Critics Express Skepticism Toward Obama Administration’s Unemployment Data
There are those who seem to think that the unemployment advances being touted by the Obama Administration are mere statistical illusions. The state of the economy is improving in some ways, but the financial hurdles of our nation and American households are becoming cause or alarm among leading economists. Our national debt is a higher percentage of the economy than ever before, unemployment insurance has run low for many Americans, and American families are experiencing extreme financial uncertainty.
A recent Bloomberg article headlined “Jobless Rate Falls to 8.1%.”
And the Obama administration was quick to embrace this hairline improvement as hard evidence that their economic recovery plan is a monumental success.
But one of my Moneynews colleagues, James Davidson, differs in opinion. “What a farce. The jobs recovery is a statistical confection,” he commented in a personal email.
You see, James knows what most economists know — that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. And the “official unemployment rate” is a combination of all three.
This “official unemployment rate” has been manipulated throughout the years. The current version does not include discouraged workers (those who stop looking for work, or no longer can qualify for unemployment benefits) and the underemployed (those who take part-time jobs just to get by).
Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., stated in The Washington Times, “The official unemployment rate treats this subset of Americans, totaling as many as 88 million people, as if they just vanished . . . call it what it is, an accounting gimmick.”
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