Posted on 02/07/2009 2:53:32 PM PST by george76
The Labor Department’s official unemployment rate hit 7.6% in January, and its jump from 4.9% a year earlier marks the largest annual increase in the unemployment rate since 1975.
But the government’s broader measure of unemployment hit a more stunning level: 13.9%, up from 13.5% in December.
The figure, which largely accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or can’t find full-time jobs, is the highest since the Labor Department started the data series in 1994.
How does the government calculate two unemployment rates? The widely followed figure is based on people who do not have a job, are available for work and have actively looked for work in the prior four weeks. The official definition of “actively looking for work” includes contacting an employer, employment agency, job center or friends; sending out resumes or filling out applications; and answering or placing ads, among other things.
The 13.9% unemployment rate — known as the “U-6″ for its Bureau of Labor Statistics classification
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
ht comment
Black unemployment is 12.7%.
The usual suspects here; no surprise.....
"ain't gonna have to worry 'bout no mo'gage, ain't gonna have to worry 'bout no gas....Obama, he gonna take care o' me!"
I assume you would be comparing that number with the 7.6% number released yesterday.
Counting the ranks of “underemployed” as a result of cutbacks on hours, the unofficial rate hit the highest level in at least 15 years
http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090206/REG/902069980/-1/FWDailyAlert01
The unemployment rate is a comparative number, the U-6 stat might give people the idea that the current recession is worse that the 1980 event.
But U-6 wasn’t calculated for the previous recessions, so I’m concerned that using it now will just create more heat than light and lend credence to the “catastrophe” talk in Washington.
We may well get our catastrophe with the massive pork being passed in Washington and Obama in charge.
But there is no reason to create alarmism by suggesting that the unemployment is worse than Carter already.
Fear, fear, and more fear until Utopia is achieved is the Obama directive.
Miss President Bush yet?
I thought the memo said that it was all going to be roses after Obama’s election, per many people here.
Which is it? All roses? Or gloom and doom?
Correct. I find it interesting that you scarcely hear that figure mentioned by the black caucus. The black unemployment rate has been in double figures for a number of months in a row and has hovered over 9% for most of 2008.
U-6 finally hits the FR mainstream ping
Errr?? His policies were any different?
But posting that number on a thread titled “The Other Unemployment Rate: 13.9%” makes it look as though you are comparing that number to the 13.9% number, when those two in reality are entirely different statistics.
Not sure what your point was.
I prefer the term “The FDR Depression” to “The Great Depression”, and would encourage all FReepers to use it. It is much more accurate. FDR turned what should have been a 2-4 year recession into a decade-long depression.
Drastically so!
Appealing? perhaps not.
Needs repeating as much as possible FP.
A most formidable connoisseur of history you are.
Let us connoisseurs work to prevent history repeating itself wrongly.
There weren't separate categories for "discouraged workers", "underemployed / irregularly employed" workers, etc. in previous recessions. The current U-6 number becomes more comparable to previous "headline" numbers the further back you go.
Comparing current "headline" numbers (U-3) with old headline numbers (when there was just The Number) is kinda like comparing current automobile death rates with those of the early 1960's. Yes they're lower but there are the matters of airbags, ABS, seat belts, unibody construction, etc.
If the gubmint would shut up and cut spending and taxes, thereby easing the strain on credit markets, and let the economy catch up to the cratering of crude prices, we’d be fine in a couple of months. Meanwhile, where and when needed, there is unenjoyment, and of course, public assistance. Thanks geo.
If you want to be that way, go back to the early 60s when welfare wasn’t included as employed.
The current rate would probably be near 20%.
I wonder what that measure of unemployment would have been in 1975?
I would not normally be the one to defend FDR’s economic policies, but the recession began in October 1929, and FDR was sworn in March, 1933, so it was already 3-1/2 years old when FDR became President. Not only that, but the Depression bottomed the month that FDR was sworn in. I think that a better argument can be made that FDR prolonged the Depression. Most economists will tell you that the Fed was too tight on the money in 1928 and 9, and that is what triggered the downturn. It was Hoover’s interventionist policies, raising taxes and tarriffs, together with continued tight money that turned it into a Depression.
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