Unemployment isn't going to move because those caught in the "void" (those booted off unemployment, those who didn't qualify for it and new workers) aren't factored into the unemployment formula....
Yes, they are.
Table A-11 shows 1.2 million unemployed because they finished a temp job (not usually eligible for UI benefits), 1 million people unemployed because they quit (again, no UI), 1.26 million looking for their first job, and 3.3 million re-entering the labor force. Or better yet,
Table A-30 which breaks down unemployed with no previous work experience by age. The UE rate comes from a Household Survey, NOT from UI records. As it says in the
Technical Note to the Employment Situation: "
The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits."
The real unemployment rate is well above 12%.
Even if you added in everyone who says they want a job, regardless of how long since they actually tried to get one or whether or not they could take a job, that would only take it up to 11.3% So unless you're including people who have jobs as "not really employed" or people who don't want jobs, then I don't know how you're getting over 12%
The U-6 rate is 14.3% but we will never know the true unemployment rate as contract employees who lost their job and private business owners who lost their business will never be counted.
Of course they're counted, why wouldn't they be? Table A-31 shows 517,000 unincorporated self-employed and unpaid family workers (margin of error is huge, though)
In my opinion the government figures on unemployment are seriously misleading. First, they claim there are no more than 11 million people they consider unemployed, then dismiss about 7.5 million as "not really trying," "marginally attached," and "disgusted" and Voila! We only have 3.5 million truly unemployed.
Huh? Marginally Attached and Discouraged are not included in the 11.8 million unemployed, so you can't take them out. I have no idea what "not really trying is." If you're willing, available and trying to work, you're unemployed. If you're not trying to work, you're not. The object is to measure the labor market. People not trying to get a job are not in the labor market.
Furthermore, the government creates a class of "not seeking work" containing over 80 million people, at least 40 million of which are able to work, old enough, and may actually be seeking work but have not been hired yet.
No, if they were seeking work, they would be classified as unemployed (assuming they were actually available).
This class is supposedly based on data garnered from some method of "asking," but they admit they don't ask everyone, and I don't know who they select to ask and how they go about doing it. The Census? A statistical "poll" sampling a few thousand people?
Monthly sample survey of 60,000 households conducted by the Census Bureau.
Does this mean the people in this "class" are totally unwilling to seek work; that the next day they didn't go out to seek work? That if the reason for their current inaction disappears (i.e. the primary breadwinner loses his job or gets paid less, or they graduate from school, etc.) they will remain unlikely to seek work?
It means that for the month in question, they were not trying to work. When/if they start looking, they'll be picked up in the data for the next month.
I think government unemployment figures are pure propaganda with little relation to the reality of American unemployment.
But you've admitted you don't know how the data is actually collected and correlated. How can you decide they're wrong, if you don't even know what they do?
