any economists out there have an idea as to what the actual unemployment figures are?

[predfan]

This month is an great example of how messed up things are, we lose jobs and the unemployment rate goes down.

[enlightenment]

1. Look here:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

This shows the Total unemployment rate (look at the last line)

[leftofthedial]

4. bls numbers are propaganda

cooked to the max and completely unreliable.

real economists elsewhere in the world don't use these numbers.

[enlightenment]

5. Thank you - are you an economist, btw?

I'm not - just trying to be helpful.

So sorry.

[izquierdista]

2. While you were posting

This article went up, which may answer your question: http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/news/economy/longterm_unemployment/index.htm?cnn=yes

Although the number of long-term unemployed they give, 1.4 million, seems low to me (maybe because I am one of them and know others in that category). Add to that the number of people working below their capabilities, in dead-end jobs just to make rent and you would have a lot more. Hard numbers are difficult to get because one of the tactics of the * Administration has been to put the fog machines into the Department of Labor.

[Extend a Hand]

3. Mish Shedlock frequently posts about the b.s. BLS numbers

They always seem to quietly revise down later...

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/02/jobs-contract-as-2007-job-growth.html

2007 Data Revised Much Lower

As I expected 2007 job growth revised lower.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew 95,000 per month in 2007, a slower pace than the 110,000 previously reported. The job market started 2008 on the wrong foot, with 17,000 jobs destroyed, the government said in the release. For all of 2007, employment rose by 1.137 million, the slowest job growth since 2003, when hiring picked up again after a "jobless recovery."

The level of employment in December 2007 was revised lower by 376,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis to 138.1 million, based on more up-to-date information from quarterly tax returns by businesses.

[ConcernedCanuk]

6. I'm not sure how they calculate "unemployed" in the USA

.
.
.

But I recently discovered that here,

"unemployed" are those collecting benefits.

SO

If you aren't getting benefits

i.e. - - flat broke

You ain't counted.