And why would we believe the Obama administration reports anyway!?
Obama’s acolytes in the mainstream media dutifully reported that the November unemployment figure of 7% is a good sign indicating Obama’s policies are working. Not so fast. Mike Shedlock writes a financial and economics blog that is highly rated by a number of sources including Time magazine which rates it among the 25 best. The following is an excerpt about Obama’s unemployment figure and the true state of affairs. The article, Beneath the Headline Numbers, Not a Good Jobs Report, appears on his Web site and was also featured recently in Town Hall. His calculation of a truer number is 13.2%.
The official unemployment rate is 7.0%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.U-6 is much higher at 13.2%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/12/beneath-headline-numbers-not-good-jobs.html#0OEIOD0c0v6cfcJh.99
The official unemployment rate is 7.0%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.
U-6 is much higher at 13.2%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.
Labor Force Factors
1. Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
2. People retire because they cannot find jobs
3. People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of . . . getting a job
4. People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job
5. Disability and disability fraudWere it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 9%.
Grossly Distorted Statistics
Digging under the surface, much of the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage coupled with a massive increase in part-time jobs starting in October 2012 as a result of Obamacare legislation . . .
Shedlock’s figures take for granted the official statistics, looking at other reports, and taking them for granted, to arrive at a truer picture. But what if the statistics are damn lies, literally? Remember, just three weeks ago reports emerged that employees of the Census Bureau, which is responsible for creating the reports (creating being a term used advisedly), had fabricated data that went into the last unemployment report prior to the 2012 election.
It reminded us of the old joke about hiring a new accountant. A string of candidates are asked the question what is two plus two? They properly answer “four.” However, the candidate who got the job answered “what do you want it to be?”
John Crudele a New York Post columnist, first exposed the 2012 report machinations in this story. Peter Ferrara writing at Forbes didn’t believe the figures to start with. He comments about the revelations and why the election report should not have been believed here.
R Mall
