C-SPAN new pubbie talking point

[bearfartinthewoods]

our un-employment rate is 6% while europe's is 11%

is it true and how do we counter?

[Braden]

1. Europe counts its prison population in unemployment figures

[terrya]

2. If we did the same as Europe...

How high would our unemployment be? Since, from my understanding, we have one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the world.

[HFishbine]

5. Over 9%

Sorry. Don't have a link, but it's the Bureau of Labor stat that includes those who have given up looking for work. (Still doesn't include the incarcerated.)

[Braden]

11. 9-11% would be my guess

consider we have one of, if not the worlds largest prison population.

at the End of the day "socialist europe" and America have the same unemployment numbers. Europe is just honest about it.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

3. omg

you've got to be kidding me. We don't include our prison population in our unemployment records? Holy shit, that means a couple million people go uncounted.

[HootieMcBoob]

4. also

our unemployment rate only counts people who are on the unemployment roles. It's doesn't count those whose unemployment compensation has run out and are still out of work -- the long term unemployed. I'm sure if ours was more reflective of the number of people who are actually "out of work" that it would be somewhere around 10%.

[LizW]

10. and

Even worse, it doesn't say a thing about the underemployed, people who take low-paying part time work with no benefits in order to have the flexibility to take care of their families, and people whose jobs have been shipped oversees or otherwise cut back, who take whatever job they can get to make ends meet.

[La_Serpiente]

6. The unemployment rate

is based on people who are "actively" looking for work, not those that are not.

And I am still not sure if incomes are rising. That is one of the most important things.

[JHB]

7. To sum up...

The new talking point is that our unemployment figures are lower than Europe's, without mentioning that our figures and their figures have different criterea: they measure two different things.

[htuttle]

8. 6% is the U3 rate

The U6 rate is about the same as Europe's.

What method does 'Europe' use for calculating unemployment (assuming it's uniform across the EU, which it may not be)?

[AP]

9. In Europe they count EVERYONE. In the US, they don't

Europe's economy is also to intertwined with Americas now and is suffering becuase America's is so bad.

Part of the reason for the EU is to give Europe and economy which can stay strong when the American economy goes down.

In this respect the EU is heading in the right direction, while the US is heading in the wrong direction.

Furthermore, the Bush Administration is intentionally creating unemployment to drive down wage rates as a gift to big business.

In Europe, they have no interest in that, and they make sure people have decent benefits so that big business doesn't benefit from unemployment, which is good. They take misery out of the equation. We don't do that in the US. In the US we're willing to let big business profit on misery.

[Cocoa]

12. republicans don't think our jobs situation is that bad

democrats see it as a big problem, so they're the ones to trust to create jobs.

I've been hearing that talking point too.

[bearfartinthewoods]

13. thanks

thanks
DU
for comin' through
like ya always do!

and for reminding me why i come here :grin:

[mbali]

14. We're not in Europe