A good explanation of the 'real' unemployment rate

Everyone who isn't an Obamabot (Paul Krugman) or above the age of 5 knows that the current "official" unemployment rate of 5.9% is bogus. The real number that counts is the labor participation rate which has been shrinking for more than 5 years.

Why is the labor force participation rate important? Ken Braun of MLive has very clear explanation:

The U.S. “civilian noninstitutional population” - the total count of civilian adults - grew by 217,000 in September, according to the latest jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor. Those new entrants represent immigrants, young people coming of age, military personnel re-entering the civilian world, and so forth. Total U.S. population grows by about 190,000 each month, so for our economy to remain healthy a big chunk of those 217,000 new adult residents should have or be seeking jobs.

But the jobs report also shows the U.S. labor force decreased by 315,000 last month. There’s a lot of ways to leave the labor force, such as death, retirement, going to college, and disability. Just giving up looking for work is another option.

Regardless of reasons, the net effect of a steadily rising adult population and sharply falling labor force isn’t pretty. It’s as if 217,000 adults joined the economy during the last month and yet made no attempt to help out. And on top of that, an additional 98,000 who were doing something in August also halted any attempt to pull a handle on our economic wagon in September. The headline number released last week - 248,000 new jobs created during September - pales in comparison to the much larger exodus of job seekers from our labor force.

It is important for us to understand what has taken place. In the interest of that I want to point out that the first Bush II term in office, saw the first negative numbers in job growth since 1940. It wasn't just that fewer jobs were created. It wasn't just that no jobs were created. We actually lost jobs. There were 0.03% fewer people working at the end of Bush II's first term than there were when he started. In his two terms job growth was 0.82%. Folks, the average from 1961 to 2001, was 9.52% job grown every four years. In two terms that would work out to 19.04%.

By comparison, and believe me I don't like doing this, during the Clinton administration jobs grew by 20.72%. During the Reagan years they grew by 17.69%. Hey, it is what it is.

Obama has been another cluster "screwup" on the issue of jobs. During his first term jobs only grew by 0.9%.

Combining the two Bush terms and the first term of Obama, jobs only grew 1.73% over the three terms. The three terms before them ending in January 2001, jobs had grown by 23.72%. As an aside, Bush I had the lowest jobs growth rate since the term ending in 1961. And that includes the years up until his son took over. That resulted in the 23.72% number being considerable lower than the general average three term growth of 28.79%.

We have just short of 25% of our workforce out of work.

5.9%? That is one of the most blatant lies I've seen government tell. It's so easily to disprove that it makes it all the more clear what a bunch of lying bastards we have in Washington, D. C. these days.

-Population has gone up (over 300 million)
-Productivity has gone up or been maintained
-Work force participation has gone down (same as mid 70’s)
-Food stamp participation has gone up (over 50 million, 1 in 6)
-Current new jobs pay less and tend to be capped on hours (Obamacare 30 hour requirement changing workplace)
-Total number of people not working or temp working now exceeds those with permanent jobs
-Unemployment rate is meaningless statistic, we are entering a new period for labor
-Capital is cheap, FED policies since 2008 have accelerated the age of automation which is here to stay, robots don’t require Obamacare

Welcome to the future!

BO, or Before Obama, some economists contended that full employment was when only 5% of the available working aged populace were unemployed. I believe that’s because approximately 5% of the work-aged populace are essentially unemployable due to poor education and/or mental or physical deficiencies. So, if you took the work-aged population and subtract 5% that would represent America’s potential number for full employment. The difference between that number and the present number is the amount of true unemployment. There are ways to estimate this and I recall the Department of Labor used to produce these statistics. However, I no longer believe anything they say.

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