"REAL" Unemployment Much Higher...

[oldfart]

I know these are numbers many don't even like to consider but they should.

Real Unemployment Rate Shows Far More Jobless


"The government's most widely publicized unemployment rate measures only those who are out of a job and currently looking for work. It does not count discouraged potential employees who have quit looking, nor those who are underemployed — wanting to work full-time but forced to work part-time."
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"The numbers in some cases are startling.
Consider: Nevada's U-6 rate is 22.1 percent, up from just 7.6 percent in 2007. Economically troubled California has a 20.3 percent real rate, while Rhode Island is at 18.3 percent, more than double its 8.3 percent rate in 2007.
Those numbers compare especially unfavorably to the national rate, high in itself at 14.9 percent though off its record peak of 17.2 percent in October 2009."

Oh what a tangled web we weave......................................

Whenever people go looking for a fight on the economy, be they liberal or conservative, they suddenly find the U6 unemployment index. It has been around forever. It is not commonly used by either the democrats or republicans while they are in power. It is the broadest index for unemployment available. In essence it simply counts all those not working as unemployed.

Using this index, what is commonly considered full employment on our (U3) index would suddenly become a 10% unemployment rate.

Should Mitt be elected President the U6 would promptly be jettisoned from Getitalready's consciousness to be replaced with the common U3.

At this point the liberals would discover the U6 and begin pounding MItt.

The pointis the U6 is almost never used for the general public. Never has, Never will.

We have had this discussion in detail dozens of times. It's a zombie meme. Personally, I look at the age adjusted labor force participation rate (unpublished, but easy enough to crank out) as the best measure of what we mean by "involuntary unemployment". And yes, I used to teach labor economics.