How Can 40 percent of Americans be Unemployed But The Unemployment Rate be a Low 4.6 percent?

My old man (literally.. he's 97) wonders how his costs for Food, Natural Gas, Prescriptions, and Property Taxes went up quite a bit, but the Obama Administration said that he won't get but a 0.3% ($1.30 @ month) increase in his Social Security check for 2017. I think the Medicare premium increase will take all of that windfall. For the past 4 years, the govrnment's Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) has been under 1%, hasn't it?

The Federal Government simply does not use every-day common sense with its calculations. It's a LONG SHOT, but maybe Donald Trump will be able to change the very foundation of how our illogical government works. To make it more in tune with real-world processes and conditions.

Obama propaganda machine
Tryin desperately , but vainly , to have some form of legacy left ?
Be my guess

By Obama increasing the US Debt by 10 trillion in 8 years to pay for entitlements to non workers?

I'm glad i'm not the only one who read 4.6% and said HOGWASH!!!
Talk about padding the stats.

a reply to: carewemust

The unemployment rate is measured by a division of the Department of Labor known as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. This government agency conducts a monthly survey called the Current Population Survey that involves 60,000 households. These households are selected using random sampling methods designed to generate as close an approximation as possible to the larger population.

Each month, U.S. Census employees contact the households in the sample and ask specific questions to determine employment status. The first piece of information they want to determine is how many people in the household are actually in the labor force, meaning these people have jobs or are actively looking for jobs. Only citizens who are in the labor force are counted in the unemployment rate. Someone who does not have a job but claims he is not looking for one is considered out of the labor force and is not counted in the unemployment rate.

www.investopedia.com...

Despite what many people believe, the unemployment rate is not measured by calculating the number of people collecting unemployment insurance.

I have no idea how typical it is for an administration to do this but I noticed several years ago that the monthly numbers touted by the Obama White House is not the official unemployment rate that the BLS is tasked with calculating for the federal government. Instead, it's a number based off new monthly UIB applicants. Those whose benefits have been exhausted or expired are not counted as unemployed despite the contrary for many, if not most.

My own extended experience and difficulty trying to find new employment never matched up with the rosey picture and outlook the White House and news would report as even better with each passing month. I then noticed the use of wordplay by the WH, referring to the number as jobless rate, employment gains, and a multitude of other terms but never announcing it as the unemployment rate.

I don't know of any recent roll claims but back when we reportedly improved to 10%, the numbers I looked up myself gave me the impression the actual unemployment was closer to 30%

How many of those are also retirees? That is also accounted in non-labor force adults.

You guys do realize that the Baby Boomers are retiring to the tune of 10,000 Boomers a month, right?

Also in this number would be stay at home parents/spouses.

Thats how you get these numbers. Not by cooking the books, but not learning how to read them in the first place.

This Article from 2012 puts the number of retired 65 and over adults at about 40.5 million. In the same year, there were reportedly 5.5 million stay at home parents, according to the census.

www.census.gov...

Statistics also show the elderly population is going to rise.

But for now, Ill use the 2012 numbers. So that's 46 Million people. About half your numbers accounted for.

Then there are 14 million Americans on Disability. Their actual level of "disability" can vary, but I do know that the number of genuinely unemployable people for health reasons has been rising. I also know that even though they aren't supposed to, a number of employers will still avoid hiring people with manageable illness because of insurance and other costs. So that puts the number to about 60 million.

Then I looked and saw also there are roughly 5 million adult full time college students that don't work. Often because they are either financially secure, or involved in non-paying work as part of their studies. So thats about 65 million.

So that brings the total down to 28 million. There are numerous reasons why those 28 million exist, that have nothing to do with welfare. Standard employment is not the only way people make a living. Some people work under the table. Some people have set themselves up enough financial security that they don't have to work.

But it hardly means that the unemployment rate is 40%. I know what 40% and higher unemployment looks like. I was living there from 2008-2012. Andalucia, Spain. 40% unemployment rate looks like over half the businesses shuttered and closed, the parking lots, sidewalks, cafes and dives are flooded with young unemployed people up to no good, and even the cops go on strike all the time. We are no where near that.

