US unemployment higher than offically reported

tom · Post by **tom** » February 26th, 2012, 10:24 pm

Willing To Work, Not Looking

A Record 2.81 Million Including this group, jobless rate is 9.9% vs. the official 8.3% figure

BY SEAN HIGGINS

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

The official unemployment rate has improved, but the number of jobless Americans at the fringe of the workforce has never been greater. The gap between headline and alternative joblessness is the highest on record, according to an IBD analysis of Labor Department data.

The jobless rate is 8.3%, still high but down from 9.1% last August and 9.9% in April 2010. But many donâ€™t think that gives an accurate picture. The official number excludes a record 2.81 million discouraged or other â€œmarginally attachedâ€ people out of work that arenâ€™t currently looking but are willing and able.

Factoring these people in, unemployment is a much higher 9.9%, 1.6 percentage points above the official rate. Thatâ€™s the widest gap on record going back to 1994. It never rose above 1.1 points during the Bush administration.

That means the official rate has been falling in part because an unprecedented number of people are taking a break from searching for work.

â€œThe labor market has weakened so much youâ€™ve just had more and more people falling into that group,â€ said Heidi Shierholz, labor market economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Some lawmakers say it is time that the government started paying more attention to them.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., plans to introduce a bill soon that would force the Labor Department to include the marginally attached in the official number.

â€œGuys like me want a way to know what the unemployment rate really is. It is that simple. The unemployment rate is not really the 8.3% figure,â€ Hunter, a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, told IBD.

Labor already tracks at least half a dozen variations in the jobless rate publicly released each month.

â€˜Marginalâ€™ Workers Left Out

The official rate is called the â€œU-3â€ number. The one including the marginally attached is the â€œU-5.â€ That one also includes: â€œdiscouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force.â€

The â€œmarginally attachedâ€ are defined as those that want to work and have sought employment within the prior year but are not currently looking.

Hunterâ€™s bill would just make U-5 the official number. â€œI donâ€™t think most people even know there is an alternate way of calculating unemployment,â€ he said.

Economists of all stripes agree that it is arbitrary for U-3 to be the official rate. A sound case could be made for any of the others, though most argued that no one figure should be spotlighted.

GOP lawmakers may have political motives to cast President Obamaâ€™s economic record in the worst possible light.

But Wayne Vroman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, notes that the idea of changing the statistic to the U-5 number has a bipartisan pedigree.

â€œA lot of advocates from the left side of the political spectrum also would want to give (the higher statistic) more prominence because it shows distress among a group that doesnâ€™t get as much attention,â€ Vroman said.

Surprisingly little is known about the marginally attached. With less than two decades of data, few economists can say much except that the group is very diverse, with many reasons as to why they drop out. Some may have other means or a working spouse, or are retiring early.

Many have quit looking after months or years out of work. Average duration of unemployment was 40.1 weeks in January, just below Novemberâ€™s record 40.9 weeks.

The labor force participation rate has fallen to multi-decade lows even as hiring has slowly improved in recent months.

That may reflect baby-boomer retirements in part, says James Sherk, a labor economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation. But even taking that into account, â€œthe labor force participation rate has fallen even more than you would expect.â€
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tom · Post by **tom** » February 27th, 2012, 7:24 am

U.S. job quality is in trouble
Marked by declining earnings and benefits, job quality has been eroding for years, spanning Democratic and Republican administrations. And the future looks rough for many, experts say.

aozora13 · Post by **aozora13** » February 27th, 2012, 7:53 am

There is a website called ShadowStats. It shows you the U3 unemployment (does not count discourages or long-term unemployed) the U-6 (generally underemployed and unemployed) and the SGS which is long-term unemployed, unemployed, and underemployed.

SGS is about 22-23 percent.

So almost 1/4 Americans are not working.

Here is a link:

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_da ... ent-charts

zboy1 · Post by **zboy1** » February 27th, 2012, 10:46 am

I can personally vouch for the article: I had a high paying job that I quit three years ago to finish my degree--and ever since then--I've been trying to find a job with no luck. The jobs available now are all low paying service sector jobs in industries such as fast-food, retail or crappy sales jobs. The good paying manufacturing jobs are all gone and won't be coming back any time soon.

I also can't believe the low quality of the jobs that are available out there; sure, they are some very good high-paying jobs left, but those jobs require expensive graduate degrees and many years of experience--neither of which I have, unfortunately. And even in the crappy jobs, I find myself competing with other college graduates and even graduate students (including PHD's) for them. It's crazy!

targetguy · Post by **targetguy** » February 27th, 2012, 4:24 pm

in most of the states that dont have oil unemployment is very high for unskilled people but there is a need for people in the oil industry in north dakota if people are willing to work and be trained and are young. This is one of the few places left in the us that there is a demand and good wages but cold weather or texas has a lot of driving and oil related jobs. I wish there were more of the alternate energy jobs that would take off like solar installer but so far the price of solar panels is still a little high for most.

tom · Post by **tom** » March 1st, 2012, 1:19 pm

The real stats are different from the official ones for political reasons.
Some think of the prosperity of the 1950's I think this period was an anomaly.
Women showed there gratefulness with the creation of radical feminism. The nifty fifty's will not likely reoccur anytime soon if ever. The hard times we are in now are likely going to stay. Around half of American Women are single moms, they have a new sugar daddy the state. They might want to consider what demagogs like Hitler would do with this. Feminism has conveniently set up this accident waiting to happen.

tom · Post by **tom** » March 1st, 2012, 9:17 pm

http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pub/r ... issue.html

Mangus the Red · Post by **Mangus the Red** » March 2nd, 2012, 2:16 pm

tom wrote:The real stats are different from the official ones for political reasons.
Some think of the prosperity of the 1950's I think this period was an anomaly.
Women showed there gratefulness with the creation of radical feminism. The nifty fifty's will not likely reoccur anytime soon if ever. The hard times we are in now are likely going to stay. Around half of American Women are single moms, they have a new sugar daddy the state. They might want to consider what demagogs like Hitler would do with this. Feminism has conveniently set up this accident waiting to happen.

I have read that the prosperity of the 1950s was mainly because America's industrial base was largely untouched during WW II while much of the European industrial bases were completely destroyed. But by the 1970s, German, Japanese, and Korean industry were able to compete with US industry.

momopi · Post by **momopi** » March 3rd, 2012, 1:20 am

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/94681.html