Jobbed: Numbers Much Worse Than Reported

Another month, another half million people lose their livelihoods. And another snow job comes out of Washington. In November, the official unemployment rate stood at 6.8%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) now says that number hit 7.2% in December, the highest level in 16 years.

That’s bad enough. But Captive American readers know not to trust government statistics, least of all the unemployment rate. The corporate media dutifully parrots the numbers handed to them by the BLS. But we dig a little deeper.

The all important “U-6″ number, which includes people who have been out of work for so long they have stopped looking and rocket scientists digging ditches 20 hours a week instead of … well … doing whatever rocket scientists normally do, makes that 7.2% figure look downright rosy.

The real unemployment rate? Try 13.5%. In November, it was 12.6%. That’s almost a full percent increase in one month and more than double the rise in the official number. The artificially cheery U-1 figure that the press faithfully reports increased by less than half of a percent.

Here is the link to the critical table on the BLS website, which shows all measures of unemployment.

Final depressing statistic: All in all, 2.6 million Americans were handed pink slips last year. Ouch.