Will now find out what the real unemployment numbers...

[coco77]

are since the dems won and will be able to look at the numbers...What percentage of people do you think are unemployed?

[graywarrior]

1. 15%

[coco77]

4. why do you think it's that high...

[graywarrior]

9. I don't think they include people like me who have not been on the unemployment rolls

for years. We pick up jobs here and there, and then don't work for awhile. I haven't worked since August. We manage to live on less. Course we have no health insurance and drive a 10 year old car.

[coco77]

16. I know people who are in your situation...

and others who have been looking for three years...and others have lost their homes...

[POAS]

2. 7%

[coco77]

7. That seems too low...

If you have been looking at the news over the past sick years.There were layoffs all over the country in the the thousands,outsourcing, foreclosures, increased homelessness, and other events that would have had to some type of effect on the employment numbers. Some don't realize it because of the area they live in or other factors...

[POAS]

28. Don't forget

that they only count those actively seeking work and also don't count the underemployed.

Couple that with the fact that active duty military are counted as part of the workforce (I think this started with Reagan) and you have the fudged numbers being used today. Those factors are not likely to change so the TRUE rate of unemployment will continue to go unreported.

Probably the true number is about 15 but the revesed number to be reported next year won't get that high.

[Tempest]

27. The official U6 rate is higher than that

And the U6 rate doesn't include tens of millions of Americans who have given up the job search and are not counted in any U rate.

[butterfly77]

29. The same for the crime rates and other statistics..

[leftofthedial]

3. probably about 15%

with another 5% or so permanently not looking

[MazeRat7]

5. I'm thinking somewhere between 5-7%. (n/t)

[ThomWV]

6. My Guess? ~ 11%

[HereSince1628]

12. I suspect it's at least there.

There are reportedly a couple million 50-60 year old men out of work and too discouraged to try to find it.

[coco77]

19. What do you think they are doing to survive...

[HereSince1628]

24. Many of them living off of spouses and the equity in their homes and

retirements. Sad but true. They're tremendously depressed many with no health care to help with treatment.

Who wants to go from 50K a year to 12K, with all the associated decline in social status, loss of seniority, and destruction of self-esteem

[ThomWV]

22. You've Got To Wonder How Many Of Them Have Stacked Up In 6 Years

My number is about three times the official estimate, so it could easily be low. You give a good source of additional real unemployed as opposed to counted unemployed.

[butterfly77]

30. These people are really hatefilled...

no safety net,can't file bankruptcy,no unemployment benefits if you can't find work,no affordable housing,people coming across the borders in large numbers and this dumbass in the white house believes that he is some wonderful leader, there are many things that are wrong with this country and dumb rich punk in the whitehouse doesn't have a clue...

[SoCalDem]

8. Got to factor in all the folks who LOST good jobs

and instead have taken 2 or 3 shitty jobs ..

THAT's holding down the numbers..

and they need to factor in the people who have lost benefits, and STILL are unemployed..

[Lars39]

13. Or the people who were self-employed contractors whose client list dried up overnight.

They're not even eligible for benefits. :(

[SoCalDem]

15. and all the "casual labor", part timers who don't qualify

We need a national hotline for people to call when they lose a job..

[coco77]

20. What are they doing now...

[Lars39]

26. Looking for work, like everybody else.

Without having any help other than what family and friends can give them. And generally jumping on the first job they're offered, even if it is a crappy little 2-bit job from hell.

[fasttense]

10. I would really like to see the underemployed numbers

People with degrees working as tellers and maids, people holding two and three jobs just to make a living. People over fifty having to start new careers at the bottom rung because most of the work for their profession was shipped to another country. I bet if you added those numbers into the unemployed numbers it would be near 25% of the population.

[SoCalDem]

14. Start with foreclosures and divorces

Lurking in those statistics are a lot of under/un/employed people

[coco77]

11. Does anyone believe that they have destroy some ...

of the info so that the true facts can't be found on paper...

[SoCalDem]

18. More likely, they just keep changing the criteria so there's no adequate

way to compare..

Like they do with the CPI..

They exclude things that people HAVE to buy, and yet those are the very things that keep going up like crazy.

[coco77]

23. These have to be the most corrupt people to ever..

Suppose to be running this country, they are lying about every department they are running and the numbers have been so fixed I can see why Charlie Rangel is saying that he has to look at the books because he knows they have f--ked up this country in every area.

[GreenTea]

17. When Bushco stopped counting the unemployed & only the people still eligible

to collect unemployment insurance and only those registered as unemployed...there's millions who aren't being counted, who don't have a job and/or gave up registering once the their benefits ran out...That's why Bushco changed the way it's reported to pretend his stagnant economy & tax cuts are working...Complete bullshit!

I would think around 12 to 15 % maybe more.

[originalpckelly]

21. I think the numbers are correct, but they don't what kind of crappy jobs...

people have.

[roamer65]

25. The most accurate measure is the U6 unemployment rate...

put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They really try to hide it at their website, thus the crypto URL:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
As you can see, it went up last month, from 8.0 to 8.1 percent. All this talk of unemployment going down is nonsense. U6 measures unemployment, those who have fallen off unemployment insurance and those who have part-time but really need full-time.

[EST]

31. Here's the deal.

When they call and ask do you have a job, it means any kind of job, even if you were an aeronautical engineer who is now doing baby sitting to keep from starving.

If they hear that you are unemployed, they ask if you have had any real interviews in the past month. If you answer "no," you are not counted as unemployed.

It's nothing more than a scam to inflate their political puffery.

They do not send out workers into really sorry areas, where everybody is unemployed, except prostitutes and drug dealers, and almost all the polling is done by phone--what do you suppose that does to the picture?

The real numbers are not known, but the most accurate numbers, according to people I trust, are between 15 and 21 percent.

[butterfly77]

32. That sounds about right ...

but you will never hear the media report it.