Here are some interesting numbers.

[yota5]

Earlier I posted a thread about the unemployment rate dropping to 7.4%. Here are some numbers that may suggest that the dropping unemployment numbers may not be as rosy as the Obama administration would like you to believe.

"Millions of unemployed Americans have lost their jobs. While 13.2 million people were unemployed in March, approximately 5.8 million were collecting unemployment benefits at the end of the month, double the number from a year ago, the government said Thursday. That means less than half of those who were out of work and were actively trying to find a new job were receiving unemployment benefits."

"People think (if) they are unemployed, they are going to get unemployment. Not true."

"Often, those who worked part time or who were not at their job for very long before being laid off are not eligible. That tends to disproportionately include women, low-income workers and people with more seasonal jobs, such as construction, according to the NELP. A 2007 report from the Government Accountability Office found low-wage workers were about one-third as likely to collect unemployment benefits as those earning more. People who are fired for performance issues, who quit or who were self-employed are immediately tossed out."

These numbers tell us that the true unemployment rate is double what is reflected in the latest 7.4% figure. We have 4,300,000 Americans on welfare, and 46,700,000 on food stamps. Here are the welfare demographics for percentage of recipients who are; whites 38.8%, blacks 39.8% Hispanic 15.7%, Asian 2.4% .

Can anyone remember a time when America was in this bad economic shape? I can't. Now remember Obama is doing a great job. He can feel our pain as he goes on his monthly multimillion dollar vacations.

Welfare Statistics | Statistic Brain

Many of the jobless get no unemployment benefits - USATODAY.com

 

[oldfart]

Earlier I posted a thread about the unemployment rate dropping to 7.4%. Here are some numbers that may suggest that the dropping unemployment numbers may not be as rosy as the Obama administration would like you to believe.

I agree with your statement. But USA Today has made a hasg of some of the numbers. The best place to check this out is U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

"Millions of unemployed Americans have lost their jobs. While 13.2 million people were unemployed in March, approximately 5.8 million were collecting unemployment benefits at the end of the month, double the number from a year ago, the government said Thursday. That means less than half of those who were out of work and were actively trying to find a new job were receiving unemployment benefits."

I have no idea where they came up with the 13.2 million figure. The BLS "official" U-3 figure for March 2013 was 11,815,000, seasonally adjusted. I went ahead and generated the seasonally adjusted and non-adjusted tables for you.
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

The number of workers receiving unemployment benefits generally comes from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) but that's not the source for 5.8 million figure. The idea that this number has doubled in the past year is obviously an error. This is not a criticism of your post; it's a heads up that the newspaper article is botched.

"Often, those who worked part time or who were not at their job for very long before being laid off are not eligible. That tends to disproportionately include women, low-income workers and people with more seasonal jobs, such as construction, according to the NELP. A 2007 report from the Government Accountability Office found low-wage workers were about one-third as likely to collect unemployment benefits as those earning more. People who are fired for performance issues, who quit or who were self-employed are immediately tossed out."

NELP is a "public service" law firm and the actual source of most of the newspaper article. I haven't looked up the 2007 GAO report, but I see no reason to question it as the results cited are pretty well accepted.

These numbers tell us that the true unemployment rate is double what is reflected in the latest 7.4% figure.

Run when anyone starts talking about the "true" unemployment rate. There are a number of different measures of unemployment, but none have been ordained by God as true. The commonly reported one is U-3 and there is an often used measure that is broader U-6. These are reported each month in Table A-15 of the Monthly Labor Review http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
Note that U-6 is at 14.0% in July 2013, down from 15.2% a year previous.

Over all, good work on your part!

 

[pinqy]

Earlier I posted a thread about the unemployment rate dropping to 7.4%. Here are some numbers that may suggest that the dropping unemployment numbers may not be as rosy as the Obama administration would like you to believe.

"Millions of unemployed Americans have lost their jobs. While 13.2 million people were unemployed in March, approximately 5.8 million were collecting unemployment benefits at the end of the month, double the number from a year ago, the government said Thursday. That means less than half of those who were out of work and were actively trying to find a new job were receiving unemployment benefits."

