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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (517495)	12/30/2003 6:55:43 PM
From: shrpblnd	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 769670

Jobless Count Skips Millions The rate hits 9.7% when the underemployed and those who have quit looking are added. latimes.com By David Streitfeld Times Staff Writer December 29, 2003 SAN FRANCISCO — Lisa Gluskin has had a tough three years. She works almost as hard as she did during the dot-com boom, for about 20% of the income. When Gluskin's writing and editing business cratered in 2001, she slashed her rates, began studying for a graduate degree and started teaching part time at a Lake Tahoe community college for a meager wage. It's been a fragmented, hand-to-mouth life, one that she sees mirrored by friends and colleagues who are waiting tables or delivering packages. In the late '90s, the 35-year-old Gluskin says, "we had careers. We had trajectories. Now we have complicated lives. We're not unemployed, but we're underemployed." The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market. To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade. There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year. Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago. See link for full article

To: Bill who wrote (517495)	12/30/2003 6:56:54 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

LOL! You and I both know the flaw in those statistics. The only numbers worth looking at are non farm payrolls, seasonally adjusted. Even those don't tell the whole story because they don't speak to the quality of jobs being created (basically good jobs leaving, replaced by McJobs in Bush term). Anyway I'm moving on from this topic, but unless Bush turns this jobs mess around in 04 he is out. By then we have a 600 billion dollar deficit I fear so its a mixed blessing for whoever gets the presidency in 04, they will have to clean up the Bush mess. But at this point I would be happy to stem the fiscal bleeding and get some accurate statistics out of the government for a change. BTW armed guards on airplanes is a terrible idea and I'd love Bush to push for that. I'm sure most voters want to live in a police state. What a wierdo Bush is.