Wall Street advisor: Actual unemployment is 37.2%

[DamianTV]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/wall-street-advisor-actual-unemployment-is-37.2-misery-index-worst-in-40-years/article/2542604


Don't believe the happy talk coming out of the White House, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department when it comes to the real unemployment rate and the true “Misery Index.” Because, according to an influential Wall Street advisor, the figures are a fraud.

In a memo to clients provided to Secrets, David John Marotta calculates the actual unemployment rate of those not working at a sky-high 37.2 percent, not the 6.7 percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8 claimed by the government.

Marotta, who recently advised those worried about an imploding economy to get a gun, said that the government isn't being honest in how it calculates those out of the workforce or inflation, the two numbers used to get the Misery Index figure.

Half Truths are Whole Lies

[tod evans]

Rainbows-n-lollipops...

[DamianTV]

More like Rabid Unicorn Plushies shooting Rainbows out of their Assholes...

(please dont youtube that, it already exists...)

[Ronin Truth]

That stat coulda/shoulda changed the outcome of last year's POTUS and other elections.:( Is this a great system, or what? :rolleyes: :p

[stuntman stoll]

That number is 100% - % of workforce participation. There needs to be a discussion of what "workforce participation" actually means. I don't know for sure but I'm guessing it includes people who are not working by choice. In the charts that go back a ways, the workforce participation rate was lower in the 50's (maybe because so many wives chose to not work?).

[DamianTV]

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/latest_numbers_LNS11300000_2003_2013_all_period_M1 2_data.gif

Image is dynamic so it changes.

Its also not fully reflective as certain parts of the population are included and excluded distorting the figure from reality.

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Another version of that same stat:

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/01/LFP%20Participation_0.jpg

Also distorted because of how close it zooms in. None the less the Jobless Recovery continues and is better revealed here than by the phoney Unemployment Statistics.

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This example is OLD, but gives a better picture of Exclusions of those that want to work.

http://rortybomb.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/labor_market_november_11th.jpg

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This is the result of Govt forbidding someone from Self Definining themselves as Unemployed. If you dont meet THEIR criteria, then YOU dont count.

[Zippyjuan]

As I pointed out in a similar thread, if "real" unemployment is 32.7% (meaning those not in the workforce), this country has never had unemployment below 33% if you want to use that as your measure.

Because of the scale of the chart for Labor Force Participation, it looks much more dramatic than it really is. Check the scale yourself. At its peak, labor force participation was about 67%. It is now down to 64%- a drop of about 4.4%. The bottom line of the chart is not zero.

[eduardo89]

As I pointed out in a similar thread, if "real" unemployment is 32.7% (meaning those not in the workforce), this country has never had unemployment below 33% if you want to use that as your measure.

Because of the scale of the chart for Labor Force Participation, it looks much more dramatic than it really is. Check the scale yourself. At its peak, labor force participation was about 67%. It is now down to 64%- a drop of about 4.4%. The bottom line of the chart is not zero.

Retired people are counted as outside the labor force. If you take out retirees, what's the labor force participation rate? Add that to the official unemployment rate and you get real unemployment.

Unemployment rates should include all able bodied adults who are not in active employment or in retirement.

Edit: I would include homemakers as employed.

[Zippyjuan]

Retired people are counted as outside the labor force. If you take out retirees, what's the labor force participation rate? Add that to the official unemployment rate and you get real unemployment.

Unemployment rates should include all able bodied adults who are not in active employment or in retirement.

Edit: I would include homemakers as employed.

Anybody who says they are not currently looking for work (and are at least 16) aren't counted as being in the labor force in calculating the unemployment rate. Including homemakers, or students or diabled people, etc.

[eduardo89]

Anybody who says they are not currently looking for work (and are at least 16) aren't counted as being in the labor force in calculating the unemployment rate. Including homemakers, or students or diabled people, etc.

Yes, I realise that. That is wrong. Whether you are looking for work or not, you should be counted in unemployment figures. Basically the only exceptions should be disability, full-time study, homemaker, or retired. All other people should be counted in unemployment figures.

[Zippyjuan]

Yes, I realise that. That is wrong. Whether you are looking for work or not, you should be counted in unemployment figures. Basically the only exceptions should be disability, full-time study, homemaker, or retired. All other people should be counted in unemployment figures.

So you would include people who don't want a job in the unemployment figure? Does that provide useful information in deciding if there are enough jobs or not? Should the reason you don't want a job matter?

[eduardo89]

So you would include people who don't want a job in the unemployment figure? Should the reason you don't want a job matter?

Yes, I would include people who do not want a job. Unemployment figures should be an economic indicator, not an emotional indicator.

