Unemployment Figures and the Inconvienent Truth Republicans and Democrats Don't Want You To know

I began researching this article to find out what the true number of jobless people actually is in the United States, and what I found has been startling to say the least. In January when the unemployment rate dropped from 9.8% to 9.4%, despite only 36,000 jobs being created in the private sector, the government told us it was because some 600,000 people had become discouraged, and quit looking for work, and of course the media, and the citizenry bought the lie, hook, line, and sinker.


Either there were 600,000 totally off their rockers insane, (after all it would be total insanity to give up your only source of income in this economy), 600,000 ultra-ultra right wing people in this country who would rather them and their families become homeless and starve during the winter so they could have a sense of pride about accepting government handouts, (in which case see off their rockers insane), or there was the truth the government didn't want you to know.

When a person loses their job, they apply for unemployment benefits from their state, and receive 26 weeks of unemployment benefits while they search for work, after that, depending on the unemployment rate in their particular state, they become eligible, and can receive an additional 3 tiers of unemployment from the federal government, which is paid out throught the state in which they live. These unemployment extensions can total up to 73 weeks of added benefits, for a total of 99 weeks of unemployment compensation, at the end of that 99 weeks the person has exhausted their benefits, and instead of counting that person as having exhausted their unemployment, (this would put the governement in a bad light considering the $789 billion stimulus spending, which we were assured would create jobs in the US), the US Department of Labor tells us they became discouraged and quit their job search. A pleasant euphamism for failure, not on the part of the individual, but on the part of those elected to represent us.

William Jefferson Clinton took over the Office of President the United States in 1993, amid a recession that his predescor, George W. Bush couldn't seem to get a handle on, and in 1994 passed a budget that cost him the majority leadership in the US House of Representatives, and the US Senate, but this budget is pointed to as the turning point of the recession by many people. Was this budget the reason the recession ended? Absolutely not, the recession ended because of the internet went into full swing, and people were able to find out what was actually happening beyond their own communities, and access to more goods. People started spending more money, and as a result the economy started to boom, booming to the point where 23.2 million jobs were added during the Clinton Presidency.

George W. Bush took office when Bill Clinton's second term was over, and with him came a total change in economic policies, gone were the days of balanced budgets, Social Security surpluses, and economic properity the United States enjoyed during the Clinton years, We had a new President, and a new ideology in Washington.

This new ideology included outscourcing of labor, (called offshoring), expansion of the US Government, and huge levels of deficit spending. During the Bush years we had 22 of 96 months months of declared recession in this country, with economists and government officials point to the housing bubble bursting as the reason for the second recession during Bush's tenure. I believe this to be a lie, or at the very least I believe these people to be wrong, I believe the housing bubble burst as a natural consequence of the globalization and offshoring policies first put in place by Clinton, then expanded upon by Bush.

By March of 2006 our economy was shedding some 300,000+ jobs a week, and this number rose steadily over the years since, until it reached a peak of 669,000 jobs lost during the week ending March 28, 2009. During the Clinton years 23.2 million jobs had been added to the economy this number fell to only 3,000,000 jobs created during the Bush years, (an average of 375,000 jobs per year), more jobs were being shed in a two week period in 2006 than had been created for the entire year, and by the time the housing bubble burst, the economy had already shed all the jobs created during the Clinton Presidency.

In 2008 the US economy shed some 21,757,000 jobs, which was many more than the 375,000 jobs created under the Bush Administration, and in 2009 under the Obama Administration the economy shed another 29,673,000 jobs, followed by 23,632,000 jobs in 2010, and 3,739,000 jobs through Febuary of 2011. Lets take a look at how that plays out on the actual jobless (unemployed), rate in this country.

Since January of 2008 our economy has shed a whopping 78,800,000 jobs, and only 2.3 million jobs have been created for a net loss of 76.5 million jobs during that time frame. Now we add on the 129,621,741 that the government assures us are in the workforce, and we come up with a total of 207,621,741 people who would normally be part of the workforce, and we come up with a real unemployment rate of 37%, quite a bit larger than the federal governments official number of 8.9%, and far more than is acceptable.

Many people blame the deficit for the huge numbers of people unemployed in the US, and they are partially right, but there would not be huge deficits if there were not huge trade deficits, the two are not mutually exclusive of each other, when you have huge trade deficits people are unemployed, and the government has to spend huge sums of money to provide basic services to people who would normally be providing for themselves, and of course this causes the deficit at the federal level to grow much larger than it would have if everyone in the country were working and part of the tax base. What worries me about the current situation is we have no manufacturing base to speak of in this country anymore, and are running on only a service based economy, what happens when even the people working in the service sector are out of work?

With the housing industry dead in the water, and the manufacturing industry moved from this to other countries how much longer can the service sector hold out with nothing to support it, but the service sector?
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