Every month the headlines include these latest unemployment figures.
Unfortunately, the headlines and what actually is happening are often not the same.
To understand what’s going on you have to know that the Labor Department refers to this 9.2 per cent unemployed as “nonfarm" payroll employment. Notice that the news talks about nonfarm payroll employment. In other words, it does not include the self-employed or farmers. How big a deal is this?
- The government says that 10.4 million people are self-employed. This is equal to 6.9 percent of the 154 million people in the civilian labor force.
- Farmers about 2 percent of the population, according to the Agriculture Department. That’s equal to roughly 3.8 million workers.
In total we have 14.2 million people (10.4 million plus 3.8 million) who are not considered when unemployment numbers are tallied.
People Not In The Labor Force are another excluded category. In June, 2011, "2.7 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force" according to the government. These individuals who were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. In other words, you have to be actively looking for a job to be counted as unemployed.
Lastly, we come to those who are not counted because they are discouraged workers. The government says that “among the marginally attached, there were 982,000 discouraged workers in June". Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.7 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in June had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities
There’s another measure which does not fit within the government standards, the under-employed. Who are these folks? In general terms the underemployed are people with jobs, but not the jobs they want and not the jobs which fully reflect their skills, experience and training.
People are often under-employed, especially when the unemployment rate rises because workers are logically concerned that if they leave their present employer they will be unable to get a replacement job with equal or better pay and benefits. The result is that they stick where they now work rather than look for a better situation.
The bottom line: Official unemployment figures are distortions, lies, manipulation of statistics.
The actual number of unemployed folks in America using all the above official numbers supplied by the U.S Labor department is 28.3 million people (14.1 million reported officially as unemployed plus an additional 14.2 million people who are conveniently never considered unemployed by the U.S Labor Department Statistic), even though these people are out of work and have no jobs.
So the real number of unemployed people as of June, 2011 is 28.3 million which translates into about an 19-20 per cent unemployment rate, NOT the reported 9.2 per cent rate of 14.2 million people.
This is significantly (an understatement but I am trying to be optimistic) a much larger critical problem then the American people are being told, and it is reported in this distorted manner every single month by the U.S. labor department to make things look better than they really are.
It has always been statistically done this way and is not a function of the current administration doing anything different than past administrations, all were hiding the truth.
When we look around and are told that the economy is getting better, yet we see so many of the people we know with no jobs, families losing their homes to foreclosures, credit card consumer debt at it's highest ever, retirement, regular savings at its lowest ever, it makes sense to believe in the accuracy off these government supplied statistics that I have shown above, and not the "official" ones, released by them as the "unempoyment figures" . This is a semantic, cruel game of fake three-card shuffle, smoke, mirrors, propaganda, to fool the public.
So I was just wondering. Since the GOP and the right wing are determined to not raise taxes on the rich, continue to play "chicken" with the budget ceiling/default crisis, and insist on major cuts in programs for the people, could they perhaps not be insane, and in fact be working for greed on the part of the private defense industry, Corporate America as shareholders, lobbyists, future high paid employees of these companies, and current high paid political puppets, being pulled on a string by their masters?
The last I heard slavery was outlawed in America many years ago, and unemployed Americans who are not in jail will not work for zero wages, because we have to pay for things like taxes, cost of keeping prisoners in jails who then provide free labor to profit making Corporations, not to mention government corruption, waste, food , education, and the basic necessities of life. Of course it would be OK if we were going to become a Socialized country, but only Socialized bail out handouts of our taxes for big business, seems to be allowed.
The next time you hear someone say that we need to kick Obama out and put in more fiscally conservative 'leaders", maybe , just maybe you should think what they really mean, how will it affect you, your kids futures. Sounds, smells, and looks to me like economic slavery, for ALL Americans.
Just asking, because at the end of the day, regardless of what happens to the debt crisis, the American people will always be the ones who lose.
The next time you hear someone say that we need to kick Obama out and put in more fiscally conservative 'leaders", maybe , just maybe you should think what they really mean, how will it affect you, your kids futures. Sounds, smells, and looks to me like economic slavery, for ALL Americans.
Just asking, because at the end of the day, regardless of what happens to the debt crisis, the American people will always be the ones who lose.
