Why Trump Thinks Unemployment Is 42%

[DamianTV]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...nemployment-42

During his victory speech last night in the New Hampshire Republican primary, Donald Trump exposed what everyone knows but doesnit dare admit: the "phony" unemployment numbers that Obama continues to crow about and The Fed is so focused on....

"Don't believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5% unemployment. The number's probably 28%, 29%, as high as 35%, in fact, I even heard recently 42%,"...

How does he justify such large estimates? Simple...

"If we had 5% unemployment, do you think we'd have these gatherings?"

Tough to argue with that - just as Hillary and Jeb...

...

Remember, Zippy is more qualified to speak about the real unemployment numbers being very low because both Zippy and Trump know everything, much more than you or I do...

[Zippyjuan]

Trump says a lot of things which are simply untrue. I wouldn't go by what he says.

If you count every retired person as unemployed, every stay at home parent as unemployed, every student who is in school and not working as unemployed- every person not in the labor force- as well as those who simply don't want a job as unemployed in addition to those who don't have a job and actually want one, you might get it up towards Trump's figure. Toss in the disabled and institutionalized as well as prisoners.

"If we had 5% unemployment, do you think we'd have these gatherings?"

So all Trump supporters are unemployed as well, eh?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/up...t-of.html?_r=0

As it happens, there is, and it’s right there near the top of the monthly jobless report. Only 59.6 percent of the United States population was employed in January. Take the inverse of that, and a whopping 40.4 percent of the population is not employed.

If that is your definition of unemployed, well, yeah, the United States does have 40 percent unemployment. But keep in mind that this counts as unemployed every retiree, every college student, everyone who is unable to work because of a disability and every parent who voluntarily stays at home to raise a child.

But surely we can find a way to make the unemployment rate seem higher still, right?

I did some back-of-the-envelope math and came up with a way to get a jobless rate of about 53 percent! Instead of just including people 16 and above, the way the B.L.S. does, we could throw in those good-for-nothing children who are neither working, looking for work nor counted as part of the labor force.

Like my 2-year-old niece, Lilia, who if you ask me has had it too easy for too long. I just hope the job she finds in the Trump administration involves finger-painting.

[Lucille]

http://www.theburningplatform.com/20...slides-to-4-9/

Health care continued to add jobs in January (+37,000), with most of the increase occurring in hospitals (+24,000). Health care has added 470,000 jobs over the past 12 months, with about two-fifths of the growth occurring in hospitals.

"...a world filled with breadlines and hospitals..."



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-0...-just-9-charts

[specsaregood]

If you count every retired person as unemployed, every stay at home parent as unemployed, every student who is in school and not working as unemployed- every person not in the labor force- as well as those who simply don't want a job as unemployed in addition to those who don't have a job and actually want one, you might get it up towards Trump's figure. Toss in the disabled and institutionalized as well as prisoners.

Personally, I'd throw in pretty much everybody that is employed by the government into that category since they are just as much of a drain on the system. If you add them in, what number do you come up with?

[Cleaner44]

I believe this:
The ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment Rate for January 2016 is 22.9%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate...loyment-charts

[DamianTV]

Personally, I'd throw in pretty much everybody that is employed by the government into that category since they are just as much of a drain on the system. If you add them in, what number do you come up with?

Its a shame I cant claim everyone in Congress as Dependents when I file my taxes...

[specsaregood]

Its a shame I cant claim everyone in Congress as Dependents when I file my taxes...

according to this: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tere...-manufacturing

There were 21,995,000 employed by federal, state and local government in the United States in August, according to BLS. By contrast, there were only 12,329,000 employed in the manufacturing sector.

[r3volution 3.0]

42% is nonsense but unemployment really is higher than the official figures (because they're not counting people who gave up looking for work and got on welfare).

More importantly, though, Trump has no understanding of economics and no idea how to reduce unemployment, whatever the level.

[TheTexan]

every person not in the labor force

This.

If we exclude every person not in the labor force, unemployment is actually 0%

[TheTexan]

you might get it up towards Trump's figure

I dunno about that.

[dannno]

Trump says a lot of things which are simply untrue. I wouldn't go by what he says.

