Lies, God-damned Lies and The Unemployment Rate
by Johnny Monicker
America’s civilian workforce consists of 156 million people and 7.2 percent is unemployed according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, yet evidence suggests the number of Americans struggling financially is higher than the unemployment rate bandied about on the 10 o’clock news. 15.2 million Americans work low-wage jobs, earning less than 23,000 dollars per annum, and 11.2 million Americans are unemployed, yet approximately 90.4 million people are neither employed, low-wage nor unemployed. They’re simply “discouraged.” BLS collects data on only 7.4 percent of discouraged workers: the approximate 3.1 million who have “searched for work in the previous year, but not the last 4 weeks,” and the approximate 3.2 million who “did not search for work in the previous year.” The remaining 84.1 million include those who The Bureau of Labor Statistics says, “Includes some persons who are not asked if they want a job.” They may as well have said, “We have no fucking clue.”
Some commentators are eager to point out that 10 percent of our discouraged workers are 16 or 17 years of age, 23 percent are enrolled in either a 2 or 4 year college, and 44 percent are 65 years of age or older, leaving only 23 percent, or about 20 million people, in the category of “question mark.” In my neighborhood, you’d be hedging your bets if you guessed that 50 percent of 16 and 17 years olds, college students and “retirees” need a job yet are unable to find one. Maybe these commentators live in Westchester County.
Assuming that half of the 20 million discouraged workers in the category of “question mark” and half the people enrolled in either a 2 or 4 year college need a job yet are unable to find one, including the 6.3 million discouraged workers whom we can safely assume were looking for work, the 11.2 million unemployed and the 15.2 million “underemployed,” who work low-wage jobs, we are left with a relatively conservative estimate of 53.2 million people in a state of financial duress, or 34 percent of the civilian workforce, an estimate that doesn’t account for anyone who’s 16, 17, 65 years old or more who may need a job yet is unable to find one, illegal immigrants, the homeless or dependents (children). Granted, there may be overlap between the number of discouraged-question marks-and-college-students and the 6.3 million discouraged workers whom we can safely assume were looking for work, so let’s ignore the 6.3 million. Employing the data that’s available to me and my faculties of commons sense, I’ve arrived at the tentative conclusion that about 30 percent of the civilian workforce, or 46.9 million people, is in a state of financial Armageddon, a state of financial insecurity, in poverty or on the brink of poverty, and that's a conservative estimate. So, there’s about 101.6 million people who aren't working, or 65 percent of the civilian workforce, yet the unemployment rate assumes that 58 percent, that 90.4 million people don’t want a job or don’t need one at a time in our nation's history when inequality and inflation are at record levels, leaving only 26 percent of the civilian workforce, or 40.8 million people, living in relative comfort, a figure that doesn’t account for those who built up nest eggs during America's golden years and are living off their pensions (assuming they still have pensions).
The United States Social Security Department’s figures are more startling. They’ve calculated that 66.2 percent of wage earners netted less than approximately 40 thousand dollars per year, and the median wage earner, 50 percent of Americans, earn less than approximately 26 thousand dollars per year. These figures exclude the unemployed and “discouraged workers,” and the results draw a sharp contrast with the economic composition of Congress. In 2011, only 10 percent of Congress claimed an average net worth of less than 40 thousand dollars, and 51 percent claimed an average net worth of one million dollars or more at a time when only 9 percent of Americans were millionaires. Our law-makers are rich men, and “the rich are in general slaves to fear . . .”
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