Actual U.S. Unemployment: 15.8%

[danarhea]

The "official" unemployment numbers only give part of the picture. Add in the unofficial numbers, the unemployment rate skyrockets to 15.8%. It's bad, but still not close to Great Depression number, which was at 25%. Bush did his part to wreck the economy, and now Obama is doing his part to make the economic crisis even worse. And the fault should not be laid to rest only at the feet of these 2 presidents. All they did was to sign into law the expenditures that all the drunken sailors in Congress passed. They are ALL accountable, and must ALL be held accountable for their reckless spending.

Pouring money into the coffers of the banksters is not going to solve the problem. The only solution we have is going to be painful, but the solution is there. Resolve that the Federal government will never again spend more than the revenue it takes in. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It might have been easy at one time, but that was in the past. It is going to be difficult now, but it must be done. We cannot have an economy that is built on a house of cards. Not only is it a stupid idea, but it eventually becomes a suicidal one.

Article is here.

 

[UtahBill]

The "official" unemployment numbers only give part of the picture. Add in the unofficial numbers, the unemployment rate skyrockets to 15.8%. It's bad, but still not close to Great Depression number, which was at 25%. Bush did his part to wreck the economy, and now Obama is doing his part to make the economic crisis even worse. And the fault should not be laid to rest only at the feet of these 2 presidents. All they did was to sign into law the expenditures that all the drunken sailors in Congress passed. They are ALL accountable, and must ALL be held accountable for their reckless spending.

Pouring money into the coffers of the banksters is not going to solve the problem. The only solution we have is going to be painful, but the solution is there. Resolve that the Federal government will never again spend more than the revenue it takes in. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It might have been easy at one time, but that was in the past. It is going to be difficult now, but it must be done. We cannot have an economy that is built on a house of cards. Not only is it a stupid idea, but it eventually becomes a suicidal one.

Article is here.

Why is it still "drunken sailors"? :2razz:
I propose the cliche be updated to drunken politicians....

 

[PeteEU]

Funny how now people talk about actual unemployment but 2 years ago it was something dismissed and frowned on ... ahh times have changed.

 

[Jerry]

The "official" unemployment numbers only give part of the picture. Add in the unofficial numbers, the unemployment rate skyrockets to 15.8%. It's bad, but still not close to Great Depression number, which was at 25%. Bush did his part to wreck the economy, and now Obama is doing his part to make the economic crisis even worse. And the fault should not be laid to rest only at the feet of these 2 presidents. All they did was to sign into law the expenditures that all the drunken sailors in Congress passed. They are ALL accountable, and must ALL be held accountable for their reckless spending.

Pouring money into the coffers of the banksters is not going to solve the problem. The only solution we have is going to be painful, but the solution is there. Resolve that the Federal government will never again spend more than the revenue it takes in. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It might have been easy at one time, but that was in the past. It is going to be difficult now, but it must be done. We cannot have an economy that is built on a house of cards. Not only is it a stupid idea, but it eventually becomes a suicidal one.

Article is here.

Those numbers are "unofficial" for a reason.

You do know that not every unemployed person is supposed to be part of the "unemployment" number, right? You know some unemployed groups are left out for good reason, right? You know that a person must not only be unemployed, but able to work and actively seeking a job, right?

Given your debate history, I just need reassurance that you possess a high school level understanding of economics before I put any effort into your thread.

 

[danarhea]

Those numbers are "unofficial" for a reason.

You do know that not every unemployed person is supposed to be part of the "unemployment" number, right? You know some unemployed groups are left out for good reason, right? You know that a person must not only be unemployed, but able to work and actively seeking a job, right?

Given your debate history, I just need reassurance that you possess a high school level understanding of economics before I put any effort into your thread.

No need to personally attack those who do not agree with you. That was uncalled for.

 

[SFLRN]

Those numbers are "unofficial" for a reason.
You do know that not every unemployed person is supposed to be part of the "unemployment" number, right? You know some unemployed groups are left out for good reason, right? You know that a person must not only be unemployed, but able to work and actively seeking a job, right?

I think the title is a bit misleading, undesired unemployment is a rather difficult thing to define (from the perspective of economic models), and more difficult to find accurate measures for. I think the important point is

Of this number, the bureau categorized 717,000 as "discouraged" workers, or those that have simply given up looking for work for any number of reasons. That number was up 70 percent from the first quarter of 2008.

"Discouraged" workers include a disproportionate number of young people, blacks, Hispanics and men, the bureau said.

