Understanding Unemployment
The way unemployment is calculated leave much to be desired. There is too many in the population who are overlooked when this number is calculated. The number we hear all the time is only looking at those who are seeking jobs verses those who actually have one. This sounds like a good representation but let's look at the flaws.
Some people simply give up or retire. Retiring is a reasonable change in job status when your age or financial fortitude will allow it. Giving up on the other hand, shows what a sad state our economy is really in. These groups are ignored in the employment numbers and thereby skew the results.
The other group not talked about anywhere is the under employed. These are the people who's benefits have run out and return to the work force under a significantly less status and pay then previous or simply resort to part-time just to get by. This group also skews the numbers as they are counted as employed when the capacity of employment is not rated. When compared to there previous employment they may be half employed or sum other percentage employed.
Perhaps the video helped.
While everyone is all excited about the current employment numbers, it really is a shell game. They don't count all those who should count. We are seeing people falling from the employment rolls with no real increase in net jobs. This should be horrifying.
The key issue is how many people are now living off the few who are working.
posted by ablur at 2/12/2010 09:00:00 PM
4 Comments:
Ablur: Have we ever had “accurate” unemployment statistics? The Clinton Administration changed the “definition” of unemployment, but how many other Administrations played “shell games”? Take the Great Depression; the unemployment was probably more like 30% but with “shadow statistics” who knows what’s real and what isn’t? These games need to stop so that the American people know the truth. We need CONSISTENCY so that we can compare data from one year to the next and know, for certain, that is accurate and it’s comparing apples to apples.
Another way that the unemployment rate is skewed is when people run out of unemployment benefits. Since they can no longer be tracked, the numbers get bumped.
Just like tracking all the jobs created or saved by the stimulus bill - there is no metric in the world that can measure that.
I took a short drive through South Salt Lake City today. I had started the trip looking for a place to have lunch, and my GPS unit told me that I could find a restaraunt belonging to a chain I used to frequent in Florida there.
Thing is the restaraunt was long gone, as was the case a couple of nights earlier when I tried to find one in Layton. So as I was driving through the south end of the city I noticed vacant building after vacant building with signs in the windows telling me MY business could be there.
I'm only in the Salt Lake area at all because of the dried up tech job market at home, and count myself fortunate to have found decent paying work here. Even as some big companies are moving their operations to Utah the small businesses are still folding.
It looks like the bad economic times are going to be with us for a while- even as the government's numbers game continues. The uncertain regulatory landscape and the "big government" initiatives being rammed through Congress despite the objections of the people and the Republicans don't bode well for the job market anytime soon.
I hope voters wake up this November.
That was an excellent explanation, and leads to the conclusion that unemployment is not at 9.7% but more like 15-17% nationwide.
The administratin pretends that it thinks things are better when they actually know that they are not.
They must save face, for in their Marxist philosophy, face is everything.
Post a Comment
<< Home