The labor participation rate was 62.7 percent in December, a 38-year low that recalled the “economic malaise” of the Carter presidency.
The administration’s jobless-rate claims fool no one beyond the Beltway, and certainly not Jim Clifton, the president and CEO of the Gallup polling organization. Mr. Clifton calls the 5.6 percent unemployment rate “the Big Lie.” Chastising mainstream media and Wall Street for “cheerleading for this number,” he says it’s “extremely misleading.”
Mr. Clifton notes the inconvenient truth that if someone is “so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking [for a job] over the past four weeks,” the Labor Department “doesn’t count you as unemployed.” If you work one hour a week and are paid at least $20, “you’re not officially counted as unemployed” in the under 6 percent figure.
Separately, Gallup reported Thursday that its own measure of underemployment stood at 15.8 percent for January. Gallup calculates the underemployment rate by combining the percentage of adults in the workforce who are unemployed with those who are working part time but want full-time work.
“Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed,” Mr. Clifton says. “Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast ‘falling’ unemployment.”
The Obama administration continues to tout the 5.7 percent jobless rate while a record number of discouraged Americans have dropped out of the labor market. What does it say about Mr. Obama, who promised the most “transparent” administration ever, that he touts jobless numbers so transparently phony? It’s par for a president who claims credit for cutting “our deficits … by two-thirds” after expanding them to record levels. Even the excuse of “statistics” can’t cover such whoppers.
Washington Times Editorial