Saturday, September 03, 2011

"Disappeared" Labor Force Props Obama's Numbers

The headline unemployment is 9.1%, but the U-6 is 16% or so.  U-6 counts people who are 'marginally attached,' meaning (mostly) people who have given up looking for work or who are in forced part-time employment.

That is, one of every six Americans who are eligible and able to work are NOT working, or not working as much as they'd like.

Due to retirements (forced or otherwise), the workforce has also shrunk a bit since Obozo commenced his golfing-round habit.  So another way to look at the numbers is the way Pethkoukis did:

If the workforce were the same now as it was in January '09, headline unemployment would be 11.4%.
I don't want to think about the U-6 number under those circumstances.

That's why Bill Keller, the Shadow-Flak for Obozo, talks about "mysterious and suspect" religions, and why the Congressional Black Caucus is painting "racist" on every available fence.

HT:  Insurrection

3 comments:

Jim said...

So you are claiming that my son and millions of other people who have finished school in the past two years have not ADDED to the workforce at least as much as retirements have removed?

Dad29 said...

There are two elements--maybe three--to the 'removed' portion.

Retirements are one, illegals who moved out are two (and there are a lot of them), and miscellaneous such as disability, deaths....or "dropped out" of the workforce.

That would seem to be the claim that Pethkoukis makes, and he's pretty good with numbers.

Dad29 said...

The "Participation Rate" chart at this link: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/09/job-growth-productivity-and-labor-force/

will 'splain a lot.