Moby Grape wrote:
Quote:
The True Unemployment Rate: 36%
Human Events, by John Hayward
How would you define “unemployment?†Statistics on unemployment are bandied around in the media all the time. Changes in these statistics are hailed as good or bad news for the President, with varying degrees of emphasis from the news networks, depending on which party the President belongs to. But what do these statistics truly measure?
Would you define “unemployment†as measuring “people who want a job, but can’t get one?†This is, broadly speaking, the definition embraced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The trick to making those numbers dance lies in measuring “people who want a job.†The widely reported U-3 unemployment metric, currently standing at 8.3 percent, is very aggressive in shaving off people who have not made recent efforts to find work. It is further distorted by massive “seasonal adjustments,†which made over a million people vanish into thin air last month.
This is why the official unemployment rate gets lower when the American workforce contracts. Workforce contraction is a very bad thing. People who simply cannot find work, and languish on unemployment insurance for years, are the last thing a prosperous country needs… but those people don’t count in the official unemployment rate. For example, if everyone under the age of 25 abruptly stopped looking for work, it would be an economic disaster, but the official unemployment rate would go down, because the pool of people looking for work would get smaller.
(That’s not quite as far-fetched an example as it might sound, incidentally. Even the heavily-massaged U-3 unemployment rate currently sits at 23.2 percent for ages 16-19, and 13.3 percent for ages 20-24… and it’s about two percent higher for young men. Policies that increase the cost of labor, such as minimum-wage increases and mandated benefits, have a particularly punishing effect on young entry-level workers, since their labor has less intrinsic value than experienced older employees.)This is precisely what has been happening under Barack Obama.
READ MORE:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49644 36% is probably right. My youngest daughter works a seasonal job which does not start until April 1st, and ends on October 1st of every year. This will be the 3rd season she works, and is glad she has a job. BTW, her work schedule and time frame, does not conflict with her schooling.
My son-in-law has been out of work since the beginning of December. He doesn't get unemployment. He worked 6 1/2 months last year, but the state said that he didn't have enough time in to get unemployment. He appealed unsuccessfully.
It has been over a year since my Honey lost his job, and the plant closed. His unemployment ended 2 weeks ago.
So, when you count in those ineligible for unemplyment, those who work a seasonal job, and those who unemployment has expired, you got one heck of a higher percentage than what D.C. is talking smack about.
Login
FAQ
Search
