The Jobless Effect: Is the Real Unemployment Rate 16.5%, 22%, or. .

[blindpig]

The Jobless Effect: Is the Real Unemployment Rate 16.5%, 22%, or. . .?
By Pallavi Gogoi
12:00 PM 07/16/10

Raghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.

"Our numbers are always very accurate, so I was surprised at the discrepancy with the government's numbers," says Mayur, whose firm owns the TIPP polling unit, a polling partner for Investors' Business Daily and Christian Science Monitor. After all, the headline number shows the U.S. unemployment rate today is 9.5%, with a total of 14.6 million jobless people.

However, Mayur's polls continued to find much worse figures. The June poll turned up 27.8% of households with at least one member who's unemployed and looking for a job, while the latest poll conducted in the second week of July showed 28.6% in that situation. That translates to an unemployment rate of over 22%, says Mayur, who has started questioning the accuracy of the Labor Department's jobless numbers.

Even Austan Goolsbee Has Been Skeptical

Mayur isn't alone in harboring such doubts, nor is he the first to wonder about inaccuracies. For years, many economists have pointed to evidence that the government data undercounts the unemployed. Economist Helen Ginsburg, co-founder of advocacy group National Jobs For All Coalition, and John Williams of the newsletter Shadow Government Statistics have been questioning these numbers for years.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/what-is-the-real-unemployment-rate/19556146/

more.....

[Omaha Steve]

1. The under report started when Bush chnged the formula

Great post. K&R!

[Hestia]

4. No Clinton changed the tabulation of unemployment & inflation - wish we could blame it on bush

[Omaha Steve]

10. I stand corrected

The BLS also calculates 5 alternate measures of unemployment, U1 through U6

,<63> which have been charted over time

<64><65>

* U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
* U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
* U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.
* U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
* U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
* U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons (underemployment).

Note: "Marginally attached workers" are added to the total labor force for unemployment rate calculation for U4, U5, and U6. The BLS revised the CPS in 1994 and among the changes the measure representing the official unemployment rate was renamed U3 instead of U5.<66>

Statistics for the U.S. economy as a whole hide variations among groups. For example, in January 2008 U.S. unemployment rates were 4.4% for adult men, 4.2% for adult women, 4.4% for Caucasians, 6.3% for Hispanics or Latinos (all races), 9.2% for African Americans, 3.2% for Asian Americans, and 18.0% for teenagers.<59> Also, the U.S. unemployment rate would be at least 2% higher if prisoners and jail inmates were counted.<67><68>

[bluerum]

8. Funny how this is 'just coming out now' when we have all known it for years.

[awoke_in_2003]

25. I was going to say the same thing...

deficits and real unemployment numbers only count when the dems are in charge.

[TBF]

30. It is not "just coming out now" - we have been talking about this

the last few years, and there has been little to no improvement under Obama. I'm sorry to have to say that, and I think the forces are largely beyond Obama's control (Capitalism itself is going to eat everyone alive if we let it) - but that is the truth.

Obama could actually put some people back to work and look much better in all this. We all know the problems stem from 30 years of very conservative rule, but until he makes some progress we still speak out. We don't stop talking about issues - especially economic issues - just because a dem is in office.

[Vincardog]

2. The numbers are wrong! Gee Ya think? The Gubmint has been cooking the books since RAy-Gun

[midnight]

3. White House's policy is a jobless recovery. Any change from

that tune now that we are heading into an election?

[Starry Messenger]

5. I read something yesterday

that suggested that perhaps only 61% of the population really has "job security" right now. I could believe it. It's *bad* out here in CA. My partner has been looking for a year and we've seriously thought about just opening a hot dog stand.

[phantom power]

6. I find that very believable. How many people have *no* worries about losing their job?

:shrug:

[Starry Messenger]

7. Exactly, good point. n/t

[cowman]

9. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones

I just retired 3 weeks ago from the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue with 35 years of service. Right now the only GUARANTEED jobs are with the Military because we always need young people for these unnecessary wars.

[raccoon]

29. If you do, let me know how it works for you. I've thought about that myself. nt

[Barack2theFuture]

11. WAY higher than the government tells us

We can no longer trust anything the government says. It is utterly corrupt. Based on personal anecdotal evidence, I'd say underemployment is near 50%. Counting loss of income, loss of hours, loss of benefits, etc.

[The Northerner]

13. +1

[bobbolink]

12. In related news, the "poverty line" is just as FUBAR.

Unfortunately, that garners no attention.

:(

[maryf]

18. Yep, Here's a very recent article on just that...

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/beyond_the_poverty_line/

one small excerpt...

