Real Unemployment Figures Double Those Reported By Labor Department
7.6% is actually over 15% - just 9% shy of figure at height of great depression
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.comFriday, February 6, 2009
The national media frenzy about the U.S. unemployment rate shooting up to 7.6% doesn’t even do justice to the actual unemployment figure, which in reality stands at around 15 per cent, just 9 per cent shy of the unemployment total at the very height of the great depression.
Current methods of tallying unemployment figures do not even take into account workers who have stopped looking for work. If a worker becomes discouraged after being unable to find a job and stops looking, they disappear from the official record.
Actual unemployment figures are therefore 5 to 10 per cent higher than publicly stated by the Labor Department, meaning the real unemployment figures stands at roughly 15 per cent.
During the great depression, where unemployment figures were more accurately inclusive of the true unemployment rate, the figure for the years 1923-29 was 3.3 percent before accelerating to to 15.9 per cent in 1931 and peaking at 24.9 percent in 19
If the Labor Department were massaging the numbers to an even greater extent, which certainly isn’t beyond question in light of fragile economic confidence, the real unemployment figure could be anything up to 20 per cent, which is rapidly approaching a comparable rate to the very worst period of the great depression.
Judging by Canada’s unemployment numbers, the real U.S. figure could be up to double that announced, even before we take into account how jobless people looking for work are not counted.
Compared to the stated U.S. job losses of 600,000, Canada has lost 129,000 jobs in January. The population of the U.S. is around 300 million compared to 30 million in Canada. Therefore in comparison with the U.S., Canada should have only lost around 60,00 jobs. The figure of 129,000 means that Canada’s unemployment figures are over double what would have been expected. Either that or the U.S. figures are being artificially under-reported.
Newsweek’s Dan Gross explains the myth behind the unemployment figures in the video below.
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