On top of all of this, add an additional 3.6 million unemployed Americans who say they want a job but have not looked for work in the past 12 months.

To some degree, the recent rise is partially a reflection of real economic forces (there are less job opportunities than there were in better economic times). Undoubtedly, as the economy worsened more individuals found it difficult to find jobs, and may have eventually just given up (thus not actively seeking employment, which would mean they are discouraged, rather than unemployed).
This is supposition, but if anyone has more specific knowledge on the matter, you could likely correct the following
If I had to guess, based on the methodology (60,000 household survey), it's difficult to accurately count discouraged workers because it's difficult to craft a survey question that determines why someone stopped actively seeking employment. In essence, it's hard to determine how much discouraged workers "really needs" a job, but can't find one. The flip side is of course that if someone is a "discouraged worker" they could have given up actively seeking a job because it wasn't that important to them (like the retiree who has enough to make ends meet, but wants a part-time job to supplement their income).

 

[celticlord]

That said, "unofficial" figures are not terribly helpful in assessing the state of an economy. We cannot effectively compare them period to period, and thus they tell little about the change in employment over the entire economy.

The most important consideration about the official employment figure is this: it's rising; it has risen significantly in the past 12 months, and is likely to rise still further in the next 6 to 12 months. While the actual unemployment rate is meaningful for purposes of historical context, for people having to anticipate what comes next what matters is that it is going up or going down.

For people in either the official 8.9% or the unofficial 15.8%, the reality is they do not have a job. That's an unpleasant reality for them, and a scary prospect for everyone else--that's the bane of rising unemployment.

 

[Wessexman]

Those numbers are "unofficial" for a reason.

You do know that not every unemployed person is supposed to be part of the "unemployment" number, right? You know some unemployed groups are left out for good reason, right? You know that a person must not only be unemployed, but able to work and actively seeking a job, right?

Given your debate history, I just need reassurance that you possess a high school level understanding of economics before I put any effort into your thread.

Actually, in Australia at least, the unofficial unemployment rate actually includes those discouraged from even looking for work.

 

[PeteEU]

That said, "unofficial" figures are not terribly helpful in assessing the state of an economy.

The very fact that there are unofficial figures, shows that the official figures are inaccurate and wishful thinking. They are after all in the US nothing but a political poll, and we all know how accurate they can be.

We cannot effectively compare them period to period, and thus they tell little about the change in employment over the entire economy.

You cant compare the official numbers either, because they are being manipulated to the extreme. Hundreds of thousands of people are every month kicked off the list because they have reached the self imposed limit of the maximum allowed months of being unemployed. Just because they reach that limit, does not mean they magically become employed, and just because they are removed from the statistic does not mean that their unemployment is no more or less real than someone in the statics.

The most important consideration about the official employment figure is this: it's rising; it has risen significantly in the past 12 months, and is likely to rise still further in the next 6 to 12 months.

Yes that is important no doubt about that, however what is just as important is the fact that when people were all fuzzy and chest banging over a 5% unemployment rate in the US, the actual unofficial unemployment was near double of that. Dont you think that fact, might have knocked some sense into the powers to be at the time and the talking heads and gotten them off their high so they actually realized that there was a problem? It was after all near the same unemployment as the French at the time..

 

[UtahBill]

Whatever the actual numbers, the economy is not likely to improve until we have more people adding value to the economy, less people draining the economy. I suspect that even when employment numbers get rosy again, Wall Street will be slow to recover. Lots of investors are sickened by the amount of corruption in the system, the large numbers of money managers who do little more than skim off a small percentage of the trillions of investment dollars that belong to their clients (us). Their fees are not directly related to real services provided.
Anybody else catch the Madoff segment on PBS last night?
The financial markets that Bernie swam in is full of other sharks who do nothing but live well on the assets of others....
We "others" might just shun Wall Street for the next decade or so, at least until government stops the crooks instead of being complicit and sharing the proceeds of the crimes.

 

[danarhea]

Actually, in Australia at least, the unofficial unemployment rate actually includes those discouraged from even looking for work.

The US used to include discouraged in the numbers, but then we changed the formula to exclude them.

 

[Jerry]

No need to personally attack those who do not agree with you. That was uncalled for.

In your case, it was completely called for. You frequently bend the truth and omit critical facts to suit the hysteria and drama your threads try to generate. This is why you never include a quote of any article your OP rants about, or verifying sources for the same. You give a coupe paragraphs worth of blather and only bother to include any link at all because you know you would be called out for not doing so.

