by Frank Thomas
You will note that Les Leopold in the Huffington Post blog stated that the total unemployment/underemployment today is 29 million vs. my figure of 23 million. Further, he says that 22 million jobs are needed just to get back to a normal 5% unemployment of 7 million. My comparable figure is that 16 million jobs are needed to get back to a normal 5% unemployment of 7 million. (My 16 million figure excludes 1 million future private-sector jobs needed to meet annual labor force growth in coming years).
The 6 million difference (22 million minus 16 million) reflects his assumption of 8 million jobs lost from the recession and 14 million jobs lost by workers: (a) who have been forced into underemployment; (b) whose benefits have run out; (c) who are benefit-inelgible for various reasons; (d) who delay or are too discouraged to look for a job and/or to apply for UI benefits. My 16 million figure includes 8 million jobs lost from the recession and 8 million jobs lost by a,b,c,d workers as explained in previous sentence.
No one has an accurate grip on whether the a, b,c, d officially unreported jobless is 8 or 14 million or some other grotesque number. As you know, these jobless people are excluded from both the monthly officially reported total labor force and the unemployment rate.
Leopold sites a real unemployment/underemployment rate of 16.5% for 29 million jobless, based (I assume) on a labor force of 175 million. I come to a real unemployment/underemployment rate of +-17% for 23 million jobless, based on a labor force of 140 million. Leopold may have included his 14 million a,b,c,d jobless in the total labor force number whereas I have excluded my 8 million a,b,c,d jobless from the total labor force number.
Sadly, no one or any government agency has an accurate, reliable grip on the a,b,c,d officially unreported jobless. Inconsistencies and discrepancies (unconscious or intentional) easily creep into poorly collected, poorly organized and presented data. So there is a natural tendency for most concerned analysts to take the worst scenario especially in terrible, uncertain times. Most shocking in my view is the unprecedented sheer magnitude of the job loss to date (16-22 million above normal 5% unemployment), the long-duration unemployed (+-6.7 million excluding 8-14 million unreported unemployed), the 30 year trend of declining private-sector job creation (see my study).
The structural scale of the jobs lost vs. jobs gained problem has not come through to our leaders who are suffering from a severe attack of problem recognition and resolution apoplexy.
