Posted on 03/27/2009 7:56:43 AM PDT by george76
Despite the obvious increase in job losses, official government estimates may be drastically understating the true unemployment rate.
True Unemployment Rate May Be Twice The Government Numbers.
The official unemployment rate may also be dramatically inaccurate based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics method of calculation.
If the government was still calculating the unemployment rate using the same criteria and methods that had last been used during the Clinton administration, the “official” unemployment rate today would be closer to 18%.
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
btt
From a European perspective I have also always wondered what the true US umenmployment rate would be if you didn’t lock up so many able bodies men in prison.
Americans always taught the lower unemployement figures as proof of a better economy, but Europe has less than 10% of its citizen in jail (and correspondingly less employment as prison guards too).
Thus, the US unemployment rate - even when it is 5% - is closer to 7%.
I am fully aware that I will get bashed for that little observation.
The county where I live is officially over 12% now but I know of lots of people who aren’t counted in the official numbers.
In 1996 - the middle of the Clinton economic miracle - the Kaiser Foundation conducted a survey of the American public that purported to show how out of touch the electorate was with economic reality.
Most Americans thought inflation and unemployment were much higher, and economic growth was much weaker, than reported by the government.
The Washington Post bemoaned the economic ignorance of the public.
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/manipulating-the-masses/
The SGS chart must include those who are unemployed are unable to hold a job or so poorly educated or on drugs or habitually tardy/don’t go to work regularly.
Much of societal scum is unemployed but should not be counted.
Man, we are looking and smelling like socialist france and the UK more every day.
Here in Michigan we’re closing prisons and turning criminals loose yet our unemploymemnt rate is the highest in the nation.
the Clinton administration had found in its public polling that if the government inflated economic reporting, enough people would believe it to swing a close election.
Accordingly, whatever integrity had survived in the economic reporting system disappeared during the Clinton years.
Unemployment was redefined to eliminate five million discouraged workers and to lower the unemployment rate; methodologies were changed to reduce poverty reporting, to reduce reported CPI inflation, to inflate reported GDP growth further, among others.
Sad state of affairs when the best hope of getting and keeping a job is with the government. We are so screwed.
I have been unemployed several times in my career, and have only been “oficially unemployed” about 25% of the time I was out of work.
Statistics are a political tool, they say what TPTB want them to say.
The figures do not include contract workers who are not listed in “lay off” figures when a job ends. They are just fighting to find employment right along with all the others who aren’t getting a paycheck... and contract workers aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits so they slip through that crack in reporting also.
Nope.
With that in mind, there's what--a couple thousand people actually working in America? </sarcasm><=I hate putting this in but I have to. You old-timers understand...
Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.Workers expecting to be recalled from layoff are counted as unemployed, whether or not they have engaged in a specific jobseeking activity. In all other cases, the individual must have been engaged in at least one active job search activity in the 4 weeks preceding the interview and be available for work (except for temporary illness).
Source: BLS.
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.
ht to jiggyboy
Yep among the uncounted are self employed people who never paid unemploment insurance and the working young who don’t have enough time under their belts to collect.
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