General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnemployment rate is actually 42%...
Remember when that Orange Dodo bird said we should not believe the unemployment rate? Phony numbers...
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)42% is Obama's fault.
Yes, the two statistics can exist simultaneously in trumper land.
VMA131Marine
(4,159 posts)If you count children too young to work and retirees; I mean, technically, they are unemployed. We obviously need to send more 5 year olds to work in the coal mines.
progree
(10,948 posts)He said that twice in the first clip and once in the second clip.
No, they are not.
Please see: "How the Government Measures Unemployment" https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
(And by the way, it is also false that they only count people who are receiving unemployment insurance benefits. That's a bunch of crap that people, including way too many "progressives" repeat without ever checking on it. Search the above link for the work "insurance". Unemployment insurance status has nothing to do with how they count the unemployed in determining the national unemployment statistic. )
As for the 40% and 42% number he cited in the second video clip -- He used that number multiple times during the campaign, as well as "94 million" jobless Americans, another famous meme of his during the campaign.
(citing the Not In Labor Force number)
Not in Labor Force, Age 16+ https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000
Here is the 12 months of 2017 (in thousands):
2017: 94364 94248 94179 94407 95038 94743 94684 94759 94480 95395 95416 95512
Interestingly, its up by 1,148,000 since the inaugural month of January, so you don't hear very much about it from Trump or his Trumpanzees anymore. (1.148 million more "jobless Americans" to use Trump's campaign rhetoric)
I discuss this some more at
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=466755
Some other stats of interest:
Civilian labor force, 16 and over, thousands, https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11000000
Civilian noninstitutional population, 16 and over, Thousands, https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS10000000
Since January, the Labor Force has grown by only 879,000,
the Not in Labor Force number has grown by 1,148,000
while the civilian non-institutional population (the sum of the above two numbers) has grown by 2,027,000
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Do note that at least they aren't counting young children in any of these statistics -- they start counting at age 16.