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Townhall
Gallup: Yeah,
That 5.6% Unemployment Figure Is A Lie
Matt Vespa
Feb 04, 2015
A nauseating State of the Union address from Barack Obama has come and
gone, and a triumphant Obama (yeah, I don’t why he feels that why
either) said that the country has turned the page:
Tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing
and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999. Our unemployment rate
is now lower than it was before the financial crisis. More of our kids
are graduating than ever before. More of our people are insured than
ever before. And we are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we’ve
been in almost 30 years.
Finally, Gallup has pointed out that this is highly misleading. Reports
will show the unemployment rate is at 5.6 percent, but it’s hardly
worth celebrating about once it’s all broken down:
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.
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.
So, here’s to Obama’s America.
Read this article and more with links, photos and videos at Townhall
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