what I plan to be a series of posts on the history, status and immediate future of the welfare of average American citizens and households. 
I will start with two extracts -- the first from a conversation with Warren Buffet reported in the NYT, the second from "Sudden Debt", one of my favorite bloggers:

In a conversation with Mr Buffett  (NYT 2006)

BLS Employment Report Today

I will be publishing a series of "Unemployment 101" posts in the next few weeks.  Meanwhile here is data published today by the BLS with commentary from a few sources

From the Economist

TODAY, the Bureau of Labour Statistics released the last set of American employment numbers to come ahead of the November Congressional elections.

ProfessorBrad DeLong on Macroeconomics

 DeLong summarizes Jean Baptiste Say, JS Mill, Malthus and Niall Ferguson

Copied completely from Professor DeLongs site

 What Does Cutting-Edge Macroeconomics Tell Us About Economic Policy for the Recovery?

from Grasping Reality with Both Hands by Brad DeLong

 (Emhasis mine)

Let us start with one of the first economists, Jean-Baptiste Say.
Say wanted to be a technocrat, and was well on the way—special assistant to Girondist Party Finance Minister Etienne Claviere in the early days of the first French Republic. His patron was fired, purged, arrested, imprisoned, probably tortured, sentenced to the guillotine, which he cheated by committing suicide the day before his scheduled execution.