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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (289788)	6/6/2006 5:38:27 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572202

The LA Times did a story about the Bush unemployment numbers about 18 months agio and said they were actually 10-14% higher. It was a front page story If they said the unemployment rate was something like 15-20% than they where using a very non-standard definition of unemployment. You can't compare those figures to the standard figures from any era. The rates under Clinton (and Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson etc.) would also all be much higher if you define unemployed to include any non-retired adult without a job or otherwise add in "discouraged" people who aren't seeking jobs, and/or "underemployed" people who want full time jobs but are only working part time.

To: American Spirit who wrote (289788)	6/20/2006 5:22:55 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572202

"It definately depends on the definitions. The U.S. uses the "U-3" measure, but there are others. Here is the current table A-12 from the BLS: U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force........................................................... 1.5 U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force.............................................. 2.3 U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate).................................................... 4.6 U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers.................................. 4.8 U-5 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers........................................... 5.5 U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers...................... 8.2 NOTE: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. For further information, see "BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures," in the October 1995 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. Beginning in January 2006, data reflect revised population controls used in the household survey." marginalrevolution.com So you could argue the "real unemployment rate" if 5.5%, or if you include part timers who want to be full time as "unemployed" (no reasonable IMO but yours may differ) 8.2%, but I don't see any reasonable way to get anywhere near 20%. Also remember all modern unemployment rates would have to be higher than the historically recorded rate if you change the measurement you use.