posted December 13, 2011 09:40 AM            

It appears...at first glance that the employment situation in the US is improving and more Americans are going back to work.

I say...at first glance because the government's unemployment number went down to 8.6% from 9% in the latest report.

But, that number is a phony, a fraud, a con.

There are almost 7 million fewer Americans with jobs since demoscats took over both Houses of Congress. When Bush left the White House in January 2009 the unemployment rate was 7.8%. In fact, O'Bomber and demoscats insisted on spending about a TRILLION US dollars on a phony Stimulus Bill to...as they said...make sure unemployment didn't go ABOVE 8%. The only thing demoscats managed to stimulate were the bank accounts of demoscat campaign contributors.

So, what's up with all the O'Bomber cheerleading among members of the drooling O'Bomber press and certifiable Kool-Aid drinkers?

If the same number of Americans were looking for work today as were looking for work in January 2009 the unemployment rate in O'Bomber's America would be 11%!

It's magic you see. When people get so discouraged about finding a job that they drop out, quit looking for work...THEN, those people are no longer counted among the unemployed by federal bureaucrats who work for O'Bomber.

With a rising population, new people reach the age each month when they would normally be looking for a full time job. The only way the unemployment number can go down is if even more Americans get discouraged, quit looking for a job and are not counted as "unemployed"....or...more Americans actually find jobs and go back to work...than the number of NEW people entering the job market.

So, "figures don't lie, but liars do figure".

How you process these "figures" determines whether or not you are rational or a member of O'Bomber's Kool-Aid drinking corps.

Wonkbook: The real unemployment rate is 11 percent
Ezra Klein
12/12/2011

Typically, I try to tie the beginning of Wonkbook to the news. But today, the most important sentence isn't a report on something that just happened, but a fresh look at something that's been happening for the last three years. In particular, it's this sentence by the Financial Times' Ed Luce, who writes, "According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent."

Remember that the unemployment rate is not "how many people don't have jobs?", but "how many people don't have jobs and are actively looking for them?" Let's say you've been looking fruitlessly for five months and realize you've exhausted every job listing in your area. Discouraged, you stop looking, at least for the moment. According to the government, you're no longer unemployed. Congratulations?

Since 2007, the percent of the population that either has a job or is actively looking for one has fallen from 62.7 percent to 58.5 percent. That's millions of workers leaving the workforce, and it's not because they've become sick or old or infirm. It's because they can't find a job, and so they've stopped trying. That's where Luce's calculation comes from. If 62.7 percent of the country was still counted as in the workforce, unemployment would be 11 percent. In that sense, the real unemployment rate -- the apples-to-apples unemployment rate -- is probably 11 percent. And the real un- and underemployed rate -- the so-called "U6" -- is near 20 percent.

posted December 13, 2011 09:59 AM            

Let's see, is 8.6% a higher percentage than 7.8%. Is 10.1% a higher percentage than 7.8%?

When Bush left the White House the unemployment number was...7.8%. The unemployment number under O'Bomber promptly topped 10% and about 7 MILLION fewer Americans are working today in O'Bomber's anemic economy than in the last month of the Bush administration.

The real...apples to apples comparison in unemployment numbers between Bush and O'Bomber show the true unemployment number to be about 11%.

Worse is the near depression number of 20% of Americans unemployed or under-employed.

So, is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC Chair-Woman a "Liar who figures" or...is she an irrational O'Bomber Kool-Aid drinker?