Here's the real unemployment rate
NEW YORK – The real unemployment rate for December 2012 is closer to 23
percent, not the 7.8 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, according to economist John Williams.
Williams, author of the Shadow Government Statistics website,
argues that the federal government manipulates the reporting of key
economic data for political purposes, using methodologies that tend to
mask bad news.
In the BLS news release Jan. 4, the unemployment rate for December 2012 was reported to have remained unchanged at 7.8 percent.
Williams recreates a ShadowStats Alternative unemployment rate
reflecting methodology that includes the “long-term discouraged workers”
that the Bureau of Labor Statistics removed in 1994 under the Clinton
administration.
The BLS publishes six levels of unemployment, but only the headline U3
unemployment rate gets the press. The headline number does not count
“discouraged” unemployed workers who have not looked for work in the
past four weeks because they believe no jobs are available
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