Official Unemployment Is a Big Lie
Jim Clifton of Gallup, CEO of one of the largest public polling companies in the world, has published a severe indictment of the official unemployment data reported by the United States Department of Labor. Obama and Wall Street cite the 5.6% unemployment rate as a triumph of the American economic recovery, while conveniently ignoring the raw data behind that number.
There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”
So who is not counted in the Department of Labor’s headline unemployment number? At least 30 million Americans fall into the following categories:
- People who are paid at least $20 a week for odd jobs.
- The severely underemployed, like highly trained professionals working only 10 hours a week.
- Anyone who hasn’t looked for a job in the past four weeks.
That’s 30 million people unaccounted for in the government’s unemployment rate. With a population of about 320.25 million, that’s a nearly 10% underemployment rate on top of the official 5.6%.
According to Gallup, a “good job” requires at least 30 hours per week of work with a regular paycheck. Only 44% of the adult population has this sort of full-time job. Clifton argues that these are the jobs needed to revive the dwindling American middle class. He wants the media and people in power to start telling the truth to the American people.
I hear all the time that ‘unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it.’ When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth — the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real — then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t ‘feeling’ something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class.”
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