"People think (if) they are unemployed, they are going to get unemployment. Not true."

"Often, those who worked part time or who were not at their job for very long before being laid off are not eligible. That tends to disproportionately include women, low-income workers and people with more seasonal jobs, such as construction, according to the NELP. A 2007 report from the Government Accountability Office found low-wage workers were about one-third as likely to collect unemployment benefits as those earning more. People who are fired for performance issues, who quit or who were self-employed are immediately tossed out."

These numbers tell us that the true unemployment rate is double what is reflected in the latest 7.4% figure. We have 4,300,000 Americans on welfare, and 46,700,000 on food stamps. Here are the welfare demographics for percentage of recipients who are; whites 38.8%, blacks 39.8% Hispanic 15.7%, Asian 2.4% .

Can anyone remember a time when America was in this bad economic shape? I can't. Now remember Obama is doing a great job. He can feel our pain as he goes on his monthly multimillion dollar vacations.

Welfare Statistics | Statistic Brain

Many of the jobless get no unemployment benefits - USATODAY.com

First, your USA Today article is from 2009 and the one from statistic brain is from 2012.

Second, the UE rate is not based on people collecting benefits but on total unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

The Survey used by BLS for the UE rate (the Current Population Survey) uses the week that contains the 12th as its reference week. So for the week of July 7-13 there were 4,695,366 people collecting unemployment from all programs (not seasonally adjusted).
Source: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/eta20131574.htm
At the same time, the not seasonally adjusted numbers from BLS show 12,083,000 Unemployed out of a Labor Force of 157,196,000 for an unemployment rate of 12,083,000/157,196,000 = 7.7% Seasonally adjusted to account for normal trends, the number of unemployed is 11,514,000 out of a labor force of 155,798,000 for a rate of 11,514,000/155,798,000 = 7.4%
Source http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

And the reason the Labor Force and Unemployment level are lower is because it's summer and there's always more people looking for and working at summer jobs and so that's factored out in the official numbers.

 

[pinqy]

The number of workers receiving unemployment benefits generally comes from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)

Correcting you here...the QCEW is a count of employees and wages from the UI tax records filed by businesses. It doesn't collect any info about people receiving benefits. That's collected by the states and reported weekly the the Employment and Training Administration, which then adds the Federal program numbers.

 

[SteadyMercury]

First, your USA Today article is from 2009

Lol that is the first thing I noticed too, saw the numbers and was thinking "wow that can't possibly be correct" but turns out it is, except from four years ago at the peak of the financial crisis.

What next, articles from 1929?

 

[oldfart]

The number of workers receiving unemployment benefits generally comes from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)

Correcting you here...the QCEW is a count of employees and wages from the UI tax records filed by businesses. It doesn't collect any info about people receiving benefits. That's collected by the states and reported weekly the the Employment and Training Administration, which then adds the Federal program numbers.

Thanks for the catch. I stand corrected!

 

[yota5]

January 2009. My bad. I had a lot of research open, and forgot to check the dates. Here is an article from 08/2013. The same conditions exist. That is the real bad news. Things aren't getting better.

"The problem for the Fed is that the current unemployment rate of 7.4% is a fallacy that doesn't truly express the true state of unemployment in the economy today. If we include those individuals that are working part-time, because they can't get a full-time job, and those on unemployment for longer than 52 weeks the unemployment rates skyrockets to over 15%. The chart below shows the long term chart of employment and the percentage deviation from the long term trend."

Guest Post: Why The Unemployment Rate Is Irrelevant | Zero Hedge

Here are the numbers from the BLS. These numbers come from August 2013. These numbers don't include the people who have dropped out of the work force. Nor do they include former full time workers who are no working part time jobs. But the graph that it includes clearly demonstrates the dismal performance under the Obama regime. How many would like to return to the booming days of the Bush economy? While all of this is going on Obama is feeling our pain by taking another multi million dollar vacation. This just weeks after his 100 million dollar vacation to Africa.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data