60/60 #40

Several statistics to review for this installment. CNN had this info-graphic in an article on unemployment last week. The article is a poorly written attempt to convince people that the unemployment situation is far worse than the 7.8% number that is officially reported. It worked on at least one of my friends - he bought it hook, line & sinker. The irony is that if you read the article with an open mind, and you look at what they "suggest" rather than "prove," they actually demonstrate that the official 7.8% number is too high!

If you add the top 2 numbers here you get 92%, meaning that 92 out of 100 Americans either "have a job" or "don't have a job AND don't want one." This is a simple concept. So is the definition of unemployed - it means someone who doesn't have a job but is actively looking for one. If you're out of work and not looking for a job, you're not unemployed. It doesn't even matter WHY you're not looking. If you have a job but don't like it, or are looking for a better one, you're also not unemployed (thought you may be under-employed, but that's a separate discussion).

Back to our random sample of 100 adult Americans, 92 of which either have a job or don't want one. What about the other 8?  Well, CNN points out that 5 of them want a job and are looking, and 3 (2.8) of them want a job but are NOT LOOKING.

The article attempts to suggest 2 things that should alarm us 1) Only 58.7% of adult Americans have a job, this is ALMOST the lowest level since 1980, so maybe the real unemployment number is much higher than 7.8%, and 2) there are millions of Americans who have given up looking for work, we should feel sorry for them and blame the President rather than holding them personally responsible for their own decision to quit looking.  In case you missed it, I think both these ideas are completely bogus.

Read the fine print in the info-graphic. The 33.6% "*includes retirees, students, and stay-at-home parents." These people are not unemployed! So at a minimum we have to agree that 92% of the country is not unemployed (because 58.7% have a job + the 33.6%...). So now we're only talking about the 8% that's leftover. Well, 5% of them are looking for work, so they're unemployed. That's the real unemployment number, in my book.

The 3% who are not looking might be lazy, or discouraged, or both, but they're not unemployed. If we allow them to blame anyone but themselves for their situation, we're just perpetuating this societal trend that everyone's a victim, no one should be held accountable or take personal responsibility for anything. That's just nuts. So thank you, CNN, for pointing out that the real unemployment is actually lower than the 7.8% the bureau of labor statistics is reporting.