What is the REAL unemployment rate?

[Quixote1818]

If we are down over a million jobs since Bush took office and thousands of new people have moved into the United States how is it that the unemployment rate is at 5.5%? Does anyone know what the actually rate might be if you count all the people who quit looking for a job? Can anyone help me out? Thanks

[freetobegay]

1. what ever numbers this Administration puts out

Triple it & you will have a pretty accurate number.

[napi21]

2. I don't think they track it.

The illegals don't show up, nor do the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls. The only way I know of to feel the truth is to look around locally, wherever you live. You even hear the feeling on TV. When they talk about Ohio losing 200+ thousand jobs, their unemployment rate isn't that much higher than the rest of the country, but the citizens are pi**ed off.

[shraby]

3. I saw it someplace and it said 9.7 per cent

but I don't remember where so I can't prove it.

[mhr]

4. Estimates Run Between 10 And 20 Percent

Following your thoughts:

Net new jobs required every month, 125,000 just for population growth

Total US employed is now 1,000,000 less than in 2000

44 months of bush pain * 125,000 = 5,500,000 new jobs just for growth

So 1,000,000 known to be out of work plus 5,500,000 who could not find work equals at least 6,500,000 people that are down and out.

Personally, I have been unemployed for 50 months now.

[swag]

5. Between 10 and 12%, I think

at least that's what Challenger, Grey and Christmas estimated earlier this year.

That's doesn't figure in the huge number of would-be workers we have incarcerated on minor drug offenses, though.

[BillZBubb]

6. They used to keep several different series.

I think they stopped doing that. You can get some idea of the number of discouraged workers by looking at the "persons not in the labor force" numbers. I think discouraged workers have increased by several millions since the Chimp got selected. Check it out at:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm

[napi21]

7. Any idea how the BLS quantifies discouraged workers number?

I just looked at that number via your link. It appears to be about equal to 1994. (Thanks to GH Bush). How do they gather this number? I understand being off the unemployment rolls, but if they have no real contact, how would they know this?

[BillZBubb]

8. The numbers come from the monthly Household Survey.

In essence it's a poll of 60,000 (I think?) homes. They get the job status for those and extrapolate for the population as a whole. If you dig around the site you can find a description of the Household Survey (poll some homes) and the Establishment Survey (poll almost all businesses). The Establishment Survey is much more reliable for counting jobs, but doesn't give info on discouraged workers.

[alcuno]

9. Why not just call it 6,000,000 NET jobs?

%'s can get a lot of play. Why not just count jobs? To keep up with an expanding work force requires that 120,000 jobs be created each month. That's a conservative number.

If you multiply that out by 42 months, you get 5,040,000 jobs that needed to be created. Add in the 1,000,000 lost jobs and you are 6 million jobs in the whole.

[Zero Division]

10. And don't forget about UNDERemployment, as well

Nothing like burger-flipping with a college degree or several years of professional work experience. That's another problem I haven't seen covered to the extent that it should be.