August 01, 2003 October is Koufax Pledge Drive month
An update on "real" unemployment
Over in Atrios' comments, a few people wondered what the "real" unemployment numbers look like. Well, back in May, I did an analysis of such, where I looked at both individuals who were working part-time for economic reasons, e.g., couldn't find full time work, as well as those persons not included in the labor force even though they indicated they wanted to get a job. With this mornings' new unemployment data, I decided to re-run those "real" numbers.
Here's the update:
The red line represents the "official" BLS unemployment rate, that is, 6.2% as of July 2003. The gold line, the rate of unemployed plus those working part time for economic reasons. The blue line, the official unemployed and part-timers (for economic reasons), plus those individuals not in the labor force and desiring a job, but haven't actively searched in the past four weeks. And the green line represents all of the abovementioned together; official unemployed, part-timers, and those "not in labor force". That final number, which I consider "real" unemployment, is now at 12.3%, having increased a tenth of a percentage point from June to July, not dropping 0.2% as did the "official" rate.
I also think that it's important to look at other indicators of what Clinton called the "pain index". One issue is the number of people who have had to take on second (or third) jobs just to keep afloat. The BLS apparently gathers that data as in the employment situation report, so I'll look at that later on today to see if there have been noticable changes during the Bush II years.
Now this was something that needed to be done. Everybody talks about what the official rate doesn't take into account, but this is the first effort I've seen to calculate the real one.
I guess it's hard though. Maybe people working part time should only count partially? On the other hand, what about people underemployed, like a laid off engineer working at Burger King?
Posted by: David Weisman at August 6, 2003 12:51 AMThanks for putting this together. It's time people began discussing the REAL figures of unemployment. I've been out of the workforce for 2 years now with a perfect work history and 2 degrees. There are no jobs here. Period. Here are some toll free numbers so people can call the Congress and Senate. They should be talking about funding jobs and unemployment extensions instead of 87 billion for Iraq. 800-648-3516, 800-839-5276, 877-762-8762.
Posted by: Sue Larkin at September 29, 2003 01:57 PMI've been trying to figure out how to get that last set of numbers--those not in the labor force. I have insisted that the unemployment rate is close to what it was during "The Great Depression." Can you tell me where to get those stats. I want to write piece with the real info. Are there some more current numbers?Thanks, D
Posted by: Dani Adams at June 26, 2004 05:40 PM