News Underemployed Americans at 15.8%

[rainforests1]

U.S. Payroll to Population Rate 44.1% in January
So much for our great economy. Why does the government lie about something like this?

 

[flyingsnail]

In what sense is the government lying? All the things Gallup is tracking are tracked more rigorously by government agencies, for example, the BLS tracks under-employment (see U-6):

Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

All the Gallup numbers show that the economy has improved a lot over the last few years.

 

[rainforests1]

If a person quits looking for working they basically disappear. They're not considered unemployed anymore. How is that honest?
Nearly Half of America Lives Paycheck-to-Paycheck - TIME
This was just last year. A better indicator of what the economy is really doing, and it's not pretty.

 

[flyingsnail]

If a person quits looking for working they basically disappear. They're not considered unemployed anymore. How is that honest?

As I showed above, the government has a few different measures of employment. The U-6 measure includes so called "marginally detached" workers which are people that aren't working, aren't looking but report that they would like to work. It also includes people that are working part-time but would prefer full-time work. The U-3 measure, which is what is typically reported in the news, doesn't include these people.

So if the government tracks and openly reports this information...where exactly is the dishonesty?

 

[rainforests1]

As I showed above, the government has a few different measures of employment. The U-6 measure includes so called "marginally detached" workers which are people that aren't working, aren't looking but report that they would like to work. It also includes people that are working part-time but would prefer full-time work. The U-3 measure, which is what is typically reported in the news, doesn't include these people.

So if the government tracks and openly reports this information...where exactly is the dishonesty?

The media gets their false information from some source. If it's not the government, who is it? I've never seen a President be honest about employment in any speech, so I think you can blame them.

 

[Mischief]

So if the government tracks and openly reports this information...where exactly is the dishonesty?

Rainforests prefers to believe that everything is a conspiracy.

 

[rainforests1]

That's another thing about our economy you have to consider:$18 trillion in debt and rising. Eventually you default. Greece is in much worse shape at the moment but with new leaders that may actually care for their citizens they may be in better shape within 5 years than the United States. I don't think the United States is in much better shape than Europe at the moment.

 

[flyingsnail]

Debt, especially when its largely owned by foreign nationals/governments as is the case of the US, doesn't matter that much...even if the level of debt became a problem the US could just inflate its way out of it which is the beauty of having your own currency. In some sense its already doing this, notice how low rates are on government debt?