What are the real unemployment numbers?

[0rganism]

Given that the only people counted in the "unemployment" pool are those recently unemployed eligible for unemployment benefits, and there are 2 million people who've transcended that state into "chronic joblessness", and the federal gov't is refusing to extend benefits which will drop unemployment numbers,

What is the TRUE effective jobless rate?

And shouldn't the Democratic candidates be yammering about this? I see ZERO press coverage of the phenomenon.

[izzie]

1. Man on c-span said this if I recall right.

6% or 8M in a work force of betewwn 130 to 140 M workers.

[punpirate]

3. 6% is the official rate...

... of the currently unemployed (actually 5.9% this month).

In actuality, "discouraged workers" (those who have given up looking for work), those actively looking but who have exhausted their benefits, and those who have not found work due to chronic disabilities, etc., are not figured into the official statistics.

The actual compilation of total work force is actually done by a phone survey of 1300 households, which is used to modify the baseline statistic, and the definition of "working" is exceptionally broad. If you worked at all for pay (whether that's for an employer or cleaning out the garage of your brother-in-law for cash) in the prior month, you are considered among the employed.

My guess, adding in the estimated numbers of the above, that the real unemployment rate is more likely 11-12%. Quite more dire than the official unemployment numbers suggest.

The other disturbing trend is that average wages of the re-employed are declining (about 13% this year)--a sure sign that some of the unemployed are taking low-wage service jobs.

Another problem area is the average time to find another job, which now averages 20 weeks. Since benefits for many of the unemployed average only 29 weeks, and that this figure is an average, it certainly reinforces the fact that a fair number of those now receiving benefits will not be able to find a job when unemployment benefits expire.

The last problem area related to unemployment is new job growth, which has been negative except for one or two months since the recession started. It takes 150,000 new jobs a month to accommodate people just entering the job market--so if there's continuing job losses, those people don't get jobs, and because they have no work history and are not entitled to benefits, those people don't show up in the unemployment statistics, either.

It's not as pretty a picture as the official rate draws.

Cheers.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. One of the most overlooked facts in this area is this:

For several years now, there has been a trend among companies who employ a large number of people at low hourly wages, to not "employ" them at all, in the W-4 sense, but either have them be "independent contractors" or work a 37.5 hour week, thus making them "part-time" employees, and thus realize a significant savings in both benefits and unemployment insurance.

As an added plus, this has increased by millions the number of people whose lack of work in any given week is simply not documented.

[54anickel]

4. The EPI just released this latest report. It's not purty :-(

http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/146/epi_bp146.pdf

On edit:
You might also want to review the reports on this page at EPI
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_indicators

For some reason they have not updated the trade report since last Feb.

[0rganism]

6. This report is DAMNING!

The media's abject failure to cover this disaster is expected, but the Democratic presidential candidates have a responsibility to make sure the media whores have to work extra hard to avoid it.

[54anickel]

7. Yep, the EPI is pretty damn reliable as well. Here's another link...

This report discusses the 2 major reports used, Current Population Survey (CPS) aka the household survey, and the Current Employment Statistics (CES).

We usually see the CPS numbers reported, but the CES is considered to be more accurate (also more damning).

Have a read....

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp148

[madrchsod]

5. my guess is

about 12-15%. underemployed close to 15-20%