What is the REAL REAL U.S. unemployment rate

[DrainBamage]

But the president is basically a dictator.

Your ignorance extends to how our government functions.

A dictator, by definition, has total control over government policies. As an easy example from late last year, congress overrode an Obama veto of the 9-11 victims bill. If your claim he is a dictator is true, it would have been impossible for the legislative branch to prevent him from enacting that bill. As an example from judicial branch from late last year, the Supreme Court blocked the Obama immigration reform actions from being reheard.

The US President doesn't have dictator powers.

He is the one who says who runs whatever agency. Therefore, they kiss his ass.

So you didn't answer the question, if Bush actually ran BLS why did they publish unemployment numbers that skyrocketed under his administration? It makes no sense.

 

[pinqy]

Next, there is a chain of command in any government agency. Who hears what and when is decided by the person who runs the agency.

To a degree. For economic indicators, because they affect the markets and government policy, rules on handling and release are strict. Release dates for principle economic indicators must be published a year in advance. Any changes in methodology must be announced 3 months before the change. Only the President, through the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, gets pre-release publications. The agency heads can grant others pre-release access if certain security protocols are followed and the pre-release is no more than 30 minutes before the official release.
OPM Statistical Policy Directive No. 3

They may not be able to change the data, (or maybe they can) but they can change how it is presented. They can also probably make a bad thing seem like something that isn't so bad.

IF you mean in the official releases....then no, you are incorrect. If you mean things like Obama, when talking about job gains, is very careful to specify only private sector nonfarm payroll jobs since February 2010 (when jobs were at their lowest) as the comparison, then you are correct.

 

[sealybobo]

That is a difficult question to answer. Those who give up looking for work are dropped from any statistics. There are websites out there that there are 90 to 100 million unemployed Americans. Who knows how factual that is. But from looking around at various websites, there are around 27 million unemployed working age adults. So what percentage would that make it. And on top of that, there are around 22 million underemployed Americans. Though that wouldn't be from an illegal aliens point of view. Because compared to mexico or wherever they came from, they would probably consider themselves to be overemployed. I guess for the REAL Americans, they are supposed to rethink what "underemployed" means.

This is what us liberals were saying in 2006:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were 7.6 million unemployed Americans. Another 1.5 million Americans are no longer counted because they've become "long term" or "discouraged" unemployed workers. And although various groups have different ways of measuring it, most agree that at least another five to ten million Americans are either working part-time when they want to work full-time, or are "underemployed," doing jobs below their level of training, education, or experience. That's between eight and twenty million un- and under-employed Americans, many unable to find above-poverty-level work.

Today's Immigration Battle Corporatists vs. Racists (and Labor is Left Behind)

 

[pinqy]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said there were 7.6 million unemployed Americans. Another 1.5 million Americans are no longer counted because they've become "long term" or "discouraged" unemployed workers.

That is untrue. Long term and discouraged are not synonymous. You can have someone who's been unemployed for 5 years and he's still classified as unemployed and you can have someone out of work 5 weeks classified as discouraged. Time is irrelevant except that discouraged means looked for work in the last 12 months but not the last 4 weeks. Longer than 12 months, that's just Not in the Labor Force, no subcategory, and less than 4 weeks is unemployed.
And there are only 426,000 discouraged. There are another 1.3 million Marginally Attached individuals...want to and available for work, looked for work in last 12 months but not last 4 weeks, and stopped looking for personal reasons (mostly family issues or schooling), But you can't confuse them with Discouraged.

And although various groups have different ways of measuring it, most agree that at least another five to ten million Americans are either working part-time when they want to work full-time, or are "underemployed," doing jobs below their level of training, education, or experience.

I'm not aware of anyone who measures "underemployed" as in people doing jobs below their level. It's too subjective, and there are too many non-market reasons for working outside one's degree or training.
As for part time for economic reasons....BLS defines it as willing and able to work 35 plus hours/week, but working less than 35 because they couldn't find a full time job or had their hours cut due to slow business. 5.6 million
Gallup's definition does not require ability to work full time, just desire.

 

[overland]

Boy. are you full of crap. The retirement age at least used to be 65. But you can retire at 62. Does that mean that you would just receive three years less of your overall benefits? No. It means you would lose 80% of your benefits! The scum sucking slave drivers. And now the retirement age is 66. Which is supposed to "slowly" rise to 67.

I believe you're talking about social security benefits. The act of claiming social security isn't retirement, millions work after claiming social security and millions retire before claiming social security. I've stopped working and never intend to work again, but am not old enough to claim social security benefits. I'm retired. We had a neighbor who claimed when she was 62, but she still worked full time as an admin to make ends meet. Not retied.

Social security is not retirement, it is a benefit with certain age conditions that must be met to take advantage of.

I doubt if there is any company that doesn't have a retirement age. Most probably don't work you until you're too sick and old to work. At least not yet. Also, I used to work at a place outside of Amarillo called Iowa Beef. Probably because they were so close to mexico, their business model was basically to work you to death. Because workers were so easily replaceable. I was told that after 10 years, that company would allow you to retire. But fat chance being able to last that long. Now that was capitalism at its "finest."

