Gallup CEO Exposes Obama Big Lie
‘Official unemployment rate
cruelly overlooks suffering of long-term permanently unemployed’
(Gallup) – Here’s something that many Americans — including
some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official
unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely
misleading.
Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media,
the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading
for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House
wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the
market.
None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or
anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you
are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four
weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right.
While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never
find work again, you are not counted
in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as
many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed.
Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling”
unemployment.
There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading.
Say you’re an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker
or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and
are paid at least $20 — maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn — you’re not
officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know
this.
Yet another figure of importance that doesn’t get much
press: those working part time but wanting full-time work. If you have a degree
in chemistry or math and are working 10 hours part time because it is all you
can find — in other words, you are severely underemployed — the government
doesn’t count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.
There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment
rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often
permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a
Big Lie.
And it’s a lie that has consequences, because the great
American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed
to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job
is an individual’s primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity — it
establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and
country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen’s talents,
training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.
Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an
organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is
delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of
full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We
need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to
replenish America’s middle class.
I hear all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced,
but the people aren’t feeling it.” When the media, talking heads, the White
House and Wall Street start reporting the truth — the percent of Americans in
good jobs; jobs that are full time and real – then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t
“feeling” something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives.
And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class.
http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx
Comments
The 5.6% rate only counts those who have
applied for unemployment compensation. The labor participation rate in the U.S.
is 62.7%. That means that 37.3% of all working age Americans are not
working. I’ve read many quotes that say
that if the government hadn’t changed the way they calculate the unemployment
rate, it would be about 25%. Because we
have stagnant wages and about 10% real inflation, at least 50 million of the 92
million Americans without jobs would go to work if the jobs hadn’t been taken
by immigrants. Off-shoring manufacturing starting with NAFTA was the beginning
of our economic decline. Immigration continues to be the primary cause of our
high unemployment.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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