[DamianTV]

What do you guys think these statistics would look like if people were allowed to Self Define as Employed / Unemployed or Underemployed / Not Part of Employment Market (Retired, School, etc)?

[Zippyjuan]

What do you guys think these statistics would look like if people were allowed to Self Define as Employed / Unemployed or Underemployed / Not Part of Employment Market (Retired, School, etc)?

Actually it is self defined mostly. The unemployment survey contacts thousands of people every month and are asked a lot of questions to try to determine if they are actually employed, unemployed, under employed or not in the labor market.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm


There are about 60,000 households in the sample for this survey. This translates into approximately 110,000 individuals, a large sample compared to public opinion surveys which usually cover fewer than 2,000 people. The CPS sample is selected so as to be representative of the entire population of the United States. In order to select the sample, all of the counties and county-equivalent cities in the country first are grouped into 2,025 geographic areas (sampling units). The Census Bureau then designs and selects a sample consisting of 824 of these geographic areas to represent each State and the District of Columbia. The sample is a State-based design and reflects urban and rural areas, different types of industrial and farming areas, and the major geographic divisions of each State. (For a detailed explanation of CPS sampling methodology, see Chapter 1, of the BLS Handbook of Methods.)

Every month, one-fourth of the households in the sample are changed, so that no household is interviewed more than 4 consecutive months. This practice avoids placing too heavy a burden on the households selected for the sample. After a household is interviewed for 4 consecutive months, it leaves the sample for 8 months, and then is again interviewed for the same 4 calendar months a year later, before leaving the sample for good. This procedure results in approximately 75 percent of the sample remaining the same from month to month and 50 percent from year to year.

Each month, 2,200 highly trained and experienced Census Bureau employees interview persons in the 60,000 sample households for information on the labor force activities (jobholding and jobseeking) or non-labor force status of the members of these households during the survey reference week (usually the week that includes the 12th of the month). At the time of the first enumeration of a household, the interviewer prepares a roster of the household members, including their personal characteristics (date of birth, sex, race, Hispanic ethnicity, marital status, educational attainment, veteran status, and so on) and their relationships to the person maintaining the household. This information, relating to all household members 15 years of age and over, is entered by the interviewers into laptop computers; at the end of each day's interviewing, the data collected are transmitted to the Census Bureau's central computer in Washington, D.C. (The labor force measures in the CPS pertain to individuals 16 years and over.) In addition, a portion of the sample is interviewed by phone through three central data collection facilities. (Prior to 1994, the interviews were conducted using a paper questionnaire that had to be mailed in by the interviewers each month.)

Each person is classified according to the activities he or she engaged in during the reference week. Then, the total numbers are "weighted," or adjusted to independent population estimates (based on updated decennial census results). The weighting takes into account the age, sex, race, Hispanic ethnicity, and State of residence of the person, so that these characteristics are reflected in the proper proportions in the final estimates.


More info at link.

[Zippyjuan]

Yes, I would include people who do not want a job. Unemployment figures should be an economic indicator, not an emotional indicator.

May I ask again then, is that a useful figure in trying to determine if there are enough jobs or not since you are including those who don't want one?

Are we making enough Big Macs if we know that 20 million don't like them? What we really need to know is how many do want one. Those who don't really aren't that relevant to the question.

[enhanced_deficit]

Shocked

[DamianTV]

Statistics are not as difficult make it out to be.

100 people. 95 people working. 5 people unemployed.

Total (100) / Total people looking for work. 5% Unemployment Rate.

What they love to do is manipulate who qualifies as being Unemployed. Most people that are out of a job are NOT counted. And they continuously alter the way their stats add up.

http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/desktop/users/u717/images/2012/not-in-labor-force-employment.jpg

Hmm, I notice a trend.

Unemployment is through the fucking roof because of one very very simple fact that no one wants to acknowledge: THE JOBS ARE GONE.

This is a Jobless Recovery.

[eduardo89]

May I ask again then, is that a useful figure in trying to determine if there are enough jobs or not since you are including those who don't want one?

Are we making enough Big Macs if we know that 20 million don't like them? What we really need to know is how many do want one. Those who don't really aren't that relevant to the question.

The three biggest reasons why people are currently leaving the labor force are: retirement/old age, economic conditions making find a job difficult, and going on disability (which also has a lot to do with the ease of finding adequate employment).

So the story here isn't about people not wanting jobs and just leaving the labor force, especially when you consider more than 15% of Americans live in poverty. The fact is, the US has a huge amount of its population that is non-productive and the current way of calculating unemployment is flawed in that it simply counts those seeking employment, not those who could and should be employed but are not.