God, I hate siding with these idiots, but on this one point, they are correct. It's the math formula they use, it's not anything corrupt, and it's certainly not a conspiracy on the BLS' part to fudge the numbers to make the president look good. It's the way they discount "discouraged workers". You are considered a "discouraged worker" if you haven't interviewed in a month (which the BLS calls"actively seeking employment--when anybody still looking for work can tell you that often times you'll go for a month without an interview). You can be working your butt off looking for work, but without seeing anybody or receiving any benefits, you aren't considered unemployed.
There is a category for marginally attached to the workforce, and that rate is 14.7%. When you factor in the "discouraged unemployed" (those who are considered discouraged even though they continue to look, AND those who are genuinely discouraged), those who once had a professional career but who now work part-time for minimum wage (underemployed), and people who were forced to take early retirement rather than a layoff, then the idiot Trump is correct: the real unemployment rate is about 21%.
Here is the Bureau of Labor and Statistics Table A15:.
The U3 total on the far right is the household survey that excludes practically everyone--the marginally attached, the under employed, early retirees---at 7.8%, it's the media number they use every month when they report unemployment: THE figure----but as you can see just below that figure, there are higher numbers. What are they for? They are more accurate (yet still incomplete) rates of unemployment based on data you can see at the linked PDF below.(Click on the chart to take you directly to the Table A15 page so you can be sure I haven't photoshopped the graph to make my point) You can see the U6 is at 14.7%--double the U3. And like I said, that's a much more accurate rate of unemployment but even it's not complete.
It's also interesting that the U3 went down, but the U6 stayed the same.
Here is a PDF put out by the BLS explaining how the data is compiled. Please download it and see for yourself.
Trust me, ever since I learned there were several different rates of unemployment, I've been obsessed with letting people know that unemployment is ALWAYS worse that the figure reported on the news. The proof is in the BLS's own information. They started using this formula in 1994, so these aren't comparable numbers to the great depression since the formula are different.
Keep in mind, based on the BLS birth/death rate model, we have to create 150,000 new jobs each month (some say 200K, others say 100K, so I go for the mean, which is what most economists do too) just to keep up with the number of new employees entering the job market each and every month. So, the total number of jobs created each month have to total more than 150K, or else it's a net jobs loss for the month. Is that clear? Any total less than 150K, means not enough jobs were created to keep up with the new employees entering the market, much less the increasing number of long-term unemployed, recently unemployed, and under employed seeking better jobs. To significantly lower unemployment, they would have to create more than 200,000 jobs every month, and the effects in the job market would not improve in a month. It would take at least a quarter for the results to show.
So, on just this one issue, the Republicans are correct, except that no one is pointing out the difference in the U3 to the U6 and so forth. I haven't heard ANYONE talking about the schedule at all. SO Republicans think the Democrats are fudging the numbers, and the Democrats call the Republicans conspiracy theorists, when they are both whacked because they don't understand how they compute the figures when it's all right there on the site.
Understand, Donald Trump is a DOUCHEBAG MORON. But obviously, he has someone on his staff who understands how they compute the numbers, but is withholding the fact that it's how they've been doing it since Clinton was president--both Republicans and Democrats. Though, prior to 1994, the U3 was NOT the unemployment rate used when reporting to the media and the public. It was a rate that was used in the larger formula to compute an overall unemployment rate, rather than the U3 BEING the overall unemployment rate, which as you can clearly see, it's not the overall unemployment rate. It's the "keep us complacent" number. Because if we started looking at the U6 instead of the U3, people would freak out.
Here is a chart that computes the data the way they did prior to 1994. You see the U3 schedule represented along with the U6. The 3rd rate is what actual unemployment is, and as you can see, it's about 21%--which is higher than all but 3 years during the great depression.
Trump calls jobs report phoney: says Unemployment is really ’21 percent’
Adding one more conspiracy theory to his resume
on Monday, Donald Trump suggested that President Barack Obama’s team had
concocted a “phony” 7.8 percent unemployment number and that the real
unemployment rate could be as high as 21 percent. (He's correct about the rate, not that the data was concocted or phony; at worst, it's just incomplete--if Trump weren't such an idiot, he could point to Table A15--jef)
Earlier this month Former, GE CEO Jack Welch spawned a “jobs truthers” front after he tweeted that an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent was “unbelievable,” and added that the “Chicago guys” in Obama’s campaign headquarters “will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.”
Trump told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday that Welch got it right.
“They’re not real numbers because the 7.8 [percent] — as Jack Welch said and he took a lot of heat for saying it, but he’s right — I guarantee you’re going to have a correction right after the election,” the billionaire reality star explained. “The 7.8 is not a real number. The real number is 15 percent (the U6--jef), 16 percent, people even say 21 percent.(the SGS stats above--jef)”
“So, it’s a phony number,” he added. “I don’t know how they allow it to get out there, but I guarantee you, as you’re sitting there after the election, that number is going to be corrected substantially upward. And everybody knows it.” (It's not phony, it's incomplete.--jef)
Trump also had some advice for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney prior to Tuesday night’s second debate with Obama.
“I don’t think he has to prepare too much,” Trump explained. “He’s a smart guy. He’s a good leader. He has it. He gets it for this country. He really gets it. And I will say this, if Obama has a performance like he had a couple of weeks ago, I don’t believe it’s possible for him to win the election.”
