Gallup claims BLS Reported UE Rate of 7.8% is Bogus

Oculus Spirit [98158]

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I've had a problem with the unemployment rate numbers

Oct 10, 2012, 10:31 AM [ in reply to Do like most on here and go with whichever agrees with you. ]

for years, perhaps decades. It's not anything approaching an accurate measure of anything. It's just the number of unemployed people looking for work and receiving benefits. It does not count tens of millions of people unemployed and NOT looking for work. And the more entitlements we offer, the higher the number of people who can choose not to look for work. All those millions who have recently applied for Social Security disability since the recession.....they are not figured into the unemployment rate. Toss in increased food stamp use and subsidized housing, and lowering the work requirements for welfare, and those people are also excluded from the number.

If every unemployed American stopped looking for work tomorrow, our "unemployment" rate would be zero.

What Gallup is suggesting is, in fact, a much better measure because it is the inverse of the labor force participation rate. It counts those people NOT looking for work as well. And if you look at the numbers, since July, 1.4 million people have simply left the labor force. They are not figured into the official unemployment numbers the politicians promote.