Posted on 06/16/2012 5:12:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Here are some charts from Reader Tim Wallace that help explain my report a few days ago that 23% of Small Business Owners (Approximately 6.21 million) Report "No Pay for a Year"; New Zealand, Singapore, US, Best Places to Start and Run a Business
The first chart below shows actual employment of covered workers compared to the civilian population and labor force. Covered employees are those eligible for unemployment benefits (working or not). Some are currently collecting those benefits.
In the following charts, "covered employment" or "net employment" refers to those with benefits and currently working.
Population, Labor Force, Covered Employment
click on any chart for sharper image
Self-employed workers and contractors are not eligible for unemployment benefits even though they have to contribute to state unemployment insurance schemes. It believe it is government-sponsored fraud to have to pay unemployment insurance when there is no chance of ever collecting it.
The next chart shows state level employment data. Net covered employees (those currently with a job covered with unemployment benefits) was calculated by subtracting continuing unemployment claims from the pool of all covered workers.
Covered Employees, Net Covered Employees, Continuing Claims
The next chart compares BLS employment numbers to net covered employees (those actually working).
BLS Employment , Covered Employment, Non-Covered Employment
Notice the widening gap between covered employment and employment as reported by the BLS. In 2008 and again in 2010 the difference between BLS employment and Covered Employment as noted by the green line (right axis) was about 15 million.
This month the difference is nearly 19 million. The table below shows the precise numbers.
Year | Covered Employees | BLS Employment | Non-Covered Employment |
---|---|---|---|
2003 | 123,193,833 | 137,687,000 | 14,493,167 |
2004 | 123,717,669 | 138,867,000 | 15,149,331 |
2005 | 124,663,546 | 141,591,000 | 16,927,454 |
2006 | 127,217,409 | 144,041,000 | 16,823,591 |
2007 | 129,399,094 | 145,864,000 | 16,464,906 |
2008 | 130,553,967 | 145,927,000 | 15,373,033 |
2009 | 127,539,427 | 140,363,000 | 12,823,573 |
2010 | 124,096,266 | 139,497,000 | 15,400,734 |
2011 | 122,146,266 | 140,028,000 | 17,881,734 |
2012 | 123,996,700 | 142,727,000 | 18,730,300 |
Year | "Non-Covered Employment" |
---|---|
2003 | 10.5% |
2004 | 10.9% |
2005 | 12.0% |
2006 | 11.7% |
2007 | 11.3% |
2008 | 10.5% |
2009 | 9.1% |
2010 | 11.0% |
2011 | 12.8% |
2012 | 13.1% |
Bear in mind, that making money or receiving a paycheck is irrelevant to the BLS when they compute the unemployment rate. If you work as little as 1 hour, whether you collect a paycheck or not, you are considered employed.See article for additional stats on working with no pay as well as a county-by-country comparison as to the best places to start and run a business.
In addition to the 6.21 million business owners with no paycheck, factor in those selling trinkets on EBay out of desperation and collecting a few dimes in the process.
Also factor in all those starting multi-level marketing schemes and calling it a business. How many get sucked into that losing proposition every year? Yet, to the BLS, it's a job if you worked any hours.
The ease of starting a business in the US is a great thing. Unfortunately, making money in a small business startup is not so easy.
Historic trends suggest half of small businesses will fail within 5 years, and I highly suspect future trends will be much worse.
You are just FULL of good news today aren’t you.
What are we gonna do with 800,000 new lawn guys and house cleaners?
There is a whole underground economy. People collecting unemployment and food stamps and working under the table for cash. They are self employed as well and killing the legitimate businesses that actually follow the laws.
Issue them drivers licenses and register them to vote under Motor Voter?
After all, that's the main idea, isn't it?
What I don’t know is how many of them are voting already.
Without knowing that it’s difficult to know what the incremental change will be.
A friend of mine started a computer education business (tutoring senoir citizens). He got laid off from CompUSA, so he started that. He got a license, so he is paying taxes.
The vast majority claiming self employment are doing so to defraud the IRS earned income credit and making work pay deductions. The IRS is nothing more than another form of welfare. It’s a cottage industry wherein people that pay absolutely no taxes can actually get 3 to 5k or more in a refund.
Excellent article. Thanks for posting it.
” After all,that’s the main idea,isn’t it?”
Afraid you are correct.
So Obama used the BLS household survey numbers that include almost anything that moves as employment (you don't even have to have income).
Sometimes during the years recovering from the 2000 recession conservative talk show hosts would use the household numbers (they showed hundreds of thousands every month) and ignore the official BLS establishment survey that showed as few as 16,000 jobs created the same month. Those 16,000 were actual hires by companies among the 400,000 businesses surveyed.
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