"Most people who care about measuring poverty—academics, policymakers, nonprofit leaders, and the like—agree that the way the federal government currently determines who is poor and who is not doesn’t work. The so-called “poverty line” was determined in the mid-1960s by calculating the amount of money it costs to buy a basic basket of food and then multiplying that amount by three. Each year the line is updated to account for inflation. (The current poverty line is $10,830 for a single person and $22,050 for a family of four.) If a person lives in a household whose income is less than that amount, he is considered poor. If the household’s income is that amount or more (even by one dollar), he is not poor. The measure does not consider other living costs besides food, and the federal poverty line is the same whether a person lives in New York City or McAlester, Okla."



Feel free to use any of it in an OP, I'm scarce these days...With an unemployment rate like it really is the poverty level is naturally going to become even more exacerbated...

[bobbolink]

37. Thanks for that. Bookmarked, and I will definitely be using it.

This is one thing that is hard to understand, and harder to explain!

[laughingliberal]

24. The Federal Poverty Guidelines are a travesty. Most would find it hard to live at twice that level.

Part of the 'fix' to SS in 1983 was changing the formula by which CPI was figured. This has not only allowed business to obscure the fact that wages, in terms of buying power, have gone down but also to keep from providing adequate COLA adjustments to those on SS, SSI, and other social programs.

Most people remain unaware this even happened.

[bobbolink]

36. Well, several of us complained on DU about having the COLA taken away from us for at least 2

years, but we were told to STFU.

So, it isn't being "unaware" in that case... it is just plain lack of any caring... any compassion.

I have been trying to write about this, but when one person is taking on something alone, it takes a much longer time.

Yet, I can't get "liberals" here interested in getting Hartmann, Rachel, and the rest of the gang to actually educate people about this.

Its just not important.

"You're suffering from it? Too bad... that's *your* problem, so *YOU* are the one who needs to work on it."

[Recursion]

33. Wasn't it like based on the cost of living in 1950's Bulgaria or something like that?

Or at least the purchasing patterns of that population.

It's like how inflation leaves out food, energy, and housing... you know, the three things most of us spend most of our money on.

[bobbolink]

35. Thanks for that.... I've been trying to make sense of how it is figured.

~~chortle~~ REally, that is a perfect reply--I may have to use it myself. ^_^

Actually, according to Barbara Ehrenreich in "Nickel and Dimed", it was figured on grocies, which prices are more stable than the others. That's why housing has been priced out of reach of so many, and hence, why we have a homelessness epidemic. Not that it matters to most people.

[HockeyMom]

14. Doesn't count those who have stopped looking,

the underemployed (college grads working as janitors), or the part timers (probably lot of those).

[chill_wind]

15. K & R. Also recommending the other article in this series

The Jobless Effect: Unemployment Is Fueling Independent Voters' Anger

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/unemployment-fuels-independent-voters-anger/19557419/

According to the latest Gallup poll, 40% of Americans identify themselves as Independent, a higher percentage then either Democrat (30%) or Republican (26%). That's up from 33% Independent, 29% Republican and 37% Democrat at the same time last year. Clearly, both parties have lost affiliates, though the Democrats appear to have lost more than the Republicans.

[maryf]

16. Thank you!

just what the doctor ordered in regard to a conversation I was having...I'd bet the real numbers were over 20%...now do I be "mean" and share this with the person who said they couldn't handle that kind of truth if it were truth??

K&R big time.

[chill_wind]

17. Just plain stone cold sobering:

"However, John Williams, founder of Shadow Government Statistics, says when accounting for the long-term unemployed, the jobless rate runs up to as much as 22% currently. Williams's newsletter, which analyzes flaws in government economic data, points out that such a rate isn't that far from the 25% it hit during the Great Depression."

[WillyT]

19. K & R !!!

:mad:

:kick:

[xchrom]

20. Recommend

[leftstreet]

21. K&R

[leveymg]

22. Regardless of the source, this is pretty close to the fact

Aside from its purely business content, IBD is a rag that carries its hateful right-wing editorials on the front-page. I wouldn't want to be associated with them.

[laughingliberal]

23. K & R nt

[JCMach1]

26. Throw retirees into the data and is ANYONE doing anything anymore?

???

[Recursion]

34. Yes. The dozen or so of us who were lucky enough to keep our jobs...

...are now doing work that a few years ago was done by many more people. For the same pay or less as we were before.

[cornermouse]

27. Those still unable to find work are only allowed to

be counted as unemployed for a limited period of time before they are deftly and silently slid off the roll and considered non-persons.

[blindpig]

28. "Even Austan Goolsbee Has Been Skeptical"

In fact, Austan Goolsbee, who is now part of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in a 2003 New York Times piece titled "The Unemployment Myth," that the government had "cooked the books" by not correctly counting all the people it should, thereby keeping the unemployment rate artificially low. At the time, Goolsbee was a professor at the University of Chicago. When asked whether Goolsbee still believes the government undercounts unemployment, a White House spokeswoman said Goolsbee wasn't available to comment.

[maryf]

32. Availability for comments

seems to be directly related to the questions asked. (In other words: kicking this thread!)

[TBF]

31. Recommended. nt