Labor Statistics Are the Tip Of The Jobless Iceberg
The U.S. Government paints a rosy picture of jobless figures, celebrating the unemployment rate in August 2016 as 4.9%. http://unemploymentdata.com/labor-force-participation-rate-2/. But these figures only show the tip of the jobless iceberg.
The true unemployment rate, including the unseen part of the iceberg, those who have stopped looking for work and known as U6, is currently 9.7%. U3 is the tip. U6 is the entire iceberg.
Had the Titanic only hit the tip of the iceberg, it might have been damaged, but not sunk. In the case of government statistics, half of the jobless story is hidden below the surface.
37.2% or 94,706 million working age Americans are not in the civilian labor force. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
2 million long term unemployed, have been looking for work for 27 weeks. Another 6.1 million people are part time workers who want a full time job.
Yet another 1.7 million discouraged persons are not counted in the above statistics because they had not searched for work in the prior 4 weeks. They have looked for work sometime in the prior 12 months. A lot of unfulfilled America potential is pent up waiting To Make America Work Again.*
The Big Lie
According to Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, the percent of full time jobs in this country as a percent of the adult population “is the worst it’s been in 30 years.” Clifton claimed the official unemployment rate being trumpeted by the White House, Wall Street and the media is a "big lie."
"None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job; if you are so hopelessly out of work that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks, the Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/189068/bls-unemployment-seasonally-adjusted.aspx.aspx
Half Truths
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is responsible for measuring the nation's unemployment rate. The BLS defines an unemployed person as someone who is not currently working but is available to work and has actively looked for work at some point during the prior four weeks. The civilian labor force is the sum of all employed and unemployed people. A person who has no job and has not looked for a job in the last four weeks is not technically an unemployed person and is not included in the labor force.
“The U-3 unemployment rate is the officially recognized rate of unemployment, measuring the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labor force.
”The U-3 unemployment rate …leaves out a whole swath of out-of-work people who are willing and able to take a job but who don't fit the narrow BLS definition of "unemployed." For example, a stonemason who wants to work but who has become discouraged by a lack of opportunity in the midst of a deep economic recession would not be included in U-3 unemployment. A marketing executive who is laid off at age 57 and stops scheduling new job interviews due to her experience of age discrimination would not be included in U-3 unemployment. A person who only works one six-hour shift per week because no full-time jobs are available in his area would not be included in U-3 unemployment.
“In contrast to the U-3 rate, the U-6 unemployment rate includes all of these cases. Consequently, the U-6 rate is much truer to a natural, non-technical understanding of what it means to be unemployed. By capturing discouraged workers, underemployed workers and other folks who exist on the margins of the labor market, the U-6 rate provides a broad picture of the underutilization of labor in the country. In this sense, the U-6 rate is the true unemployment rate.” http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp
Hidden Potential
The U.S. Government reports only half of the unemployment problem. Willing media crow about how low the rate is.
Know the truth: with the U3 jobless rate at 4.9 % and the U6 unemployment rate at 9.7%, half of the unemployed are hidden beneath the surface.
Rekindling hope and offering job opportunities to these discouraged workers can help Make America Great Again.*
http://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate and http://www.bls.gov/bls/proghome.htm
*from Donald Trump for President
by Bridget Tucker