Unemployment inaccurate?

Albeadle33 must have taken the Patriots +3, Gronkowski was clearly held for a pass interference which prevented him from catching that pass from Brady.

Back in the late 1970s I did an expose on various government statistics including the unemployment stats, and the consumer price index, and the housing starts stats... they led to many of the major changes instituted by the government.

I coined the phrase "phantom unemployment" in my reports for CBS and The Washington Journalism Review to discuss "discouraged workers" and why they were not included in the count of the unemployed.

But what is really revealing is that the government's unemployment numbers are based on household surveys by the Census Bureau -- and they are not a count of those receiving unemployment benefits, or government reports about layoffs or hires, or anything else. Back in the 1970s the government surveyed 40,000 households each month (I don't know what the current figure is) and the opportunity to skew the numbers with the households surveyed was huge.

I stumbled upon the "phantom unemployment" phenomenon when I was reporting on the Smith Corona (the typewriter company) layoff in Cortland, New York. Smith Corona employed more than 40% of the workers in Cortland but the three week layoff failed to show up in the unemployment stats for Cortland or for New York State. Why?

Well, the Census Bureau conducts its survey in the week containing the 12th of each month. The Smith Corona layoff started the day after that "reporting week" and ended the day before the following month's "reporting week" thereby escaping the statistics.

Why would they plan a layoff that way? The obvious reasons is what I alleged. Would Smith Corona want to be held responsible for a huge increase in the unemployment rate in Cortland County or in New York State? Instead of an unemployment rate of 40+% during the layoff the "official rate" was only about 5%.

Remember: there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The current unemployment statistics fail to include all the people who haven't found jobs after their benefits ran out.

Over the years the unemployment statistics basis has been changed. So the old statistics are no longer comparable to todays statistics.

Completely false.

If a person is unemployed, has looked for work in the past four weeks, and is available for work, they are counted in the unemployment rate.

A worker's benefits status doesn't factor in at all. Where did you get your wrong information?

It was ruled an uncatchable ball, so the interference is ignored. The NFL confirmed the call yesterday

I was fired and appealed NOT being able to draw unemployment last November. In March of this year, I won my appeal. A month later I got a letter stating I had to re-appeal my victory. However, I re-appealed two days late and was denied unemployment benefits.

I didn't understand that I had to re-appeal to get my benefits a month after winning my original appeal. Something seems wrong with the system to me.

haha, I was just scrolling down and this caught my eye for some reason and a quick thought occured to me PJ, if we were to make this statement a binding condition on most of what is written on the LVA end a in a ? then PJ?

J

HUH? was that the army or something? Makes no sense

J

The source of the Posts article was not working for the govt in the months leading up to the election. I guess the author felt that was not an important point. Lets cut him some slack....the Post doesn't have much of a fact checking policy when it comes to attacking Democrats. Any fabricated data the source may have concocted in his tenure would not have been substantial enough to move any numbers.

But, hey, there's plenty of time for Daryl Issa to get to the bottom of it....right after Benghazi-gate, fast-n-rididulous scandal , the IRS phony scandal, and the 50th vote to overturn Obamacare