America’s 20% Unemployment Rate

[Rajiv]

America’s 20% Unemployment Rate

Measuring unemployment is an art that can result in widely varied rates. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Government uses a method that excludes millions of Americans seeking employment. This lower rate is used to prove that America’s economic system is superior to those in Europe. Their higher unemployment rates are blamed on unions and socialism, which guarantee workers health care and paid vacations. The implication is that while many American workers lack such benefits, at least they have jobs. This argument is faulty since unemployment is measured differently.

In the USA, 35% of healthy Americans ages 16-64 are unemployed, but what does that word mean? Millions of women are unemployed as they choose to stay home to raise families. Nevertheless, 25% of healthy American men ages 16-64 are unemployed, yet the U.S. Government reports an unemployment rate of just 8.1%.[1]
.
.
.
.
Nevertheless, an honest man would count anyone who would like to work as unemployed. The U.S. Government compiles data on these uncounted unemployed Americans, but does not mention it in news releases. It can be found in Table A-12 on the Department of Labor’s website where it shows an unemployment rate of 16% for Feb. 2009.[2] It explains why these unemployed Americans are not included in their official unemployment rate:

“Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past.
.
.
.
.
.
This 16% figure does not include a few million Americans who excluded by the survey parameters for these reasons:

-Students seeking work are never counted as unemployed. So anyone taking college classes at night and seeking a full-time day job is not counted as unemployed.

-Pensioners seeking work are never counted as unemployed. This includes those who receive a minimal monthly pension because they retired early, often forcibly. Soldiers in the U.S. military can retire with a small pension as young as age 37, yet they must find work to support their family. However, they are classified as retired and not counted as unemployed.

-Anyone seeking a full-time job who works a few unpaid hours a week at a family farm or small business is not counted as unemployed.

-People seeking their first job, such as recent high school and college graduates, and housewives are excluded. The logic is that since they were never employed, they are not unemployed.

These games allow the U.S. Government to report a current unemployment rate of just 8.1%, even though its own data of unemployed Americans who want to work indicates an unemployment rate of around 20%. This should concern all Americans because the unemployed burden society by collecting welfare or resorting to crime. A recent surge in Social Security Disability claims indicates another path the desperate unemployed are seeking.
Temp Jobs

The Obama administration is boosting economic activity with a massive spending package that will add two million jobs. Unfortunately, most of these are temporary jobs
.
.
.
.
.
.

[Sharky]

Re: America’s 20% Unemployment Rate

Using the pre-Clinton-era way of counting, current unemployment is just shy of 20%. From Shadowstats:

[Slimprofits]

Re: America’s 20% Unemployment Rate

From the department of "what where they thinking?":

The economic toll of this transition will be high. Employment will decline materially and the unemployment rate will rise above 8%, and likely drift toward 8.5%.

source: Bank of America CapitalEyes March/April 2009

Until then (sometime in 2010), more than two million jobs could be lost, which would put the number of layoffs since the recession began at a total of about 6,500,000, with the jobless rate at 9.5%.

source: Desjardins Economic and Financial Outlook Volume 14 Spring 2009

meanwhile, the folks at Morgan Stanley are probably in Jim Cramer's "Depressionists" camp:

There was some disappointment in the latest week’s (Treasury) operations, in particular over how small Monday’s buying at the long end was, with yields across the interest rate space continuing to hold somewhat lower than where they were before the Fed ramped up its quantitative easing strategy a couple weeks ago even as stocks have surged higher, issuance has been enormous, and a belief has built up among many investors that the economy has turned the corner – an idea we don’t share at this point and that was certainly not reflected to any meaningful extent in the past week’s poor economic numbers.

[..]

Weakness in March remained very broadly based, with severe declines again in manufacturing, construction, retail trade, wholesale trade, finance, business services and leisure. Other details of the report were also all terrible...Indeed, at the rate jobs are disappearing, the unemployment rate could be into double-digits as early as June.

source: Global Economic Forum - United States Review and Preview - April 07, 2009 By Ted Wieseman

[Rajiv]

Re: America’s 20% Unemployment Rate

The point of my posting this link was to highlight the difference between the 8.5% and the over 20% -- and the reason why those differences are there. The lower number is used to placate the masses -- and to put the blame for unemployment on the employee, as opposed to the systmatic reasons of the high unemployment.