Real unemployment likely around 10 percent or possibly higher

[Selatius]

There's an ex-government statistician who publishes a monthly news letter on the economy. In it, he attempts to cut through bullshit and present the information in a meaningful way that isn't obfuscated or whitewashed by accounting gimmicks or other trickery to make life "rosy" or make the ruling government look good.

You have to have a subscription, but when we look in the archive, some of the older news letters are free for all. The latest news letter free for all is April 2006. The news letters cover a broad range of topics all dealing with the economy, and you may or may not find them interesting, but it can give a fairly thorough snapshot of the economy.

Let's look at what he says about REAL unemployment. I'm going to bold what I find relevant to the discussion of jobs in America:

Thanks to ongoing seasonal adjustment shenanigans (shifting monthly seasonals as reporting progresses) and prior-period revisions, March's 211,000 new payroll jobs topped market expectations.

Further, the popularly followed seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate U-3 for March eased to 4.65% from February's 4.78%, well inside the published +/- 0.2% error margin. The unadjusted U-3 unemployment eased to 4.8% in March from February's 5.1%, and the broader U-6 unemployment measure eased to 8.5% from 9.0% in February. March's seasonally-adjusted U-6 rate also softened, easing to 8.2% from 8.5%. Including the long-term "discouraged workers" defined away during the Clinton administration, total unemployment remains roughly 12-percent. The household survey also showed seasonally-adjusted March employment (those people with at least one job) up by 384,000 versus a 183,000 gain in February.

For March, the payroll survey's seasonally-adjusted gain of 211,000 (177,000 net of revisions) +/- 108,000, followed a downwardly revised February gain of 225,000 (was 243,000). Annual growth in unadjusted March payrolls was 1.59%, slightly higher than February's revised 1.53% (was 1.58%).

March's payroll gain of 211,000 included a positive bias of 135,000 jobs in the "net birth/death" adjustment.

The latest report was against a background of falling annual growth in February help-wanted advertising, deteriorating employment trends as reported in the various March purchasing managers surveys, but improved new claims for unemployment insurance (see the respective sections).

Tell me, people. Do you honestly think it's considerably better now than it was in April? Maybe this is why our unemployment numbers always appears lower than our Western European neighbors--because our government lies about our figures.

You can find the report here:

http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/archives

Look for April's report, half-way down the page.

To further illustrate just how the government loves to fudge the numbers, look at the Consumer Price Index prior to Clinton changing its reporting methodology. Just click on the button at the top to go to the home page:



We see the government would like you to think the current CPI is at 3%, but we see the pre-Clinton reporting methodology puts it at twice that amount. No, it's not just you. Your wallet really is hurting. Notice the dip at the very end of the graph. That's due to gas prices dropping rapidly since summer. (Gee, I wonder why)

If you look to the right on the homepage, you will see Alternate Data Sources. Click the link there to see what the economy really looks like. (It's not as good as you'd expect, btw)

Look at what he asserts is the real inflation rate in the US:



Notice, again, the drop at the end in the graph denoting a decline in gas prices leading into the November elections.

[pkz]

1. you bet your azz it is

they never count the folks that have had their benefits run out.
Which totally burns me up, those are the folks that need the jobs the most.
They can paint a pretty picture but it fades quick.

[MountainLaurel]

10. Nor the folks

Who are only working part-time because that's the only job they could find.

[MadMaddie]

2. I think since * has been in office this is the worst fraud played

on the American people.....all of the offshoring, corporations moving to other countries......etc.....there had to be a downside....and our manufacturing has taken a huge hit in the last six years....anything artificially inflated always comes with a price..

[FogerRox]

3. KnR & Bookmarked

[IndyOp]

4. If unemployment figures *now* were reported as they were pre-Reagan,

our unemployment estimates would be double what we are told. I despise denial and lying in all forms.

:grr:

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. The numbers game.

You KNOW that Bush has been fudging with the numbers these last six year, and when the Democrats bring legitimacy by reviewing and upgrading or downgrading numbers to make them more accurate, it's going to look like everything got worse once the Dems took office. I hope the Liberal satirists try to preemptively strike to reveal this so that people can prepare for it when it happens.

[Selatius]

6. It depends on which Democrats control power in the new Congress

Note, for example, the Clinton revision to the CPI compared to the previous one.

[butterfly77]

8. Ain't that the truth...

[Selatius]

7. Kick for the afternoon crowd n/t

[lovuian]

9. I know the numbers are false

and the situation bad

[Greyhound]

11. This has been the case for quite some time and more than a few of us

bring it up regularly.

Every one of our governments economic numbers are so skewed at this point as to be useless, professional journals and reports now publish their own estimates alongside the "official" numbers so that their audience has something with at least a passing familiarity with reality to work from.

Unemployment 11% - 15%, inflation 8% - 12%, job growth is negative, real deficit is more than double the reported lie, etc.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

12. And there's the underemployed and the overemployed

Like the former aerospace engineer who does lawncare or the person who has 3 jobs to make ends meet. What statistics address issues like those? They just get tucked away and overlooked.