Did
you ever wonder why it seems as if less and less people are working or are
underemployed while the unemployment number continues to drop? It almost doesn’t
seem to make sense. With the rise in food stamp usage, decrease in average
household income, and increased usage of government services, the numbers don’t
add up
I’ve
recently read an article which nicely explains this discrepancy. David John
Marotta from Forbes states that the
actual unemployment rate of those not working is at 37.2 percent, not the 6.7
percent advertised by the Fed, and the Misery Index at over 14, not the 8
claimed by the government. He also stated the government isn't being honest in
how it calculates those out of the workforce or inflation, the two numbers used
to get the Misery Index figure.
He
said, “The unemployment rate only describes people who are currently working or
looking for work. Unemployment in its truest definition, meaning the portion of
people who do not have any job, is 37.2 percent. This number obviously includes
some people who are not or never plan to seek employment. But it does describe
how many people are not able to, do not want to or cannot find a way to work.
Policies that remove the barriers to employment, thus decreasing this number,
are obviously beneficial.”
He
went on to state, “Officially-reported unemployment numbers decrease when
enough time passes to discourage the unemployed from looking for work. A
decrease is not necessarily beneficial; an increase is clearly detrimental.”
Then
there is the Misery Index, which is a calculation based in inflation and
unemployment, both numbers the duo say are underscored by the government. He
said that the Index doesn’t properly calculate how Uncle Sam is propping up the
economy with bond purchases and other actions.
Also,
he shows how the Misery Index numbers have been skewed by the government. “These
tricks, along with a host of other dubious accounting schemes, underreport
inflation by about 3 percent,” they wrote, adding that the official inflation
rate is just 1.24 percent. Today, the Misery Index would be 7.54 using official
numbers,” they wrote. But if calculations tabulating the full national
unemployment including discouraged workers, which is 10.2 percent, and the
historical method of calculating inflation, which is now 4.5 percent, ‘the
current misery index is closer to 14.7, worse even than during the Ford
administration.”
One
last interesting observation I made: When the unemployment rate was higher, I
had trouble finding the web page that would accurately provide me with the
number. However, when I checked today, it was both easy to find and full of
great stories about our current administration. Knowing the pitiful poverty
numbers, I then went on to search for the Human Poverty Index in the United
States. Not only could I not find it on Google, but the first hit I encountered
was this endorsement for Obamacare? http://obamacarefacts.com/federal-poverty-level.php.
Then when I found some numbers, they were outdated by 2 years?
Can
anyone say collusion? However, it
does scare me how I could not find this information. Go ahead any try to find
it, you’ll hit the same brick walls I came across.
