We’ve all read over the weekend that the unemployment rate rose from 9.7% to 9.8%. But the actual unemployment rate may be closer to 17%. Meteor Blades from DailyKos writes:
“The once-all-but-ignored alternative measure of unemployment and underemployed – U6 – rose from 16.8% to 17%. That figure includes jobless Americans who have become discouraged and those working part-time but desire full-time jobs, a total of 26.5 million. Without the government’s economic stimulus, which was fiercely opposed by Republicans, the situation would be far worse. But the latest figures give more credibility to those economists and other observers who have long questioned whether the stimulus as currently constituted can sustain a recovery.”
Read the rest of this piece here.
Further, things are far worse than the government or the mainstream media have let on. Bobswern of DailyKos has a must-read, titled: “10 Stunning New Truths On Wall St., Economy, Jobless.” He writes:
“We are now, officially, witnessing the greatest percentage of job losses this country’s experienced since the Great Depression, per upcoming revisions to be formally posted by our government in February 2010.”
Tags: bureau of labor statistics, economy, great depression, job losses, unemployment, unemployment benefits
[...] other news, the U6 has unemployment figures at 17.5%, as mentioned here last [...]