“Who knows? Did he become more intelligent in the last two weeks? You tell me.”
So, see, this whole issue is easily put to rest by some simple fact checking that no one seems to be aware of. Romney is going to say whatever he can to get elected. Obama shouldn't even have to worry about the election, except that he hasn't done a very good job at all, especially for working class people, which is the ONLY reason Romney isn't double digits behind Obama.
There is a category for marginally attached to the workforce, and that rate is 14.7%. When you factor in the "discouraged unemployed" (those who are considered discouraged even though they continue to look, AND those who are genuinely discouraged), those who once had a professional career but who now work part-time for minimum wage (underemployed), and people who were forced to take early retirement rather than a layoff, then the idiot Trump is correct: the real unemployment rate is about 21%.
Here is the Bureau of Labor and Statistics Table A15:.
The U3 total on the far right is the household survey that excludes practically everyone--the marginally attached, the under employed, early retirees---at 7.8%, it's the media number they use every month when they report unemployment: THE figure----but as you can see just below that figure, there are higher numbers. What are they for? They are more accurate (yet still incomplete) rates of unemployment based on data you can see at the linked PDF below.(Click on the chart to take you directly to the Table A15 page so you can be sure I haven't photoshopped the graph to make my point) You can see the U6 is at 14.7%--double the U3. And like I said, that's a much more accurate rate of unemployment but even it's not complete.
It's also interesting that the U3 went down, but the U6 stayed the same.
Here is a PDF put out by the BLS explaining how the data is compiled. Please download it and see for yourself.
Trust me, ever since I learned there were several different rates of unemployment, I've been obsessed with letting people know that unemployment is ALWAYS worse that the figure reported on the news. The proof is in the BLS's own information. They started using this formula in 1994, so these aren't comparable numbers to the great depression since the formula are different.
Keep in mind, based on the BLS birth/death rate model, we have to create 150,000 new jobs each month (some say 200K, others say 100K, so I go for the mean, which is what most economists do too) just to keep up with the number of new employees entering the job market each and every month. So, the total number of jobs created each month have to total more than 150K, or else it's a net jobs loss for the month. Is that clear? Any total less than 150K, means not enough jobs were created to keep up with the new employees entering the market, much less the increasing number of long-term unemployed, recently unemployed, and under employed seeking better jobs. To significantly lower unemployment, they would have to create more than 200,000 jobs every month, and the effects in the job market would not improve in a month. It would take at least a quarter for the results to show.
So, on just this one issue, the Republicans are correct, except that no one is pointing out the difference in the U3 to the U6 and so forth. I haven't heard ANYONE talking about the schedule at all. SO Republicans think the Democrats are fudging the numbers, and the Democrats call the Republicans conspiracy theorists, when they are both whacked because they don't understand how they compute the figures when it's all right there on the site.
Understand, Donald Trump is a DOUCHEBAG MORON. But obviously, he has someone on his staff who understands how they compute the numbers, but is withholding the fact that it's how they've been doing it since Clinton was president--both Republicans and Democrats. Though, prior to 1994, the U3 was NOT the unemployment rate used when reporting to the media and the public. It was a rate that was used in the larger formula to compute an overall unemployment rate, rather than the U3 BEING the overall unemployment rate, which as you can clearly see, it's not the overall unemployment rate. It's the "keep us complacent" number. Because if we started looking at the U6 instead of the U3, people would freak out.
Here is a chart that computes the data the way they did prior to 1994. You see the U3 schedule represented along with the U6. The 3rd rate is what actual unemployment is, and as you can see, it's about 21%--which is higher than all but 3 years during the great depression.
####
Trump calls jobs report phoney: says Unemployment is really ’21 percent’
Earlier this month Former, GE CEO Jack Welch spawned a “jobs truthers” front after he tweeted that an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent was “unbelievable,” and added that the “Chicago guys” in Obama’s campaign headquarters “will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.”
Trump told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday that Welch got it right.
“They’re not real numbers because the 7.8 [percent] — as Jack Welch said and he took a lot of heat for saying it, but he’s right — I guarantee you’re going to have a correction right after the election,” the billionaire reality star explained. “The 7.8 is not a real number. The real number is 15 percent (the U6--jef), 16 percent, people even say 21 percent.(the SGS stats above--jef)”
“So, it’s a phony number,” he added. “I don’t know how they allow it to get out there, but I guarantee you, as you’re sitting there after the election, that number is going to be corrected substantially upward. And everybody knows it.” (It's not phony, it's incomplete.--jef)
Trump also had some advice for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney prior to Tuesday night’s second debate with Obama.
“I don’t think he has to prepare too much,” Trump explained. “He’s a smart guy. He’s a good leader. He has it. He gets it for this country. He really gets it. And I will say this, if Obama has a performance like he had a couple of weeks ago, I don’t believe it’s possible for him to win the election.”
“Who knows? Did he become more intelligent in the last two weeks? You tell me.”
###
So, see, this whole issue is easily put to rest by some simple fact checking that no one seems to be aware of. Romney is going to say whatever he can to get elected. Obama shouldn't even have to worry about the election, except that he hasn't done a very good job at all, especially for working class people, which is the ONLY reason Romney isn't double digits behind Obama.
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