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| quote: | Originally posted by R!CH
i wouldn't trust the unemployment rate as a measure of severity for anything in this country. that statistic has been abused and manipulated by politicians for decades to stay artificially low as possible and so the trending means almost nothing. most economists agree that if you double this figure today, you'd be closer to the actual unemployment rate. the government gets to define what "unemployment" is and redefining it has been a habit of many presidents. if you aren't "employed" or "unemployed" you are a "discouraged worker", "marginally attached worker", "part time for economic reasons" or "persons who completed temp jobs". now there's nothing wrong with having these alternative classifications, except that if you lost your full-time job and fall into one of these categories, you aren't part of the unemployment statistic!
only people who register with the unemployment office every 4 weeks or receive unemployment benefits are counted as unemployed. when you stop receiving unemployment checks or stop visiting the unemployment office for more than a month - regardless of your employment status - you are no longer considered unemployed or part of the labor force - you are a "discouraged worker". if you work part-time, as little as 1 hour a week, you are "part-time for economic reasons". if you found work below the poverty level, you are a "marginally attached worker". if you've worked as a substitute teacher once in the last month you are a "person who completed temp jobs". then there are people who have no address and aren't counted at all. all these people aren't considered part of the 6.5% unemployed and when you hear 6.5% the assumption is that 93.5% are employed.
it's not that the bureau of labor statistics keeps bad records, but the "official" figure cited by the media as the unemployment rate ignores a huge swath of citizens who want to work full-time, but can't find a full-time job. buried in footnote u-6 of table a-12 in the bls report's "alternative measure of labor underutilization" is a more accurate statistic. in august 2008 that number is 10.8% - it's more accurate than the official unemployment rate, but it still ignores those classified as "discouraged workers". it's interesting how none of the alternative measures in the bls takes a total count of the entire labor force, just different groupings of each type of classification.
another labor statistic that's deceptive is any job growth seen in the last 7-8 years. a trick used to hide the decline of the labor force is the creation of low-pay service jobs. when a state like tennessee loses 100k manufacturing jobs and creates 110k minimum wage service jobs that pay half the income, the white paper outlook is "job growth" when the truth is that people are becoming poorer. this isn't a hypothetical situation, it's been done. unless you compare wage and employment figures simultaneously, you would think the economy is on the rise when in fact the only thing on the rise today is poverty.
you can say the same for inflation, which is realistically somewhere between 7-10% today. |
I knew all that but was going to keep my post short and simple.
It's funny too because some right wingers blamed the 6.1% as "high" because the fact that EDD/UI was extending participants benefits up to 2 months due to the economy being ass fucked. Citing the number "should be lower" when in reality the percentage is based on those claims that are currently receiving unemployment benefits. Like you said, once off the program, even if its just because your benefits expired and you haven't gotten a job, they drop you off the list.
The labor dept's data and unemployment info is about as accurate as the inflation figures the fed gives out -- or mike lord's secret charts and data showing the failing economy is propaganda and its just a "slowdown" 
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Last edited by ninetyninej on Sep-18-2008 at 00:47
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Check out the volatility today, 86 low and 120 high. 