People who are not looking for work due to disability, re-training, etc, are not a part of the labor pool. As such, their lack of employment is irrelevant because there is no Big-Bro program that could get them working while disabled, re-training, etc.

 

[oldreliable67]

The very fact that there are unofficial figures, shows that the official figures are inaccurate and wishful thinking.

Lets try to clear up a couple of misconceptions about the RU figures. First the measure being referred to by the OP is calculated by BLS, along with several other alternative measures of employment and unemployment. Consequently, to refer to them as "unofficial" is simply incorrect. These measures are found in "Table A-12, Alternative measures of labor underutilization" of The Employment Situation report. This table presents six concepts of the rate of unemployment, of which the third, or "U-3" is the so-called "official" rate of unemployment.

It is quite understandable how this measure has come to referred to as the "official" rate of unemployment, as it is the rate that is most referred to by BLS officials and politicians when discussing the unemployment rate. But it is nonsense to attribute some cabalistic or conspiracy to the exclusion of the other rates. All are computed by BLS and all are there for all to see and examine.

Moreover, note that there are alternative measures of employment produced by the household survey and the establishment survey. These surveys measure different populations and arrive at different measures of labor force composition and deployment. Inevitably, over the years, this has given rise to periodic arguments as to which is the "better' or "more realistic" set of data. Those arguments come and go with changes in the structure of the labor force and demographics. In the final analysis, while the "nonfarm payroll' concept gets the most press, both sets of data, like the alternative measures of the rate of unemployment, are quite useful for assessing the state of the economy.

Second, as to the "wishful thinking" assertion: There are no more exhaustive processes given to any US econ data than those given to the collection, distillation and consideration of the US employment data. To be sure, no matter how good your methods and extensive your surveys, they are still surveys and subject to some error. Consequently, one has to periodically benchmark to actual data.

In the US, this is done annually; the data is benchmarked using comprehensive IRS and Census data, which are actual counts based on tax return and physical count data. Revisions are sometimes large, relatively speaking, and sometimes not. While no data based on surveys can ever be 100% correct, the techniques employed to produce this data is as good as there is anywhere in the survey-based world.

So much for "wishful thinking."

 

[Mach]

I wonder how much the car companies and the banks contribute %-wise.
I'd almost prefer figures to exclude those failed systems too, for contrast. I mean, I expect them to be dismal, and frankly, to go away entirely (I hope), I would not consider that a drag on my consumer confidence.

 

[UtahBill]

Lets try to clear up a couple of misconceptions about the RU figures. First the measure being referred to by the OP is calculated by BLS, along with several other alternative measures of employment and unemployment. Consequently, to refer to them as "unofficial" is simply incorrect. These measures are found in "Table A-12, Alternative measures of labor underutilization" of The Employment Situation report. This table presents six concepts of the rate of unemployment, of which the third, or "U-3" is the so-called "official" rate of unemployment.

It is quite understandable how this measure has come to referred to as the "official" rate of unemployment, as it is the rate that is most referred to by BLS officials and politicians when discussing the unemployment rate. But it is nonsense to attribute some cabalistic or conspiracy to the exclusion of the other rates. All are computed by BLS and all are there for all to see and examine.

Moreover, note that there are alternative measures of employment produced by the household survey and the establishment survey. These surveys measure different populations and arrive at different measures of labor force composition and deployment. Inevitably, over the years, this has given rise to periodic arguments as to which is the "better' or "more realistic" set of data. Those arguments come and go with changes in the structure of the labor force and demographics. In the final analysis, while the "nonfarm payroll' concept gets the most press, both sets of data, like the alternative measures of the rate of unemployment, are quite useful for assessing the state of the economy.

Second, as to the "wishful thinking" assertion: There are no more exhaustive processes given to any US econ data than those given to the collection, distillation and consideration of the US employment data. To be sure, no matter how good your methods and extensive your surveys, they are still surveys and subject to some error. Consequently, one has to periodically benchmark to actual data.

In the US, this is done annually; the data is benchmarked using comprehensive IRS and Census data, which are actual counts based on tax return and physical count data. Revisions are sometimes large, relatively speaking, and sometimes not. While no data based on surveys can ever be 100% correct, the techniques employed to produce this data is as good as there is anywhere in the survey-based world.

So much for "wishful thinking."

We had a census taker come by a few weeks ago, asked ONE question, then left. They only wanted to know how many adults lived in our home. Maybe they already know everything else?