we are getting lost in the weeds of stats
Here in Sweden, to get UE checks (which are not time-limited) there is a strict procedure, so all out of work people are counted, not simply labeled discouraged. Our measurable UE rate (which will fall under 7% in 2011) is at least comparable to the USA U6, and in truth is in line with William's US SGS Alternative rate of 22%. He has stated in several interviews that the Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Danish (eg Nordic zone) UE rate methodologies are very similar to his SGS Alternative rate.
We take into account part-time vs full-time employment based on a 35-hour work week) and this is adjusted in too. In summary, if the USA counted UE rate like Sweden, yours would be roughly triple ours. In addition, our minimum wage is more than double yours, and we do not make people NOR our employers pay for health care costs (other than a very small, annually capped co-pay on services AND medication. We also will run a National budget SURPLUS in 2011, versus the USA which will have over $1.5 trillion in 'official' deficit for 2011.
I ran a tax comparison for a friend living in NYC, making $66,000 US per year, and she would have close to $7,000 more US take-home pay here in Stockholm than she would in New York, after taxes (Fed, FICA, State,Local,Sales there, VAT here, income tax here) and medical insurance expenses are factored in. Even the low US, high Sweden taxes are a myth for most middle-class workers.
If we can do this here, you should be able to there, especially given our so-called over-payed workers, our lack of natural resources, and our so-called cradle-to-grave socialism. Unfortunately, your empiric war machine expenses and your rate of debt service alone add up to more than all your worker's income tax revenues.
an interesting article:
http://hellskitchenlife.com/2010/09/us-unemployment-rate-is-22really.htmlYes, it’s true; the total percentage of unemployed workers in the U.S. is 22%. Before you laugh this off and dismiss it as a joke or the ranting of a radical lunatic, let me be clear; I am neither joking nor am I a radical lunatic, so take a look at the chart above and the facts below.
The U.S. markets have been swinging wildly for the last few months every time a new unemployment figure comes out, and the problem with this is that the reported numbers are NOT accurate and do NOT reflect the actual number of people who are unemployed in this country. This is not an opinion; it is a well documented fact.
The "official" unemployment rate should be a single statistic/percentage that reflects the total number of people who are unemployed in the United States each month, but if it were it would not allow any opportunity for our plutocrats and bureaucrats to manipulate the figure, because you can’t interpret or manipulate a single number, you need multiple numbers in order to do that so you can create a little confusion, thus, our present system, with SIX different figures, U1 – U6. And before you all start throwing facts at me, I am well aware that there are “voluntary” and “involuntary” unemployed, and I am also aware that there are “cyclical”, “structural”, “hidden” and “discouraged” unemployed. These terms were made up to allow the government to drastically reduce the “official” unemployment figure.
Imagine if tomorrow morning the SEC decided that it would suddenly change the way the U.S. financial markets calculated the value of stocks without any of the underlying facts of those companies’ values changing. This is effectively what happened to the “official” unemployment statistics in 1994; one day they just decided to change how they calculated it.
Since 1994, the hidden, discouraged, and long term unemployed have not been counted in the “Official U3 Unemployment Rate”, the official rate that you see in the news. This much is clear to me from the aforementioned; the official U3 number has nothing to do with the real total number of people in America who are unemployed.
We the citizens of this country need to know what the actual number of people in the workforce who are unemployed is. You can break it down anyway you want after that, but you cannot report a number as official when it is absolute fantasy (the U3 number) as well as being deliberately misleading and having no basis fact. The really worrisome part is that it is the official number that makes the cover of the major papers, which in turn is what powers or shrinks our financial markets as well as our economy.
The change in the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculating methodology that was put in place in 1994, is when “discouraged worker” became part of our vocabulary, and sadly it is also when he/she (the discouraged or long term unemployed person) was summarily dropped from the “official” rate that is widely publicized. This means that if you can’t or won’t find work, or you are unemployed for too long, you no longer exist as part of the official percentage of unemployed workers in America. Simply put, this is a ludicrous concept and the height of idiocracy. Is anyone else getting this?
The 1994 change also explains why unemployment so quickly and steadily dropped (nearly 50% percent) between 1993 and 2000, from 7.9% to 3.9% (Read it HERE), which is quite an impressive feat. That is, it’s impressive until you realize that it’s pretty easy to accomplish that if you just stop counting a large part of the population and pretend they don’t exist, which is exactly what happened, and what continues to happen today. Its simple; if you have been unemployed for too long you are one of those people who doesn’t exist in the eyes of the government.
The current (August, 2010) U6 unemployment number (which is not the official number) from the government, which is the total percentage of people unemployed according to the post-Clinton Bureau of Labor Statistics methodology is 16.7%, which is a 2% increase in unemployment since July (See it HERE). And incidentally, the U6 number is 72% higher than the “official” U3 August, 2010, number of 9.6% (See it HERE) which is what you see on the front page of the paper. This should frighten the hell out of you, and the one month increase should frighten you even more. Ironically, when referencing the official August 2010, numbers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says in its monthly press release (See it HERE) that, “The number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate were little changed in August”. Huh? Obviously they are referring to their fantasy U3 number of 9.6%. Its nice to have fantasies, and apparently they make people with government jobs and pensions sleep better.
But wait; go get your adult diapers, because this statistic will really scare the crap out of you. It’s from, Shadow Government Statistic (SGS), which performs a widely respected statistical measurement of unemployment each month using pre-Clinton era methodologies to correctly measure the actual percentage of people who are unemployed each month in our country. Sadly, as well respected as the methodology is, the number is not widely reported and you won’t see it on the front page of your paper or at the top of your Google Business News feed.
So here is the really scary part; according to SGS, the current (August, 2010) unemployment rate for the U.S. is 22% (See it HERE). If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. Oh, wait, there’s one more thing; the unemployment rate during the height of the Great Depression in 1933 was 24.9% (See it HERE), just 2.9% more than the current SGS number. And by the way, the SGS number is calculated using the same methodology that was used to calculate the rate during the depression.
I just can’t for the life of me understand why people aren’t screaming from the rafters about this. So folks, perhaps it’s time to start asking some serious questions very loudly because we can’t fix a damn thing until we have all the facts laid out.
One thing is for sure from all of this; manipulating data and trying to fool the people of this great country (read: lying) is not going to help anything, it’s only going to make it worse