The real unemployment rate--Mike Gimbel

Thank you to Mike Gimbel for ploughing through the BLS stats to arrive at some figures which do reflect the reality we are all seeing every day. JR

Nothing much to report about this morning's unemployment figures published by the BLS.  Ditto yesterday's First time unemployment applications that were published by the Dept. of Labor.

 

Everything is status quo: bad!!!

 

The REAL unemployment rate did slide very slightly from 18.32% to 18.20%, but let's not celebrate too quickly since the REAL unemployment rate + the underployment rate (adding those working part-time whowant full-time employment) actually rose from 23.24% to 23.37% in August, 2011.

 

This rise was caused by a huge rise in the number of people in part-time work, who want full-time work, from 8,396,000 in July to 8,826,000 in August. That's an increase of 430,000 last month!

 

As far as the weekly First-time unemployment application's, the story is essentially the same: status quo. Almost every week the DOL reports a so-called decrease in unemployment claims, forgetting to mention that they are not measuring from the previous week's reported numbers, but from the newly adjusted (almost always upwards) numbers from that previous week.  It make it seem like there was a drop, when there actually wasn't a drop!  That's good for political 'spin' but doesn't have an iota of veracity.

 

When I look at each week's First Time unemployment stats, I actually have to wait a week to see what the REAL number is going to be! Therefore when I look at my line graph for these statistics, I can see a possibly troubling trend going slightly upwards in these claims, but not enough of a 'slope' to make a 'call' one way or the other on which way this is heading.  In any case, for now, everything remains "status quo: bad!!!"!

 

--Mike Gimbel

 

The stupidities and absurdities by which mathematicians have rather excused than explained their mode of procedure, which remarkably enough always lead to correct results, exceed the worst and real fantasies of the Hegelian philosophy of nature.

 

                                                                  --Frederick Engels