Jobless percentage hides the real numbers

Wow, the unemployment numbers came out for December and miraculously the rate went down to 6.7 percent. I say miraculously because how does unemployment go down when only 74,000 jobs were added? No doubt that number will be revised like it always has been. The president will be touting the economy is roaring back. It’s just more smoke and mirrors from this administration.

Let’s take a look at the real numbers. First, roughly half those 74,000 jobs were part time. Here are a couple of measurements the Labor Department looks at. The U1, which are persons unemployed for 15 weeks or longer, as a percentage of the civilian labor force. The U3, total unemployed, as a percentage of the civilian labor force (official unemployment). The key words here are “civilian labor force,” or otherwise known as the “workforce participation.”

The Department of Labor’s “Labor Force Participation Rate” is the percentage of the civilian labor force who have been out of work so long that they’ve given up looking. So, these folks are not counted in the monthly unemployment report.

And something you won’t hear much about: The “Workforce Participation Rate” is at 62.8 percent, the lowest it’s been in over 30 years. As I said, these people aren’t counted when figuring the unemployment rate.

So when, in the eyes of the DOL, there are fewer people participating in looking for work, and it’s easy to see how the unemployment rate can go down with only 74,000 jobs created. The real unemployment rate is near 14 percent. There are still 2 million fewer jobs than when President Obama took office. So when you hear the president bragging about the declining unemployment rate, just remember when he said, “If you like your plan, you can keep it. Period!”

Just more lies.

Al Haak

Palatine