Unemployment, the Web Politicians Weave, and How It Affects Us
unemployment (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)
In the News
An ultra right conservative from the Human Events- Powerful Conservative Voices website posted an article February 20, 2012, entitled The True Unemployment Rate: 36%. The jest of the entire article concerned how politicians and some segments of the United States Federal Government reports unemployment rates. The official unemployment account, according to the current politicians in power, is 8.3%. The writer points out no President has been re-elected with the unemployment rate more than 7%. He suggests that President Obama is counting on selling the public that the rate is currently dropping and the economy is showing signs of recovery.
The Ugly Truth About Unemployment
The problem with making those kinds of assumptions is that the unemployment rates and economy as observed by the President’s perception is false. The President’s view, the same as former President George Bush and many of the other politicians before, is based on measuring unemployment adjusted by counting only those people still looking for work as opposed to those who have been out of work for a long time and given up. From that perspective, unemployment can be said to be currently 8.3%.
The old method of determining unemployment was made from the ratio of the total able bodied adult workers unemployed to the total able bodied work force currently employed. The current ratio measuring unemployment from this point of view can be a little over 36%. That basically means more than 1/3 of the potential work force in America is unemployed.
The Webs Politicians Weave, and the Affects on Bankruptcy
Both sides of the political isle, spin and weave a web of half truths and untruths in order to get elected. Even the ultra conservative writing the news article, although he revealed the the half truth of how unemployment should be measured, he did not tell that his party was just as guilty. He suggested the answer was to tell the truth about unemployment so his party would get elected this next Presidential Election.
He suggests the answer to the economy is supporting “the Jobs Through Growth Act, a package of dramatic reforms that includes a flat tax with two low rates, reduced corporate taxes, regulatory relief, and increased domestic energy production.” The only problem with the suggestion is, like the politicians current way of measuring unemployment, it skews the answer to our economic problems by favoring big business and the rich. These are the same recommendations of “trickle down economics,” a Ronald Reagan approach. The rich get richer and the poor get what is left if any. Bankruptcy increases is the benefactor of this type of economic approach, history suggests.
The Truth About Politics and Bankruptcy
Just this past Sunday on 60 Minutes, the news program had a segment on how many in the educated section of American society have dropped out of the Middle Class into economic bankruptcy, simply because they have been unemployed for so long. The politicians say the poor economy is to blame, but my question is just who caused the economy to collapse?
The true unemployment figures at 36.3% are close to the same as what happened in the Great Depression, but our politicians are suggesting this is only a temporary recession. During the Great Depression, there were more people filing bankruptcy than ever before. Bankruptcy will certainly continue to increase as true unemployment increases and politicians from both sides of the fence continue to play with figures to get re-elected instead of realistically dealing with the problem.
Related articles
- A Credit Card and the Diary of a Debtor (betterbankruptcy.com)
- The Real Unemployment Rate (treeofmamre.wordpress.com)
- Great Depression And Macroeconomic Policy (thinkingbookworm.typepad.com)
