The government reports that the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent in October.
The government's broader measure of unemployment, sometimes referred to "true unemployment," is still at 17 percent. There was drop of 318,000 in the number of people employed part time but who would prefer full-time work. The drop resulted in a slight decrease in true unemployment from 17.1 to 17.0 percent.
The higher, more inclusive, unemployment number is buried in the government's monthly report as "U6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force" in "Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization." Unlike the "official" unemployment rate, the U6 number includes both marginal and part-time workers as the "true" or "real" unemployment level.
As explained in the video available here the number of people underemployed is equivalent to:
- The 50 largest U.S. companies (by number of employees) laying off all of their workers, hiring new workers, and then laying them off too.
- More than all of the employees in the U.S. manufacturing and retail industries.
- Everyone who currently has a job in these twenty-seven states: Alabama, S. Carolina, Kentucky, Connecticut, Oregon, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, Utah, Arkansas, Nevada, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, W. Virginia, New Hampshire, Idaho, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming.
This is once again a good time to recall President Obama's promises about his boondoggle stimulus package:
- When pushing for passage of his $800 billion so-called stimulus package, President Obama proposed five different goals over eight weeks for his boondoggle and finally settled on a claim that his bailout would create three to four million jobs.
- Team Obama used scare tactics to get the Democrat-controlled Congress to give him the massive spending bill dressed up as a stimulus. They assured us that without Obama's bailout the unemployment rate would reach 9 percent, but if Congress passed his boondoggle, unemployment would peak at 8 percent.
The unemployment rate scare tactic was contained in Obama's "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." At Innocent Bystanders, Geoff, has plotted the actual unemployment rates on Obama's prediction chart. Where are the jobs?
As we all unfortunately know, despite Team Obama's assurances unemployment not only surpassed 8 and 9 percent, it actually broke 10 percent.
When will Obama admit that his misguided tax, spend and borrow policies have not done the job and are epic failures? We may have so far avoided a double dip recession under Obama. But sadly, in less than two years, we have now seen true unemployment rise above 17 percent three times during Obama's presidency.
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