What I do believe, however, that the unemployment numbers fail to show is the number of under-employed people, or people having to work multiple crappy low wage jobs to make ends meet. The number of good, solid jobs has dwindled significantly as employers break them up into part time and temp positions to squeeze more money out of the workforce. So while more people have jobs than they did, those jobs have become crappier, lower paying, with fewer benefits and protections.

That would mean nearly every other person is unemployed and that's not true. So 40% of the population is not unemployed.

a reply to: rexsblues

Unemployment isn't welfare.
Your former boss pays it through an insurance program they must participate in.

Some people...like unemployment is begging or something.

a reply to: Sillyolme

Funny, I read boomers are reentering the workforce at alarming rates.

The current market micro bubble forming from Trumps election is going to ruin about a handful of retirements and cause another correction in housing and rental cost with a declining workforce.

a reply to: carewemust

To the BLS the nearly 100 million that aren't in the labor don't exist statistically anymore. Every time the unemployment rate goes down since 2008 it hasn't been because more people got jobs, instead more people got scrubbed from the unemployment roster.

It's a disingenuous accounting trick that has been going on for a long time. Every time the fake news MSM does a generic jobs report and refuses to inform the public to the bull pucky I have to remind myself, rigged game economy.

Interestingly not just the amount of sugar coating on unemployment statistics this usually happen at the end of a sitting president.

The worst is how the government can not sugar coat the welfare numbers, That is what people should be worry about, because comparing unemployment rates vs welfare increases and you will see that the discrepancy is incredibly high

Welfare Hits Record Levels After 50 Years of War on Poverty

Since Obama took office, 13 million more Americans have become dependent on food stamps, with the numbers now hitting a record 47 million — about a third more than when he was sworn in. In 2007, there were 26 million recipients. Spending on the scheme has more than doubled just since 2008. The explosion of the program, along with other welfare schemes, has resulted in countless commentators and critics labeling Obama “the Food Stamp President.”



By 2011, Census Bureau data released last year showed that the number of Americans receiving means-tested federal welfare benefits outnumbered those with year-round full-time jobs. Almost $1 trillion annually goes to the programs, with over 100 million Americans receiving some sort of benefits — not including Social Security, Medicare, or unemployment. Under ObamaCare, with its massive subsidies even for those earning many times more income than the poverty level, dependence is expected to surge even further.

So the question should be why if we have low unemployment rates we got more people on welfare or receiving some kind of government benefit.

www.thenewamerican.com...

a reply to: marg6043

How could we possibly have the same amount of high paying jobs with technology and globalism it's literally not possibly in any way.

Public share option on Wall Street with the massive corporations.

a reply to: Darkmadness

The thing is that in every presidential term the numbers are sugar coated to show how well that sitting president has done, in all my life as a voter I seen this happen over and over.

The economy is going to show positive, unemployment positive but is one thing you can not sugar coat and that is the amount of people receiving government assistance.

Does the government measure unemployment any differently than when Bush or other recent Presidents were in office?

If not, why were they not attacked and accused of lying, only Obama is???

a reply to: CB328

What you are talking about, we did that plenty in ATS for years, Bush was a master at sugar coating the well being of the economy until it crashed in 2008.

a reply to: carewemust

If 40% of Americans were unemployed the nation would be lucky to still function effectively. More like 5% and even that's a stretch.

a reply to: carewemust

The chances of Trump changing COLA's is basically zero. The reason they're calculated the way they are now, is that calculating them properly would lead to massive inflation. It's the same reason minimum wage doesn't scale by purchasing power.

originally posted by: marg6043
So the question should be why if we have low unemployment rates we got more people on welfare or receiving some kind of government benefit.

Because some people believe that it's not your employers responsibility to pay you a wage where you can afford food.

a reply to: Aazadan

In other words, people that work and still depend on welfare to survive, yes we know how that goes, but when it comes to unemployment figures they count as employed.

originally posted by: CB328
Does the government measure unemployment any differently than when Bush or other recent Presidents were in office?

If not, why were they not attacked and accused of lying, only Obama is???

I think pretty much every president in my lifetime has been accused of cooking the books come election time...

Also you attack Obama because well he is the sitting president so if things got worse under his watch its his fault since he is the top guy in the power food chain.