Real US unemployment rate at 16 pct: Fed official, page 1

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Topic started on 27-8-2009 @ 08:03 AM by warrenb

The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday.

"If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.

Full article

So they just inadvertently admitted to covering up this "real" number. Interesting.
Now that more people believe there is some sort of recovery, thanks to pushing the fake numbers I guess it doesn't hurt to come clean.

You do have to wonder if the 16% is even real. They lied about 9.4%, so why not 16%?
How high is it really?

reply posted on 27-8-2009 @ 08:20 AM by havok

Good Post.

I guarantee the percent is way higher than 16%. The media doesn't want you or I to know that! We might think the economy is worse off than we thought and start saving money instead of spending it!

I bet its up to 18-20% or more. Considering about 1 in 4 or 25% of the people I talk to are layed off. But, thats in my town.

reply posted on 27-8-2009 @ 08:40 AM by Doc Holiday

They include fedral jobs to get these #'s
And which federal jobs and how many of them they use, well thats up to them!
Our troops are in some and not in this last count?
All I'm sayin is its still up to a bean counter, that is taking instructions on "who" is to be ellegible, most likely AFTER the original # is seen and then "OH OH that can't be right"

That way they can adjust their #'s for us, and the television...

reply posted on 27-8-2009 @ 09:35 AM by desert

Up until the 1980's, employment meant a stable, 40 hr work week. In order to tamper the inflation economy of the 1970's, a pool of unemployed was created, with workers being either laid off or asked for givebacks/concessions in income/benefits. Unemployed workers were told to become self-employed in the service sector, such as pool cleaning or yard work, or to become contract/consultant employees, not counted in as unemployed. These jobs were often with a lowered income.

With NAFTA in the 1990's, the scenario was repeated, but tempered by the tech economy. At this time also, to help hide the American worker lessening income or under employment, payday loan/check cashing businesses sprung up, and credit was loosened as a means for Americans to keep up the appearances of a middle class (mortgages became financed over longer years to keep payments affordable, or were outright financial "creations", or credit cards/refinancing were encouraged to help afford what used to be affordable without credit).

The American worker has known the "true" unemployment figures for years. With this decade, even a "wartime economy" could not add to an economy built on illusions of wealth. Americans have been unemployed/underemployed for decades. They've just been able to adjust. Finally, the adjustments aren't working as they used to; there's not much elasticity anymore, given the horrible reasons for this latest financial debacle.

reply posted on 27-8-2009 @ 12:13 PM by djzombie

Also, unemployment rates only count people that are currently collecting benefits.

It doesn't count people who have exhausted their benefits and are still unemployed.

Like me for instance, I have I think a week left on unemployment then I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. There's not work around here.

reply posted on 27-8-2009 @ 12:20 PM by RoofMonkey

The U-3 data, available from BLS, is the official "state sanctioned" unemployment figure. It's currently at 9.5%, adjusted for annual variation. 9.7% unadjusted.

The U-6 data, also available from BLS, is "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" It's at 16.3% adjusted, 16.8% unadjusted.

For July, the Civilian non institutional population was 235,870,000, up from 235,655,000 in June. An increase of 215,000 people.

The Civilian labor force, the number they base the unemployment figures from, went from 155,921,000 to 156,255,000. Increasing by 334,000 from June to July.

The trend in U-3, predicted a value of about 10.5% for July, ~14.5% for November.

The official number was 9.7%. Though they monkey with the numbers, it still shows an increase of 32398 unemployed.

Which number do you use.. or believe? Well, U-6 gives you a better feel for just how hosed up it is. But the U-3 goes back a lot further in time.

www.bls.gov...

Edit Add:

Nothing to like here....

In the week ending Aug. 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 570,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 580,000. The 4-week moving average was 566,250, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average of 571,000.

Yeah, ok - a quick look at the table shows the following:

There has been no meaningful change. Today's number was 570k, last week 580k, August 8th 561k. Right up the middle. Oh, last year was 433k.

The insured total dropped to 6,133,000, a drop of 119,000. But it looks like (we don't have current-week numbers) most of that "drop" was in fact people rolling off onto extended benefits, where they're no longer in the headline number.

The bottom line remains that the employment situation remains extremely weak and shows no real sign of improvement. Yes, it is leveling off - but we're more like flat on our back than anything else.

No consumer, no economic recovery. No jobs, no consumer.

Its pretty simple folks.