Do You Believe the ACTUAL Unemployment Rate is 7.9%

It's common sense.

Well, since Obama's in office, you really can't count allllllllll the people out of work. Bush is responsible for all those before Obama was sworn in, and most of them during Obama's first term, and his 2nd term is only just starting, so it's really too early to tell how many are Bush's fault and how few might be someone else's fault.........Maybe.

more like !2 or 13.%.

No, this particular lie is so apparent to most people. I, myself, in the past year have known
many people that were laid off due to economy, jobs shipped overseas, account loses by employers, and many who were denied unemployment (through no fault of their own). Some couldn't find any job and benefits ran out or the length of time (months or weeks) for benefits to be paid were shortened by their states.

This one is truly sad. A conscientious, hard-working friend was laid off a job after being employed 10 years there. He had worked in construction most of his life. He was divorced and supporting 2 young daughters. He lost his medical benefits, of course, and had high blood pressure. His unemployment benefits run out.

I, later learned that he couldn't afford the community health clinic with the sliding scale ($20 per visit plus prescription) that I had urged him to go to. He died suddenly of a stroke leaving his two heartbroken little girls fatherless. His death was so unfair.

Now the reason I voted this way is because with the recent dumbassed move that Obummer just made with the illegals that means that 11 million new people became part of the system, unemployed, or both.
Lets still base my opinion on the 23 million that used to be unemplyed, that figure is slightly lower, and now that these illegals are "legal" according to Obummer that means that there are 34 million out of work and that figure is slightly lower..and the unemployment rate that was at 7.9% just rose with those added 11 million to over 8.5% or more.
I am still wondering where the hell Obummer is going to get the money because surly all 11 million are not going to qualify under the conditions Obummer is asking.

Who is reporting this information? If you have any common sense you can look at the source and know these numbers are lies.

The government manipulated unemployement figures to assist Obama in his re-election. The labor participation rate is lower than ever. More people have given up and more people have become permanent wards of the state. All democrats need to do is make sure 51% of the population depends on government assistance and they wil be in power forever. Liberty,

Well considering the Government owns the press and everything else right you are at the mercy of whatever they say, and since they are corrupt, I'm sure the numbers are also...

fake numbers Its way higher. try doubling it and its still higher.

Those of us who have suffered through the Obama "jobless recovery" know all to well what the real unemployment situation is. It is near hopeless except for the most entry level and low skilled labor opportunities.

I think there is too much data available (beyond what MSM provides us) to believe the official stats.

there is no way of knowing truly how high it is but that # is how many are receiving help from it

I wish it was only 7.9% as I am sure every one in the world does. We are an economic powerhouse and the healthier Americas economy is the healthier the world economy is.

Of course it isn't accurate. it's a Dept of Labor "cooked" number.

Nope...the 7.9% are the ones who are collecting unemployment
does not include those who are unemployed & not collecting anything.

The actual is higher.

Well, I guess that, technically, we could say they were employed by the government. :-\

Add 10-15% to the gov't numbers.

As officially recorded.

But the unofficial unemployment and underemployment rate is greater.

It's all dick....

Independent study agrees with this number.

Does that "Independent study" include the most recent addition of 11 million to the US family?

I've been out of work for 3months

If you actually look at the “non-seasonally adjusted” numbers, the number of Americans with a job actually decreased by 1,446,000 between December and January. But nowhere in the mainstream media did you hear that the U.S. economy lost more than 1.4 million jobs between December and January. It is amazing the things that you can find out when you actually take the time to look at the hard numbers instead of just listening to the media spin. That puts REAL unemployment at closer to 22%. BTW, just for fun, look at California's real unemployment officially reported at about 10% but actually closer to 18%.

Truth be told the population has grown and we have far less people working. The government lies.

Year Pop in millions Total Employed

2002 287 1564088

2003 290 1559947

2004 292 1577028

2005 295 1604328

2006 298 1633092

2007 301 1651136

2008 304 1641532

2009 307 1569442

2010 309 1558274

2011 311 1576313

2012 314 1598896

can you supply the link to those figures please?

1st link is population growth per year that anyone can get. The second is from the government bureau of labor statistics put the 2 together and wallay!

Ok I just spent the last hour and 45 minutes trying to find what you have posted to varify but seeing that yields 39,000,000 different sites you could be more helpful by narrowing it down. I searched under population growth per year USA and that is where the 39 million
Not trying to be an "ignorant conservative" just I don't feel like searching 39 million different sites.

It should also reflect the number of people who have resorted to claiming disabilities because their unemployment ran out, or being under-employed, they couldn't pay their bills.

Since the chronically unemployed are considered "out of the workforce" and not represented by the official unemployment rate, the real figure is MUCH higher. http://www.shadowstats.com/ puts it around 23%.

Similarly, the real inflation figure is MUCH higher than the CPI: The government has continually changed the CPI calculation to make it look better, and today it doesn't even include food IIRC...so it's totally nonrepresentative of the average cost of living. Moreover, the very idea of the CPI assumes that prices "should" stay the same, yet it's a broken assumption: Since industrialization, advances in production have regularly created more wealth and abundance for the same labor input. With a constant money supply, that means prices should actually decrease over time on average, and average buying power should increase. (This still holds in those few fast-paced industries that manage to outpace inflation...like the technology industry.) Even if the "real" CPI was 0%, the continual printing of money (especially the expansion of the monetary base) would still only be hiding the gradual price decreases we should all be enjoying but aren't.

People's unemployment eventually runs out, then they aren't counted. The competition for good jobs here is intense.

Come to my town. I'll prove it to you.

Not for a second. 7.9% is way, way low. But I gave up on believing anything that comes out of Washington by way of numbers, regardless of source, when Geithner made the statement -- paraphrasing here -- about how they'll be doing some "tricky accounting figuring" or whatever in order to stretch the time before we reach the spending limit or cliff deadline or whatever scandalous matter they were handling at the time. When I heard that phraseology, however, that was a done deal for me as far as trusting or not trusting Washington figures. Not.

Since they do not count the people who have given up looking for work and do not count the ones who have been under employed it cannot be correct. I would say the true rate would be closer to 15% or higher.

I don't think the Bureau of Labor and Statistics changes the definition according to circumstances, BUT perhaps the definition needs to be expanded to include people "who have just quit looking."

Indeed, "the unemployed" are a widely disparate bunch. Some are unemployed because they want to be (e.g., housewives and house husbands); some are unemployed because they're disabled; some because they're too young; some because they're too old. . .and, of course, some who really want to be but aren't. Even then, some are 'just barely' or underemployed.

Obviously, on a bureaucratic level, it's next to/outright impossible to quantify such a widely divergent group--which is precisely why you answered incorrectly. :-D There can be no 'accurate' measure. It's like trying to count the number of grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.

Using the definition given by the user hardly makes one incorrect.

It's obviously not, and only the dishonest will try to tell you that it is.

I believe the unemployment rate is much higher. And why does nobody address or track underemployment numbers?