Gallup CEO: "America's 5.6% Unemployment Is One Big Lie"

Zero Hedge ^ | 02/03/2015 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

The biggest threat to a corrupt regime is when truth moves away from the "conspiracy theory" fringes and into the mainstream. Which is why we thank Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, for daring to tell the truth to those who care to listen.

Posted first on LinkedIn

The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment

Here’s something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news -- currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.

There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you’re an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 -- maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn -- you’re not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

Yet another figure of importance that doesn’t get much press: those working part time but wanting full-time work. If you have a degree in chemistry or math and are working 10 hours part time because it is all you can find -- in other words, you are severely underemployed -- the government doesn’t count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.

And it’s a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual’s primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity -- it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen’s talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.

Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.

I hear all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it.” When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth -- the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real -- then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t “feeling” something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class.

***
And since we never tired of showing the "job recovery", here is what Clifton is talking about visually.

[RJS1950]

Well, no kidding.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Yeah, it’s a lie but it makes the Kenyan’s low information freeloaders feel good that they voted for him.

[Red Badger]

The chickens will come home to roost, soooon....................

[Nachum]

The list, Ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

http://www.nachumlist.com/

[ArtDodger]

I noticed Gallop was careful not to suggest what the true number might be.......

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I noticed Gallop was careful not to suggest what the true number might be.......

The government and the media keeps using U-3, which is the total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (this is the definition used for the official unemployment rate)

I always look at the U6 number from BLS to gauge the TRUE unemployment.

U-6 is the total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.

Alternative measures of labor underutilization by state, 2014 annual averages (percent)

State	Measure
	U-1	U-2	U-3	U-4	U-5	U-6
United States	3.0	3.1	6.2	6.6	7.5	12.0
Alabama	3.8	3.6	7.1	7.6	8.6	12.6
Alaska	2.5	3.6	7.1	7.6	8.4	11.5
Arizona	3.3	3.1	7.0	7.6	8.6	14.7
Arkansas	2.1	2.9	6.0	6.1	6.9	10.2
California	3.8	3.9	7.5	8.0	9.0	15.2
Colorado	2.4	2.4	4.9	5.1	5.7	9.4
Connecticut	3.7	3.7	6.6	7.2	8.0	12.6
Delaware	3.0	3.0	5.8	6.5	7.1	11.2
District of Columbia	5.1	3.6	7.8	8.3	9.0	11.9
Florida	3.5	3.2	6.3	6.8	7.5	12.8
Georgia	4.0	3.2	7.2	7.9	8.8	13.3
Hawaii	1.9	1.8	4.4	4.7	5.6	10.2
Idaho	1.5	2.3	4.7	4.8	5.6	10.3
Illinois	3.9	3.8	7.0	7.4	8.2	12.7
Indiana	2.5	3.2	6.1	6.5	7.3	11.3
Iowa	1.6	2.6	4.6	4.8	5.3	8.8
Kansas	1.7	2.3	4.6	4.8	5.6	9.1
Kentucky	3.1	3.2	6.5	6.8	7.8	11.7
Louisiana	2.9	2.8	6.4	6.9	7.8	11.3
Maine	2.4	3.1	5.7	6.2	7.1	11.9
Maryland	3.2	2.7	5.8	6.2	7.2	10.7
Massachusetts	2.9	3.1	5.8	6.1	7.0	11.5
Michigan	3.5	3.7	7.2	7.6	8.6	13.9
Minnesota	1.7	2.2	4.0	4.3	5.0	8.7
Mississippi	4.1	3.5	7.7	8.4	9.4	13.6
Missouri	2.8	3.6	6.4	6.8	7.5	11.8
Montana	1.5	2.6	4.6	4.9	5.7	10.3
Nebraska	1.1	1.6	3.3	3.5	4.1	7.0
Nevada	4.2	4.0	7.7	8.4	9.4	15.3
New Hampshire	1.9	2.4	4.2	4.5	5.2	9.7
New Jersey	3.8	4.1	6.7	7.1	8.0	12.4
New Mexico	4.0	2.6	7.0	7.6	9.1	13.2
New York	3.6	3.6	6.4	6.9	7.9	12.4
North Carolina	3.2	2.8	6.2	6.8	7.6	12.1
North Dakota	0.8	1.3	2.8	3.0	3.5	5.4
Ohio	2.6	2.6	5.6	6.0	6.8	10.9
Oklahoma	1.6	2.0	4.5	5.0	5.9	8.6
Oregon	3.2	3.7	7.1	7.4	8.3	14.2
Pennsylvania	2.8	3.1	5.7	6.2	7.2	11.6
Rhode Island	4.2	4.3	7.7	8.1	9.0	13.5
South Carolina	3.2	2.7	6.4	7.1	8.2	12.5
South Dakota	1.0	1.5	3.5	3.7	4.2	6.4
Tennessee	2.8	3.4	6.6	7.1	8.0	13.1
Texas	2.0	2.2	5.0	5.4	6.1	9.9
Utah	1.2	1.8	3.9	4.2	4.8	8.2
Vermont	1.4	2.2	4.2	4.5	5.1	8.8
Virginia	2.4	2.4	5.2	5.5	6.5	10.4
Washington	2.6	3.2	6.3	6.6	7.5	12.5
West Virginia	3.2	3.3	6.6	7.1	8.1	12.4
Wisconsin	2.4	3.2	5.6	5.8	6.8	10.3
Wyoming	1.4	1.9	4.4	4.5	5.0	7.5
Substate areas
Los Angeles County
4.5	4.0	8.1	8.5	9.4	16.8
New York City	4.6	3.9	7.3	7.9	8.9	13.2

