Meteor Blades has a nice explanation up about how the Bureau of Labor Statistics computes those unemployment numbers you always hear about on the news. Turns out that they’ve been rejiggered over the years so that “5%” now doesn’t necessarily mean what “5%” meant 15 or 20 years ago. Also, there are various categories. U3 is what the media usually reports.
The BLS definition of U3 is “Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force.” The BLS categorizes U6 as “Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.”
Employed part time for economic reasons covers workers who would love to have a full-time job – who may need full-time work to pay all the bills – but can only find something part time. Marginally attached workers are those available for work, who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months, but who aren’t included in the unemployed count because they have not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the most recent BLS survey.
Which one might be “right,” depends on what you’re trying to learn from the statistics. U6 probably makes the most sense if you’re trying to figure out how the economy is treating people who want to work.
Finding out about the different categories was a light bulb moment for me. I had been doing collections and getting the feeling that people were having a rougher time than before, but the unemployment numbers were hovering around 4% or whatever. I was down on the ground without a good perspective, but even knowing that, the stats didn’t reflect the reality I thought I was seeing. The U6 numbers were probably a better correlation for me.
Nice to see with high unemployment and a deep recession that majority leader Harry Reid would not allow a amendment to be voted on today in this TURKEY of a stimulus bill that would have required all jobs created by the stimulus that workers be varified by the federal E-Verify program which is 99.6% accurate in weeding out illegal workers.
Estimates are as high possibly 300,000 illegal immigrants being granted jobs especially in construction while american citizens are unemployed. President Obama who during the campaign made a big deal out of turning off the job magnet for illegal workers has so far failed to make E-Verify a requirement for federal gmnt jobs,Bush made this a requirement only at the end of his failed presidency but never implemented it bigh shocker.
The politicians just looking out for the people I guess. Interesting Commerce Secretary pick by president Obama in republican Gregg. Gregg is a free trader at any cost and a huge supporter of the H1B visa program that brings in foreign workers high tech and other wise. He is always arguing to increase the number of H1 workers at the expense of american workers.
To repeat there is no shortage of high tech workers or constructiuon workers in our country. The shortage argument is a propaganda argument by the Chamber of Commerce and persons like Bill Gates whose always whining for H1 workers when the american technical workers association or whatever it’s called says there are no shortages.
Politics as usual. I do understand the politics of the Gregg pick but that doesn’t excuse it.