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What's the True Unemployment Rate in the US?
Rasmus, Jack
http://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/09/whats-the-true-unemployment-rate-in-the-us/Date Written: 2019-09-09 Publisher: Counterpunch Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23813 The real unemployment rate is probably somewhere between 10%-12%. The 3.7% is the U-3 rate, per the labor dept. But that’s the rate only for full time employed. What the labour depatment calls the U-6 includes what it calls discouraged workers (those who haven’t looked for work in the past 4 weeks). Then there's what's called the 'missing labour force' - i.e. those who have'’t looked in the past year. They're not calculated in the 3.7% U-3 unemployment rate number either. Why? Because you have to be 'out of work and actively looking for work' to be counted as unemployed and therefore part of the 3.7% rate. Abstract: - Excerpt: The way the government calculates unemployment is by means of 60,000 monthly household surveys but that phone survey method misses a lot of workers who are undocumented and others working in the underground economy in the inner cities (about 10-12% of the economy according to most economists and therefore potentially 10-12% of the reported labor force in size as well). Subject Headings |