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

To: TimF who wrote (360670)	11/28/2007 6:46:02 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576880

The Unemployment Undercount "Why have we not extended the right to employment--the right most consonant with our national creed-- to all our people? One reason is that during times when official unemployment is relatively low, the problem tends to be overlooked. That’s because it is grossly undercounted. In order to be counted as unemployed, a worker has to have worked less than one hour in paid employment during the week of record and to be actively looking for work. The way the government measures unemployment obscures the problem everywhere, not only in the ghettos, but also in rural areas. Unemployment Statistics: Not the Whole Story, prepared by the National Jobs for All Coalition, graphically makes the point that the way government counts unemployment "whitewashes" the problem. Each month the Coalition posts new figures on official and hidden unemployment on its website (http://www.njfac.org/jobnews.htm). The total rate is typically twice the official rate. In 2000, when the official unemployment rate of 3.9% was the lowest in 30 years, 5.5 million people were counted as unemployed. Excluded from the official count were 3.2 million people who worked part-time because they couldn’t find full-time work. Another 4.4 million people wanted jobs but were not counted because there were not looking for work. These two categories amounted to more than the number of people counted as unemployed. In addition, about 17 million people were essentially underemployed—working full-time, year-round for less than the four-person poverty level. Today, unemployment is an acute problem, but it is a chronic ill, one that is always with us, always causing hardship to millions of people. By underestimating the problem of unemployment, we mute the public outcry that could demand a solution. At times like the present, the public becomes aware of the problem. Why? It’s not only because the magnitudes are larger; it’s also that increasing numbers of the better organized and more vocal segments of the population are affected. (Witness Leaning on Their Parents Again, an article about well-off parents obliged to help their formerly well-paid and steadily employed adult children, New York Times, 7/19/03). It is times like these that are ripe for solutions to the problem that is always with us. This is the time for a Presidential aspirant to articulate a plan that could inspire our people to vote for An America that Works." njfac.org