Donald Trump writes extensively in his books about how to deal with the media. Exaggerating works well because it tends to get a lot of press and get the point out even if the press is trying to debunk the numbers. He has done this plenty of times and it has had enormous impact. Nobody believes the government numbers on employment, and by exaggerating the numbers as much as possible he knows it will make more headlines and will ultimately improve his poll numbers. See why? The government is lying about the numbers, everybody knows it, and so they don't care if he is lying about the numbers because so is the government and people know unemployment is a big problem and the government is trying to hide that. Therefore he is very smart to be doing this.

[oyarde]

4 in ten people do not work .What will Trump do ?

[oyarde]

according to this: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tere...-manufacturing

As far as I am concerned , if you have more govt than mnfg you have a failed govt . and a failing economy .

[oyarde]

This economy can never heal itself because of govt , it is clearly past the point .So the economy will fail due to govt. Half the country are communist.

[Origanalist]

according to this: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tere...-manufacturing

Is why I stopped paying.

[Origanalist]

42% is nonsense but unemployment really is higher than the official figures (because they're not counting people who gave up looking for work and got on welfare).

More importantly, though, Trump has no understanding of economics and no idea how to reduce unemployment, whatever the level.

This is the truth that never gets told. It's a shame Rand didn't use this.

[Zippyjuan]

I believe this:
The ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment Rate for January 2016 is 22.9%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate...loyment-charts

Williams adds a "fudge factor" he does not say how it is calculated but is higher than government figures which includes people who haven't even bothered to look for a job in more than a year. He also counts as unemployed people who have jobs but think it would be nice if they had more hours.

http://www.economonitor.com/dolaneco...-unemployment/

The bottom line here is that the ShadowStats alternate unemployment rate of 23 percent for May 2015, and similar rates for other recent months, are completely implausible. To get an unemployment rate that high, we have to include millions of people who do not even claim to want a job, let alone make any effort to look for one. We have to assume that the status of long-term discouraged worker is a trap from which almost no one escapes from year to year, by finding work, by making even a single unsuccessful attempt to find work during the year, by changing their mind about wanting work, or by death. before 1994. We can only get his numbers by using data sources and methods that the BLS never used in the past and does not use now.
- See more at: http://www.economonitor.com/dolaneco....SZ6WYedp.dpuf

[RJ Liberty]

4 in ten people do not work .What will Trump do ?

Clearly, it's time for Trump to expand his Trump necktie empire in China. This will help bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. Somehow.

[DamianTV]

42% is nonsense but unemployment really is higher than the official figures (because they're not counting people who gave up looking for work and got on welfare).

More importantly, though, Trump has no understanding of economics and no idea how to reduce unemployment, whatever the level.

Trump is just trying to pander...

[DamianTV]

Williams adds a "fudge factor" he does not say how it is calculated but is higher than government figures which includes people who haven't even bothered to look for a job in more than a year. He also counts as unemployed people who have jobs but think it would be nice if they had more hours.

http://www.economonitor.com/dolaneco...-unemployment/

The "fudge factor" is the "old way" that the govt used to calculate the unemployment stats by.

Keep trying to discredit them by applying labels.

[Zippyjuan]

Actually his "fudge factor" is somehow about ten times the figure using the way things were calculated in 1994.

BLS estimates of the impact of the 1994 changes. When the BLS changed its methodology in 1994, it did not neglect to look into the impact on reported numbers of discouraged workers. According to Castillo, the 1994 changes reduced the count of officially designated discouraged workers by half. It seems reasonable to suppose that the effect on marginally attached persons would be similar. If we apply the same ratio to recent data, the number of long-term marginally attached persons (those who Williams counts as LTDWs) would be closer to 2 million than to 26 million.

Current BLS estimates of long-term nonemployment. It is not quite true that long-term discouraged workers “were defined out of official existence” by the 1994 methodological changes, as Williams alleges. Rather, they were reclassified. The BLS continues to report the number of people who want a job but did not look in the past year in its monthly Table A-38, even though it does not use the terms “long-term discouraged worker” or “long-term marginally attached.”