Unemployment Rate Who is Right?
CBO Unemployment February 2012
There is a saying that if you put 3 economists into a room to give you an opinion they’ll leave the room with five, the unemployment rate is just that perfect example of such a situation.
The Obama Administration says the unemployment rate is around 8.5%, Donald Trump said 20%, the supposedly unbiased Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently said 15%. Basically everyone has an agenda in the reporting of the unemployment figures. So who is right?
The CBO said in its latest report that the unemployment rate is about 15%.
Donald Trump said in December the rate was at 20%
Real unemployment is 20%. We must simplify the tax code and start making our own products again to bring our jobs back from overseas.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2011
It appears that Donald Trump must have been referencing the U-6 unemployment number. Which in December stood at 15.2 percent. It is likely that he was also adding in the number of workers that are considered to have fallen out of the labor market.
Key to a true economic recovery
The economy has been on shaky ground with little to no growth on a quarterly basis. The key however is being able to grow employment in a healthy way. Something that Rick Santelli pointed out that while the officially announced U-3 unemployment is shrinking so is the number of people participating in the work force.
Marc Cenedella the founder of The Ladders shares with us that the jobs growth rate in the last three years is zero.
0% growth in labor force past 3 years (vs. 1% growth annually since 1982 previously) is real story of this recession. pic.twitter.com/ZJcFRWCq
— Marc Cenedella (@cenedella) May 4, 2012
We also have a reports of the total number of unemployed at nearly 30 million and a more dire 86 million from CNN Money when you take into account people who have given up looking.
Sound off below, which color glasses are you using to figure the unemployment rate and total number of unemployed?
You can read the Full CBO report below: