Jobless Count Skips Millions (Real rate is 9.7%)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs29dec29,1,6261515.story?coll=la-home-headlines

<snip>

The nation's official jobless rate is 5.9%, a relatively benign level by historical standards. But economists say that figure paints only a partial — and artificially rosy — picture of the labor market.

To begin with, there are the 8.7 million unemployed, defined as those without a job who are actively looking for work. But lurking behind that group are 4.9 million part-time workers such as Gluskin who say they would rather be working full time — the highest number in a decade.

There are also the 1.5 million people who want a job but didn't look for one in the last month. Nearly a third of this group say they stopped the search because they were too depressed about the prospect of finding anything. Officially termed "discouraged," their number has surged 20% in a year.

Add these three groups together and the jobless total for the U.S. hits 9.7%, up from 9.4% a year ago.

No wonder the Democratic presidential candidates have seized on jobs as a potentially powerful weapon.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

1. But look, the stock market is up!

Too bad people can't feed their families with stocks eh? 9.7%, that's about 1 in 10. That means pretty much everyone knows somebody who is unemployed. (for me that person is me... and about 20 other people) Keeping up the illusion of "the economy is improving" for another 10 months is gonna be a tough sell.

[Selwynn]

2. The far, far more interesting paragraph is this one:

In every election since 1960, the party in the White House lost when the unemployment rate deteriorated during the first half of the year. If the rate improved, the party in the White House won.

[Moderator]

3. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=289301