Back on the 19th I explained how the numbers used by the Government to report inflation have been consistently distorted for political advantage. Do you suppose that out Government would play the same distortion games for something as important as unemployment numbers?
You’re allowed one guess.
Once again, thanks to shadowstats.com we can see how unemployment numbers would look without all of the tweaks and fudges that various administrations have used to make the numbers low and themselves look good. Here’s their chart:
Two things to note here. First are the designations “U3” and “U6.” These stand for statistics compiled for the Bureau of Labor Statistics when reporting unemployment. The U3 is what gets reported in the news each month. The U6 is often cited as the “real” number, but Shadowstats.com has taken a more hard-headed approach and their number is much higher. The second point is that their number puts unemployment in the 20’s percent, which not only puts our unemployment level on par with that of the Great Depression, it is frankly more consistent with what I and many others are seeing around us. Even if “the plural of anecdote is not data,” there is something to be said for direct observation, even if it’s just a tiny slice.
Here’s the BLS definition of the U6:
“Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.”
The web site also includes this note:
“Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those 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 past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.”
If you read these carefully, you’ll notice that “persons marginally attached to the labor force” are those who are discouraged and not looking, but still want a job. “Discouraged workers” have essentially given up, but the U6 doesn’t count them. However the Shadowstat SGS number does, and the picture is sobering.
This is yet another reason why the Cheddar Rebellion in Wisconsin and elsewhere is so important. These jobs have gone away as the direct result of corporate excess enabled by the destruction of unions and deregulation. If we want to have jobs and restore the middle class, that’s where the fight will be, and it has to be won.
