Unemployment Numbers May Be Worse Than You Think

Unemployment Numbers May Be Worse Than You Think

moneyfeatures.blogs.money.cnn.com

The U-6 includes folks counted in U-3 plus “ all marginally attached workers” as well as people who aren’t working full-time but wish they were (i.e., the underemployed.) Marginally employed covers “persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past.”

And when you add up U-3 and all the underutilized workers the official U-6 rate for May 2009 is 16.4%. That’s an official BLS

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.bls.gov

The government isn't quite telling the people who they work for the truth about unemployment!

They are purposely leaving out statistics that show unemployment is worse than they are letting on.

They are telling people the statistics from the BLS’ U-3 data, that shows only part of the unemployment picture!

What they are leaving out is what the other U data sets show!

This set of data also takes into account

U6 - 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

When you add the totals for ALL these unemployment statistics in this U data base up, you find out that the US Unemployment Rate is actually 16.4%!!!

moneyfeatures.blogs.money.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Well DUH unemployment is worse than the government says.

First they skew the numbers to look better.
Then they dont count people who dont get unemployment, the homeless, or stay at home dad/moms.

If they wanted a true unemployment number they would count every freaking person that isnt working.

Like someone else said in the comments section of that article, the number is even higher than that. You also have to figure in all those self employed businesses that have failed into those numbers.

I'm gonna quote myself from a post that I made back in 2006. It's quite interesting:

Originally posted by Mdv2

Second, people still don't seem to understand how those US figures are deliberately being manipulated. To the Bush administration it is important that a low unemployment rate reflects the merits of their policies, and thus to convince the American public that their policies are beneficial for the US, and basically that they are doing a good job.

Reality differs.

How exactly are the US unemployment figures being manipulated, or adjusted, whatever you'd like to define it as. To the Bush administration it is important that a low unemployment rate reflects the merits of their policies, and thus to convince the American public that their policies are beneficial to the US, and basically that they are doing a good job. Reality differs.

...Examples of statistical fabrication abound: the UN's bogus ranking of Canada as No. 1 on its Human Development Index; the Gross Domestic Product, which rates all economic growth as good, even crime and pollution; and Canada's official unemployment rate, which omits discouraged and involuntary
part-time workers.

If I were to pick the most dishonest case of statistical skullduggery, it would probably be the official unemployment rate in the US. This rate -now claimed to be down to five per cent - completely disregards the millions of people who have given up looking for work, as well as those who are working fewer than 20 hours a week but would prefer full-time jobs. The calculation of the U.S. unemployment rate, however, is done much more deceitfully, and with some of the most blatant statistical perversions
ever devised.

Mass layoffs, part-time work, job insecurity, big corporate tax breaks, cuts in welfare and UI benefits are not conducive to a lower rate of unemployment. In fact, they invariably have the very opposite effect. But the political flunkeys want to convince the American public that their free market approach benefits workers as much as shareholders. And how better to peddle that lie as the truth than with the crafty misuse of statistics.

According to the Council on International and Public Affairs (CIPA), the real U.S. rate of unemployment, if properly calculated, would be 11.4 per cent - more than double the official rate. The CIPA listed seven major changes in the definitions of "employed" and "unemployed" that were made in the U.S. methodology that have had the combined effect of substantially reducing the number of
Americans officially listed as being jobless.

Among the categories dropped from the labour force survey, in addition to the discouraged, were the under-16 group, those on strike or locked out and those who weren't actively looking for work in the four weeks prior to the survey. But by far the largest group omitted from the list of jobless in the U.S. are the working-age men who are out of work because they are in prison or on parole.

The 1.5 million American men in jail and the 8.1 million on parole make up nearly 10 per cent of that country's male workforce. By not including them in its labour force survey, the U.S. is able to reduce its official unemployment rate by more than five per cent.

Just as the omission of a large group of unemployed can drastically skew the statistics, so can the inclusion of a group whose members are virtually 100 per cent employed - such as the members of the U.S. armed forces. By lumping
these 1.5 million army, navy, air force and marine personnel
in with the civilian workforce, the official unemployment
rate is reduced by nearly another one per cent.

Ed Finn is a research associate with the Canadian Centre for
Policy Alternatives.

Coming from this 2006 topic: source


[edit on 10-6-2009 by Mdv2]

Between those whose unemployment has run out, those on welfare, the homeless, and the underemployed the real number is likely near 25%. How nice of our government to tell lies, who would think they would do that.