 

[overland]

First, there is a difference between studying to get a higher education and drinking a bottle of wine.

And working on a college degree is a lot different than getting paid to do a job, so as long as we can discount comparisons because they are different we'll go ahead and toss out your claim that students should be considered employed because they are working on a college degree.

But I do know that if you are wealthy, you are more likely to be dishonest.

You don't know this, you're assuming this just like various other assumptions you've made that demonstrably wrong. You have an interesting habit of assuming anything that pops into your head is unassailable fact, that isn't the case and the ignorant are often the least qualified to understand how little they know.

Lastly, I highly doubt if the number of jobs created has ever exceeded the number of people entering the workforce during the same time period.

What you doubt isn't relevant, the actual data is and it says you are incorrect.

When you are employed, you work. When you are a college student, you are working at getting a education. Both involve work. So both can be labeled as employment. Next, there have been actual studies done on the connection between wealth-status and dishonesty. Another thing is that I saw an experiment on the matter being done on some TV show once. They put people into a position of whether or not they would do a dishonest thing. The more wealthy they were, the more likely they were to be dishonest.

Next, screw your BLS BS. According to one website there were 1,740,000 people who entered the workforce in 2016. But there supposedly were 2,200,000 jobs created. If this was anything like a trend or reality, employees would basically be able to name their own price. Instead of having to fight tooth & nail to get a higher minimum wage. I will include something I found at a website with the title that is shown.

 

[overland]

But the president is basically a dictator.

Your ignorance extends to how our government functions.

A dictator, by definition, has total control over government policies. As an easy example from late last year, congress overrode an Obama veto of the 9-11 victims bill. If your claim he is a dictator is true, it would have been impossible for the legislative branch to prevent him from enacting that bill. As an example from judicial branch from late last year, the Supreme Court blocked the Obama immigration reform actions from being reheard.

The US President doesn't have dictator powers.

He is the one who says who runs whatever agency. Therefore, they kiss his ass.

So you didn't answer the question, if Bush actually ran BLS why did they publish unemployment numbers that skyrocketed under his administration? It makes no sense.

First, I said "basically." Not "in fact." Next, did you ever stop to think that the unemployment rate under the Clinton administration was a load of shit? Their claims to have balanced the budget sure as hell were. Maybe what was shown during the Busch administration was just an adjustment to reality. Because they couldn't keep up the same bullshit facade.

 

[DrainBamage]

I doubt if there is any company that doesn't have a retirement age. Most probably don't work you until you're too sick and old to work. At least not yet. Also, I used to work at a place outside of Amarillo called Iowa Beef. Probably because they were so close to mexico, their business model was basically to work you to death. Because workers were so easily replaceable. I was told that after 10 years, that company would allow you to retire. But fat chance being able to last that long. Now that was capitalism at its "finest."

Some pension plans have age as part of the formula for qualifying for benefits, but that is not a retirement age. I can see you're having trouble getting your head around the fact that qualifying for pension benefits is not a retirement age, people are free to retire whenever they want whether they have enough money or not.

This isn't North Korea, you don't need permission from your company or the government to retire.

I'm retired, haven't worked in almost two years and have no plans to ever work again. I didn't ask my company permission to retire nor do I receive any pension, I gave notice that I quit. How is this possible in your reality where a company has a retirement age and one can't retire before that age? There is no retirement age.

 

[DrainBamage]

When you are employed, you work. When you are a college student, you are working at getting a education. Both involve work. So both can be labeled as employment.

But they are different. Remember you dismissed additional comparisons because they weren't the same thing? Paying to get an education and being paid to work are distinctly different, and the former isn't working or employed just by being a student.

Next, screw your BLS BS. According to one website there were 1,740,000 people who entered the workforce in 2016.

Ahh so screw the data since that you don't like, but hey here is some other data I decided must be useful and good. Sounds like a classic case of selective reality.

But there supposedly were 2,200,000 jobs created If this was anything like a trend or reality, employees would basically be able to name their own price. Instead of having to fight tooth & nail to get a higher minimum wage. I will include something I found at a website with the title that is shown.

No, there is always slack in the labor market so even with more jobs added than workers the existing labor slack ensures you don't reach a condition of more jobs than people.

You are also using a false condition to argue your case, everyone isn't fighting tooth & nail to get a min wage job as there are plenty of higher wage jobs being created and fillled as well.

 

[DrainBamage]

First, I said "basically." Not "in fact." Next, did you ever stop to think that the unemployment rate under the Clinton administration was a load of shit? Their claims to have balanced the budget sure as hell were. Maybe what was shown during the Busch administration was just an adjustment to reality. Because they couldn't keep up the same bullshit facade.

So you are allowed to say "basically" instead of "in fact" and just dismiss any requirement of anything you say being factual or logical? What a wonderful world you live in.

Let's take a look at your latest half baked theory. For most of Bush's presidency the unemployment rate actually fell, it didn't shoot up sharply until the financial crisis in 2008. So you're now thinking Bush knew that Clinton had made an artificially low unemployment rate, but he decided to be some white knight who would publish the real numbers to adjust to reality, but waited six years to do so?

You get more ridiculous with each post.