Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
obviously, ace, there is a problem with that rate as there has been from the outset, and most anyone know this: the unemployed cease to exist after 6 months. this is one of the great acts of statistical heroism---"we" deal with structural unemployment by not counting it. so it hardly seems plausible that you'd know *what* the number of folk who are out of work is, since no-one else does.
one thing for sure, though---if the republicans persist in their anti-union nonsense, the unemployment rate will soon skyrocket. it'll take a few months until you can return to pretending those people don't exist.
and ace, so you know: what you take to be "common sense" is ideological. look it up.
|
It's a neat trick, unemployment numbers go down without actually increasing the number of people employed. No longer claiming unemployment? Don't qualify, benefits ran out? Ego, congratulations! You're no longer unemployed. I think I read somewhere that Reagan started having the Dept. of Labor calculate the stats this way. I honestly don't remember if that's true. I do remember he did something funny with the way they counted military service members. Reagan had really high unemployment, 10-11% if I remember, then suddenly in one quarter the number went down like 3-4%. Wasn't a real decrease in the number of people unemployed, just the way the numbers were calculated.
And yes if the auto industry does get killed off the balls really going to roll off a cliff.
Maybe Obama can come up with some way to play with the numbers. I know if someone is working several part time jobs because they can't find full time work we'll count each job, not each person. That should make the numbers look better. Hell Bush Jr. was recently singing the praises of some lady in the rust belt because she had something like five jobs trying to make ends meet. Yeah, I think that could really work. We run the numbers like this and unemployment numbers could hit all time lows.