Credit: The Gallup Organization
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 […]
It is worse than that. Jphn Williams is an economist who computes these numbers correctly. His web site has a lot of free information on economic matters. Much of it is free, and the rest is for pay, though the fees are modest.
Here is some of the free stuff.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
http://www.shadowstats.com/primers-and-reports