[MrB]

Yeah, they will.

The real unemployment rate will be trotted out when Obama is out of office and replaced by a Republican.

[The_Republic_Of_Maine]

Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.

If you are on welfare or SS, you are unemployed, but not counted in the unemployment number.

[Nowhere Man]

I know my standard of living has gone down the crapper from 2008/2009 to now. I’m barely getting by as well as my best friend has his wife. I know losing Mom in 2013 was a kick in the butt too but we were headed down before that. Right now, I’m applying for energy assistance with the gas bill, something I never had to do before plus I’m trying to help my buddy do the same since he has a sick wife now. B-( There were times I had to help him buy medicine for her.

[cuban leaf]

Yeah. Nobody here is surprised by that. In fact, he may be getting his hubris by reading our posts here. :-)

Six years ago a guy at my church was laid off from a VERY long term engineering job. After a year of searching for work, his daughter (a checker at Safeway) said to me, “Good news! My dad got a job! He’s working at Lowes. I make more than my dad now, hahaha!”

That was when what this guy is saying hit me.

[oincobx]

According to the Gallup daily poll, the non seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.1%.

[SeekAndFind]

With the above table taken from the BLS, SEE HERE:

http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm

We are closer to about 12% unemployment ( or 1 in 8 people in this country ), which is MORE THAN DOUBLE the official unemployment rate.

[cuban leaf]

What saved me was moving from Seattle to rural KY. I have a smaller house (on 32 acres) but it is, in a word, spectacular. And the property taxes are less per year than they were on the Seattle postage stamp lot PER MONTH.

[Wyatt's Torch]

Nobody who has any clue what they are doing uses U3. U6 is far better for a “true” unemployment rate.

[MrB]

If you were providing for your own family prior to 2008,
you were a target of the Obama administration.

[jpl]

I really love it when left-wingers try to claim that that graph you posted is all because of Baby Boomers voluntarily retiring.

[ArtDodger]

Thanks to all for the great, if unwelcome, info..

[SeekAndFind]

Here is an article from CNS which describes our REAL unemployment problem... This was from September 2014 ( not much has changed to improve the situation since ).

(CNSNews.com) - A record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The labor force participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent in six of the last twelve months, but prior to last October had not fallen that low since 1978.

BLS employment statistics are based on the civilian noninstitutional population, which consists of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital or nursing home.

In August, the civilian noninstitutional population was 248,229,000 according to BLS. Of that 248,229,000, 155,959,000—or 62.8 percent--participated in the labor force, meaning they either had or job or had actively sought one in the last four weeks.

The 92,269,000 who did not participate in the labor force are those in the civilian noninstitutional population who did not have a job and did not actively seek one in the last four weeks. Because they did not seek a job, they did not count as “unemployed.”

Of the 155,959,000 who did participate in the labor force, 146,368,000 had a job and 9,591,000 did not have a job but actively sought one. The 9,591,000 are the unemployed. They equaled 6.1 percent of the labor force—or an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent (which was down slightly from the 6.2 percent unemployment rate in July).

The 146,368,000 people employed in the United States in August was up 16,000 from the 146,352,000 who were employed in July.

[SeekAndFind]

Also see Post #19 above.