Real US unemployment rate at 16 pct: Fed official

[Freeper]

Purveyor  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Aug-27-09 12:29 PM
Original message
Real US unemployment rate at 16 pct: Fed official
   
The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday. "If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart. He underscored that he was expressing his own views, which did "do not necessarily reflect those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee," the policy-setting body of the central bank.

Lockhart pointed out in a speech to a chamber of commerce in Chattanooga, Tennessee that those two categories of people are not taken into account in the Labor Department's monthly report on the unemployment rate. The official July jobless rate was 9.4 percent.

Lockhart, who heads the Atlanta, Georgia, division of the Fed, is the first central bank official to acknowledge the depth of unemployment amid the worst US recession since the Great Depression.

Lockhart said the US economy was improving but "still fragile," and the beginning stages of a sluggish recovery were underway.

"My forecast for a slow recovery implies a protracted period of high unemployment," he said, adding that it would be difficult to stimulate jobs through additional public spending.

"Further fiscal stimulus has been mentioned, but the full effects of the first stimulus package are not yet clear, and the concern over adding to the federal deficit and the resulting national debt is warranted," he said.

More...

AFP: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.4452bed82adf3124e5884678e236d7fb.361&show_article=1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6403257

SemiCharmedQuark  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Aug-27-09 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
1. Sorry Breitbart. You do not get to measure unemployment one way for Bush and Reagan and another way
   
for Obama, much as you would like to.

I would think that you seekers of truth would prefer the truth to be in the open.

scheming daemons  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Aug-27-09 12:38 PM
Response to Original message
7. Only matters if you are going to use the "real" numbers when looking at Bush's term....
   
...and all past terms.


You have to use the same numbers all the time, or they mean nothing.

Clinton changed the rules on how unemployment is measured.

[crockspot]

WTF does Breitbart have to do with it? That's a wire news story. DUmbasses.

[jukin]

Two different things.  When the unemployment is going up the people going off the rolls (750,000 in the last month alone) these people are under represented. When employment is going up then the rolls get bigger as more people think they can get a job come into the market and thus over represents these same people.

[JohnnyReb]

I know several people that are unemployed....and are not looking for a job. Ain't gonna look for a job as long as "The One" and democrats keep extending their unemployment benefits.



 

[AllosaursRus]

Hell Rush brought this up the last time they released the numbers! Where have these people been, Uranus?

[Chris_]

Hell Rush brought this up the last time they released the numbers! Where have these people been, Uranus?

Uhhh, that's affirmative, Houston.

[Rebel]

SemiCharmedQuark  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Thu Aug-27-09 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
1. Sorry Breitbart. You do not get to measure unemployment one way for Bush and Reagan and another way
   
for Obama, much as you would like to.

Maybe a mole needs to point this FIRST paragraph out to the idiot.

The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday.

[GOBUCKS]

I think they should also count the people who have jobs, but don't make as much money as they would like.

Even with a commusocialist in the White House, dems love to see data suggesting catastrophe.