Ummm, so you're operating under the assumption that all businesses support Republicans?
No I am not under the assumption that ALL business support the GOP. But there are certainly some very large employers that do.. the Koch Brothers, Adelsonsomething in Las Vegas and many more, and they could just as easily not report or over report to manipulate the numbers. After all that is what we are talking about.. one very large employer that has maybe manipulated the numbers they reported to another government entity.
But add to that other smaller conservative employers that simply dont report that they hired someone but certainly when they fire someone.. then well. We have seen many conservative business owners use their employees for their own political gain time and time again. There was the guy who was going to fire people because of Obamacare.... cant get more political than that if you ask me. It would not be a big leap to think that this type of guy would manipulate the numbers he reports to the big bad government run by his arch enemy...
Basically, if the Census guys did it, then why on earth would people dismiss that the private sector guys dont do it as well? A bit harder to bust the private sector guys after all, but why dismiss the possibility.. kinda short sighted and naive no? I mean... cant the private sector be corrupt and criminal?
And whats wrong with "survey?" How else do you propose this data be collected?
Well in my home country everyone is registered. You cant get a bank account or function in society without this registration and the corresponding number (a bit like your SS number). That also means that the state can easily register who is employed and who is not, and who is a student and so on. So society is divided up in the work force (anyone not out of the work force) and out of the work force (pensioners, children, home makers, handicapped that are registered as unable to work).
Out of those in the work force, you are divided into in work, not in work or student. To get any help from the state you have to provide this register number you get and based on this number you are put in one of the 3 boxes. So say you are employed. Everyone over 15 gets every year a tax paper. This tax paper states the various tax brackets, main deductibles and basic information like name, register number and so on. This you have to give to your employer, who then uses this information to pay your paycheck taxes directly to the state for you. This registers you in the "in work" box. If you fail to hand in the tax paper, then 60% is automatically taken out of your paycheck until you do.. nice incentive no?
but you are still in the "work box" because the tax man will get his money no matter what.
Unemployed are registered in the unemployment box because they receive some sort of aid from the state, and get that by registering at the local county.. again with the help of the tax paper and other information.
And students are registered as that because they are registered at a school and can receive scholarship type aid of which they pay taxes of course. Yes students can work too, hence why the are in the over all "in the work force" box and would most likely count as a part time employee.
All this is done pretty much automatically and makes the statistics relatively very accurate. Does some fall through the cracks, are there mistakes.. yea lol.., but it is no where near the guess work that the US unemployment numbers are. Those that fall through the cracks so to say, are mostly registered as not part of the work force, but these are in such small numbers that they wont influence the overall picture.
Also people dont "fall off" the unemployment numbers just because they are unemployed more than 32 months or whatever the number is in the US... that is your biggest problem imo as it creates a very false picture of the actual unemployment situation.
And the main benefit of this system... tax avoidance and cheating is damn hard but for the average person.. no major tax panic before the deadline because the tax man sends out their tax papers filled out with the information they have, and all you have to do is check that they are correct and correct them if needed and add stuff if needed. Doing my taxes takes me 5 minutes checking the information the tax man has sent me..