Saturday, May 03, 2014

U.S. Actual Unemployment Rate Is A Shocking 23%

shadowstats-april-2014
Economic John Williams provides an analysis of "behind and beyond" government statistics at his website, "Shadow Government Statistics." While mainstream news media reports gloated over lower unemployment numbers last month, his calculations show a much different story. In April, the number of unemployed dropped by 733,000, pushing the official government-reported unemployment rate down to 6.3%; however, there were only 288,000 new jobs added to the economy as the size of the labor forced dropped by more than 800,000 during the month of April. The participation rate, which indicates the number of working-aged people in the workforce, dropped to 62.8%, the lowest level in 36 years. The broader unemployment number is at least double the reported rate, or close to 13%, which includes workers who have recently dropped out of the workforce after giving up on finding a job or dropped from unemployment insurance benefits, as well as those workers who are only employed in part-time jobs. The Clinton administration in 1994 altered the official counting method to exclude the so-called discouraged workers to make the official seasonally adjusted unemployment rate look better than it really was. If unemployment was calculated the way it was prior to 1994, the current unemployment rate would be 23%, not 6.3%, according to Williams' shadow government statistical calculation.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama created the high unemployment by encouraging a Nanny-State that takes care of everybody. Under President Obama, we have a stagnant economy that fosters government dependency. The burgeoning of flagship entitlement programs and the shrinking number of taxPAYERS who have any financial stake in the government threaten to bankrupt the government.

Unfortunately his re-distribution of the wealth as he tries to turn the USA into a Socialist state is not working very well.

Sooner, rather than later, he's going to run out of other people's money to spend!

Anonymous said...

Why didn't the Patriot
Act or others call this out as self-serving during Bush/Clinton years...Or others...Ponder it all...

Anonymous said...

The US should utilize the same standards as the EU does for determining what the correct unemployment rate is.

Anonymous said...

why doesn't someone educate Amos Brown on these issues?

Downtown Indy said...

And the Dems are doing the same thing to Census data to make Obamacare look better than it actually is.

Figures lie and liars figure.

Anonymous said...

And the uninsured with Diabetes, Cancer and more are doing what...hopefully on the Exchange if insurance cancelled....