t r u t h o u t | America's 20 Percent Unemployment Rate
From Leanne:
I am SO glad to have found this article. Why is it that our government refuses to tell us the real truth? Look around and you KNOW that a 8.1% unemployment rate just cannot be a truthful assessment of what is really happening!
Please, click through and read this entire article! But here is an excerpt that should get your blood boiling!
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"Nevertheless, an honest man would count anyone who would like to work as unemployed. The U.S. Government compiles data on these uncounted unemployed Americans, but does not mention it in news releases. It can be found in Table A-12 on the Department of Labor's website where it shows an unemployment rate of 16% for Feb. 2009.[2] It explains why these unemployed Americans are not included in their official unemployment rate:
"Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule."
"In typical government doublespeak, it notes they are not "looking for work" but want work and "have looked for work in the recent past." As a result, these people who want to work are not counted as unemployed. This 16% figure does not include a few million Americans who excluded by the survey parameters for these reasons..."
"These games allow the U.S. Government to report a current unemployment rate of just 8.1%, even though its own data of unemployed Americans who want to work indicates an unemployment rate of around 20%. This should concern all Americans because the unemployed burden society by collecting welfare or resorting to crime. A recent surge in Social Security Disability claims indicates another path the desperate unemployed are seeking."
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As a self-employed person, working from home on the Net, I am fairly certain that I still fall *somewhere* in these "uncounted" unemployed persons. I do want to make a comment on this:
GET YOUR OWN BUSINESS GOING. You CAN do this.
IMHO, this is the only safeguard you've got. My current work status has been hit with several deadly blows, by clients who've either severely cut back, or literally have gone fact up. But I have managed to keep work coming in, although at a *much* lowered rate. NO bennies, peeps, but the rent is paid.
I do not rely on governmental things anymore, and in fact, have not since the recession of 2000-2001... in which I was part of the IT bubble burst. Just keep on working, folks. But don't factor in, any "bennies" that the government so kindly "gives you." And above all, I try to live a life of gratitude.... although many days, anything you do or believe, is at an hour-by-hour pace.
