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Politics : The American Spirit Vs. The Rightwing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (730)	9/15/2004 6:43:28 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 1904

If you include household employment then the unemployment figures are well over 10% according to the LA Times. Sure you want to do that?

To: longnshort who wrote (730)	9/15/2004 11:20:59 PM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 1904

Bush's employment record is much worse than they admit. According to an in-depth analysis by the LA Times 6 months or so ago the real unemployment rate is around 10%. It is true that many people have been part-time, self or hardly employed simply because they have given up looking or are too pessimistic to look. Here's an interesting article to help explain. The Real Unemployment Rate BY LESTER THUROW IN THE FALL OF 1995, America's unofficial unemployment rate was hovering around 5.7 percent. But like an iceberg that is mostly invisible below the waterline, officially unemployed workers are just a small part of the total number of workers looking for work. If we combine the 7.5 to 8 million officially unemployed workers, the 5 to 6 million people who are not working but who do not meet any of the tests for being active in the workforce and are therefore not considered unemployed, and the 4.5 million part-time workers who would like full-time work, there are 17 to 18.5 million Americans looking for more work. This brings the real unemployment rate to almost 14 percent. Slow growth has also generated an enormous contingent workforce of underemployed people. There are 8.1 million American workers in temporary jobs, 2 million who work "on call," and 8.3 million self-employed "independent contractors" (many of whom are downsized professionals who have very few clients but call themselves self-employed consultants because they are too proud to admit that they are unemployed). Most of these more than 18 million people are also looking for more work and better jobs. Together these contingent workers account for another 14 percent of the workforce. In the words of Fortune magazine, "Upward pressure on wages is nil because so many of the employed are these `contingent' workers who have no bargaining power with employers, and payroll workers realize they must swim in the dame Darwinian ocean. "Like the unemployed, these contingent workers generate downward wage pressures. In addition there are 5.8 million missing males (another 4 percent of their workforce) 25 to 60 years of age. They exist in our census statistics but not in our labor statistics They have no obvious means of economic support. They are the right age to be in the workforce, were once in the workforce, are not in school, and are not old enough to have retired. They show up in neither employment nor unemployment statistics. They have either been dropped from, or have dropped out of, the normal working economy. Some we know as the homeless; others have disappeared into the underground illegal economy. Put these three groups together and in the aggregate about one-third of the American workforce is potentially looking for more work than they now have. Add in another 11 million immigrants (legal and illegal) who entered the United States from 1980 to 1993 to search for more work and higher wages, and one has a sea of unemployed workers, underemployed workers, and newcomers looking for work. These millions of job-hunters lead to a more human-scale result that everyone can understand. At 5 p.m. a midsized metal-ceramic firm posts job openings for 10 entry-level jobs on its bulletin board. By 5 a.m. 2,000 people are waiting in line to apply for those 10 jobs.