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How the government manufactures low unemployment numbers

Cowboy

Wait for it.
GOLD Site Supporter
Why Obamas ratings are starting to go back up due to the bogus unemployment numbers, this is the reality of how they do it. Damn shame the media wont report this kind of information. :glare:


Figures released Friday by the US Labor Department declare that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.3 percent. While economists applaud the latest news, the reality is improvement comes only after 3 million jobless Americans are unaccounted for.
While job creation exceeded expectations for January, those experiencing long-term unemployment — those jobless for longer than six months, that is — remains at a record high.
In a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, it’s revealed that those suffering the longest from the unemployment epidemic exceed any monthly statistic dating back to the Second World War. The Labor Department figures that 5.5 million would-be workers have been without employment for 27 weeks or longer, accounting for around 42.9 percent of the total tally of unemployed Americans.
The consulting firm Hamilton Place Strategies based out of Washington estimates that as many as 3 million additional unemployed workers have been without jobs for just as long but are not taken into consideration by the US government. For those unfortunate many, the Department of Labor simply stops including them in statistics once they are determined to have simply “given up” on the job hunt. They add in their study, however, that even if bettering economic conditions prompt those considered to have given up to reevaluate the job hunt, the government’s “official” unemployment rate may once again surge to unfavorable numbers as the country’s still staggering economy would not be able to create work for them.
Additionally, the government has identified around 2.8 million Americans “marginally attached” to the job market in January. Per their own definition, that accounts for those who want to work and have looked for working during the last year but have not concentrated their efforts on the job hunt during the last month. They are also not accounted for in the Labor Department’s unemployment figure.
Speaking on Thursday before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed the issue. He admitted that the US economy “has been gradually recovering from the recent deep recession,” but called long-term unemployment figures still “particularly troubling.”
“More than 40 percent of the unemployed have been jobless for more than six months, roughly double the fraction during the economic expansion of the previous decade,” explained Bernanke. “We still have a long way to go before the labor market can be said to be operating normally.”
Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services, adds to the Washington Post, “We’ve dug a big hole, and though we’ve been filling it in, we’ve still got a lot more to go.”
http://rt.com/usa/news/unemployment-labor-jobs-term-457/
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Its funny almost that this bothers people now. This method of figuring unemployment became the standard method under Reagan and hasn't changed since. It is how he showed improvements then that didn't exist yet not a peep then either.
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
Its funny almost that this bothers people now. This method of figuring unemployment became the standard method under Reagan and hasn't changed since. It is how he showed improvements then that didn't exist yet not a peep then either.

How does that make the funky math right?

My accountant uses the same rules as other accountants yet when I worked for some corporations they used the rules to effect reported and therefore taxable, profits. Then they used the same Generaly acceptaaed accounting principles to paint a different picture for investors or the bank.

We had one set of books to show a different perspective to the Banks vrs the IRS and then our own for borad meetings. Always keeping inmind the perspective being used when making judgements.

And always defendable in not a little dishonest. You would naively suggest the Government would not do the same?

Barry wanted Unemployment to look bad in his first three years, with improvements in the election years. Just as he wants Much of the 2009 stimulis money to land in 2012 and the hammer of Obamacre to land after the election.

But we digress from the true reality. Despite the Governmet's attempts to hold the economy back, there is just too much pent up demand for goods and services. Except for the Zero interest rates and daunting red tape involved in actually financing a mortgage, I'm not sure how much Washington can hold back on this pent up energy in the economy.

Look for bold, popular, but useless initiatives (like the latest mortage remediation joke) from the White House this election year. Along with lukewarm OK's on mining, and gas and oil exploration. Lip service to the proles and fatty meat thrown to the liberal press.

And still no budget approval from the Senate. So, we just keep on runing up the credit cards without any idea of how much is being spent, and for what. Whether it is Barry or Romney next January, they will inherit one hell of a mess.
 

thcri

Gone But Not Forgotten
Its funny almost that this bothers people now. This method of figuring unemployment became the standard method under Reagan and hasn't changed since. It is how he showed improvements then that didn't exist yet not a peep then either.

But Reagan actually did things to create jobs while Clinton reap the benefits of it. Our current administration including the house and senate had not done anything for 3 years and now can't agree on anything that was produced.

But you are right in the fact most don't know or are only just finding out. It still does not make the article right as it is wrong.


Edit, Scratch that first paragraph. Has no bearing on what is going on now.
 

FrancSevin

Proudly Deplorable
GOLD Site Supporter
I am willing to wager that if we only counted those people who are actualy, honestly, and aggresively looking for a job, the unemployemnt rate would be less than 4%.

Most households in 1980 were not dependent on two incomes. Now, between taxes and living costs, they are. That means more people in the active work force.
All the while, the extra vailable labor presses to lower paid wages.

So I suppose we could look at unemployment per household and see it is not so bad. Or we could accept that lower wages are from greed, not competition. Or we could look honestly at the number of people that could be working but aren't.

That number would include not only those who cannot find work, but those who have given up and those that just sit home and collect benefits from the government "safety net" programs.

Real unemployment should include those people. Which would put it at around 25%. But that would require honesty from government.

BTW, according to my mortgage banker, I am self employed and therefore, technically unemployed. I guess we can manipulate thedefinition of it, unemployed, depending on what outcome we want to present.

Keep that in mind when the great news comes out of DC, it's just in time for the elections.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
4% is the chronically unemployed even in good times. These are the ones that won't work even if given a job. I'm sure the rest would gladly take a real job other than flipping hamburgers but with real pay checks they can live on.
 
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