Now, if cnn, fox, msnbc, and the networks were to report the truth along with the government lies we could get somewhere. Instead they bury the truth in blogs that the already educated and informed seek out, knowing the average US citizen gets about 30 minutes of canned news a day, if that.

1984 had nothing on the real world.

Some of you folks sound surprised that the government is cooking the books in terms of unemployment figures. I am in agreement that the employment figures are worse than what the MSM is leading us to believe.

If the government where to quote the numbers accurately they would have a big problem on their hands. People would begin to take it to the streets. I mean Obama had that stimulus bill passed and now it is turning out that only a small portion of that money has made it into the economy and people are experiencing little to no affect from it.

Why the government is hording that stimulus money is beyond me but they are all ready to cut the check for a worthless company and throw money into a black hole. Right now I think the government is squeezing the middle class and that is downright cruel given our current state of affairs. They are making all the wrong moves right now and people should demand answers immediately. I don't care if the ruling party is Republican or Democrat; they need to be taken to task because if we don't they'll have us all sleeping under the overpass or drinking out of the gutter. I'm being as serious as a heart attack!

[edit on 9-6-2009 by Jakes51]

Something to consider from the BLS numbers is about half of us work.
ftp.bls.gov...

In the last 10 years the most people working was during 2001, where there were 212,577,000 people in the U.S. 16 and over and 136,891,000 of us were working (64.6% were supporting the other 35.6%). That's 75,686,000 unemployed people, of which 5,692,000 are counted as unemployed.

May 2009, 235,452,000 people in the U.S. 16 and over and 140,570,000 of us were working (59.7% were supporting the other 40.3%). That's 94,882,000 unemployed people, of which 14,511,000 are counted as unemployed.

Another way to look at it. In December there were an official 8,924,00 unemployed people. In May there are 14,511,000 unemployed people, a jump of 63% more unemployed folk walking the streets than there were before.

I noticed something else, that the news said only 563,000 jobs were lost in April. It's been all over the news that - good news - job losses were no longer in the 600,000 range. But, March unemployed were 13,161,000, April it was 13,724,000 (563,000 difference), and in May it is 14,511,000 (787,000 more folk on the street in one month). Wait until those car dealerships, factories, and suppliers start shutting down.


[edit on 9-6-2009 by Dbriefed]

Originally posted by Dbriefed
May 2009, 235,452,000 people in the U.S. 16 and over and 140,570,000 of us were working (59.7% were supporting the other 40.3%). That's 94,882,000 unemployed people, of which 14,511,000 are counted as unemployed.

If that is the actual work force (in May 2009), I can hardly believe that Washington is saying that it's "good news" that ONLY 345,000 jobs in the month of May!

US Loses Just 345,000 Jobs in May, Raising Hopes

WASHINGTON – Employers throttled back on layoffs in May and cut the fewest jobs in any month since the financial crisis erupted last fall — raising the brightest hope yet that an economic recovery will take hold later this year.
******SKIP******
The economy shed 345,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday — half what it was losing in a month at the start of the year. But the report also underscored how hard it has been for America's 14.5 million unemployed to find new jobs.

That is quite a big chunk taken out of the US work force!

Just because the job losses were less in May than in April STILL doesn't make this good news!!!

May have seen this before, not sure.

[edit on 113030p://bWednesday2009 by Stormdancer777]

reply to post by redhead57


That is spot on but I think even that is a low figure, They are not counting the hard core unemployed either. Those that have been out of work over two years are not being counted. That percentage would raise it another 6-8%. WSJ had article on this last year!.

Zindo

Originally posted by Keyhole
...

If that is the actual work force (in May 2009), I can hardly believe that Washington is saying that it's "good news" that ONLY 345,000 jobs in the month of May!

US Loses Just 345,000 Jobs in May, Raising Hopes

WASHINGTON – Employers throttled back on layoffs in May and cut the fewest jobs in any month since the financial crisis erupted last fall — raising the brightest hope yet that an economic recovery will take hold later this year.
******SKIP******
The economy shed 345,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday — half what it was losing in a month at the start of the year. But the report also underscored how hard it has been for America's 14.5 million unemployed to find new jobs.

...

From the BLS numbers I see 787,000 new unemployed in May 2009, not 345,000 as the article states. 13,724,000 unemployed in April, and 14,511,000 unemployed in May means 787,000 new unemployed people, not 345,000.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/39a6a00ec7cd.jpg[/atsimg]

Source

[edit on 12-6-2009 by Dbriefed]