Posted on 08/09/2009 8:40:52 AM PDT by MaxCUA
The announcement today that the unemployment rate declined slightly to 9.4 percent in July while only 247,000 additional jobs were lost has been greeted as good news. The change in the unemployment rate puts the rate at what it was in May. Yet, even a rough look at the numbers indicates that the true unemployment rate has been getting significantly worse over the last few months. How is it possible for the unemployment rate to essentially remain unchanged when 247,000 jobs have been lost? The reason is simple -- the number of people who stopped looking for work rose dramatically. Six hundred thirty-seven thousand additional people no longer consider themselves looking for work. This is by far the largest drop in the number of people who consider themselves in the labor force during the last year. -- It is almost twice the 358,000 increase in the people who left the labor force during June and almost four times the average monthly increase of 167,333 over the last year. Jobs are sufficiently scarce and the prospects of people finding them at wages that they are willing to work for so low that many individuals don't think that it is worth their time to even look for a job.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Posted a few minutes ago here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2311901/posts
Weird to have a dupe so close together, considering this article is from Friday. Did FOX just mention this article on FNC or something?
I’ll gleefully help reduce the unemployment numbers when I go back to work. I’d do it tomorrow if I could.
I am ambivalent about this because they did the same thing under Bush. There were those of us who noted it and talked about it but were shouted down.
You are right that we should be consistent.
I do think there is a difference between then and now though.....
.....Then, those that "gave up" were giving up in a market where work was available.
.....Now people are giving up because there is no work available, with the exception of highly specialized position opportunities.
Whoa totally unexpected. My retinas!!!
raybbr is correct that the U6 figures are never used by the politicians because the are always nearly double the amount.
Also, if you will notice the spikes in the chart, U6 is always lowest in late summer....July and August employment numbers are the best they will be this year. Not good for Obamanomics!
Go to http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data for Consumer Price Inflation, Money Supply Growth, Unemployment, Gross Domestic Product, Dollar graphs. John Williams is considered “the” source for real economic data. True unemployment is actually about 21 percent. The method of calculating unemployment and inflation has changed multiple times since the Carter administration. This is why the numbers don’t mean anything.
Note the Money Supply Growth graph. Look at the government’s M-3 money supply figures. Remember Bernanke saying in March of 2006 that M-3 money supply figures were no longer needed so they stopped reporting them. Ha! They also said that statistics were too expensive to collect. Wrong, M-3 was eliminated because the Fed was preparing to flood the economy with money and they didn’t want it to be known.
You will also notice that they shut the M-3 money supply off in the first part of 2008 look at the graph. About a half year later the economy tanks. Yes, it was all planned and coordinated to screw you. Wake up out there.
The government minimizes consumer price inflation since social security has a cost of living increase attached to it. They’d hate to have the old folks getting too much money in retirement. See also http://www.shadowstats.com.
Given the bias of the MSM, if there were so many people who wanted work but gave up looking, the MSM would have gone all out to find them and present the numbers.
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