Friday, February 3, 2012

The BS Unemployment Report

  Today the US Bureau of Labor Statistics {BLS} released it's monthly unemployment report. This report is very likely the most anticipated report anyone releases on a monthly basis as it calculates the unemployment rate. "Employers went on a hiring spree in January, creating 243,000 net jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.3% !" screamed the CNN headlines. The Dow Jones got a nice lift from all the good news, opening up 118 points.

  Unfortunately, once one begins to take a deeper look at the report, a couple of things jump out at you. The first one is the BLS's Labor Force Participation, which measures what percentage of the population is actually employed. To me, this is a far, far more accurate picture of the unemployment situation, and it tells us a very different story: "The labor force participation rate has sunk to a 30 year low of 63.7%. 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in January" Why you ask did these people drop out of the labor force ? Simple.. the BLS does'nt count "discouraged workers" in it's official unemployment report as actually being unemployed, so in order to get a palatable unemployment rate, they added 1.2mm people onto the discouraged worker heap. I'm going to include a couple of charts to show what is really happening. What you heard today was pure propaganda, a result of a practice known in DC as "massaging the numbers". Oh yes-- and a large number of these jobs were only part time jobs.

During the Great Depression, our government calculated this very differently. This measurement was called the U6 unemployment rate, which is no longer calculated by the government. Others continue to use this measurement, and it sits at approxinately 16.5%, which is the same as it was in 1936 and 1937 during the Depression. During the Depression, this reached 32% at one point, but a rebound in the mid-1930s helped to bring this down. Nonetheless, this compares with 5.2% during the Clinton years. In short, our country continues to be mired in a mini Depression.

  I hope that one day we will have a government more interested in serving the people than their own re-election campaigns. For those who read this, please consider voting for {even if it means write in vote} for Ron Paul. The people who pay for this farce deserve truth and integrity instead of deception.



6 comments:

  1. What saddens me is the media and wall street do not look at the coruption. !.1 million people got dropped from an official report and nothing is even said. I too examined the report and was flabbergasted atthe big lie.

    So what happens if they actually do continue the extension of benefits? Something I do not think that will happen as it will again increase the numbers. I told my wife and friends last year the unemployment will baround 6-7% come election time. Obama will get up on the stage and speak about how he saved America and the people will cheer and boom he is re-elected.

    Totally disgusted with my own country over the lies these days!

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  2. "I told my wife and friends last year the unemployment will baround 6-7% come election time."
    --------------------------------
    ."..the Government-reported unemployment figure will be around 6-7% come election time, however nobody will believe these numbers."

    There.
    I fixed that for you.

    You're welcome.

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  3. I read a lot of left-wing blogs. I am amazed that the commentary they have is about what a wonderful job Hopey has done with the recovery, as evidenced by these numbers. These bloggers, like Firedoglake are part of the political faction I belong to, and I had hoped they would be able to acknowledge reality. But they're as partisanly blind as the mouth-breathing Repiglickins were during the Cheney regime.

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  4. Thanks Mammoth I cannot edit here. Sorry for the poor typing I will try better next time.

    ReplyDelete