Making Sense of the U3 Unemployment Rate

I’ve heard quite a few attempts to ‘splain this and thought, what the heck,  I’ll give it a shot (WARNING — MATH AHEAD):

Let just say there are a total of 1000 registered voters in the United States and 350 of them are going to vote for Barack Obama.  If that were the case, Mr. Obama would have only 35% of the Citizens’ votes and certainly not enough to win re-election.

Well, that will certainly never do — he’s got more golf to play and Michelle has vacations to take yet — so let’s say, then, that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano round up 500 of the heretical unbelievers in “Hope and Change” and throw them in special “re-education” camps so that the total number of registered voters in the United States becomes only 500.

Ta Da!  Barack Obama now has 70% of the vote and his re-election was reassured — even though he still only has the support of 350 voters.

So, too, with unemployment.

If there are a total of 150 million jobs available in the entire United States economy and 135 million Citizens have jobs, then the unemployment rate is 10% (I warned you that there was math coming up):

150 – 135 = 15

15 / 150 = .10 or 10%

But this will never do in an election year — which might explain Mr. Obama’s 35% approval rating in the polls — so Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis unilaterally declares that there is now a grand total of 147 million jobs available in the United States with still just those same 135 million Citizens actually having jobs and . . . .

Ta Da!  The unemployment rate is now 8.2%  (147 -135 / 147 = 0.0816326530612245 or 8.2%)

And certainly by November, Hilda will discover that — SHAZAM! –  there’s only 145 million jobs in the United States, but still just only 135 million Citizens having jobs and . . . .

Ta Da!  The unemployment rate is 6.9% (145 – 135 / 145 = .0689655).

You see?  The economy is getting better and better all the time . . . . even though the total labor force of 135 million has not grown one iota and there are actually 5,000,000 fewer jobs in America than when Mr. Obama took office.

But wait!  What if there are really 165 million Citizens who are willing, able and earnestly want to work, but cannot find a job?

Uh-Oh!

165- 135 = 30 million people unemployed who want jobs.

30 / 165 = .18181818 or 18.2% real unemployment (U6).

Nearly Two Years Ago:  April 2, 2010

We’ve “turned the corner” so many times now that I’m starting to get dizzy.

Please make it stop.

Clear and Present Dangers . . . . Melians

“It may be your intent to be our masters; how can it be ours to be your slaves?”

~Melians

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Clear and Present Dangers . . . . John Glenn

“I don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.”

~John Glenn

February 20, 1962

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First Medal of Honor Action, February 13, 1861 — History.com

The earliest military action to be revered with a Medal of Honor award is performed by Colonel Bernard J.D. Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the first major U.S.-Apache conflict. Near Apache Pass, in southeastern Arizona, Irwin, an Irish-born doctor, volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George N. Bascom, who was trapped with 60 men of the U.S. Seventh Infantry by the Chiricahua Apaches. Irwin and 14 men, initially without horses, began the 100-mile trek to Bascom’s forces riding on mules. After fighting and capturing Apaches along the way and recovering stolen horses and cattle, they reached Bascom’s forces on February 14 and proved instrumental in breaking the siege.

The first U.S.-Apache conflict had begun several days before, when Cochise, the Chiricahua Apache chief, kidnapped three white men to exchange for his brother and two nephews held by the U.S. Army on false charges of stealing cattle and kidnapping a child. When the exchange was refused, Cochise killed the white men, and the army responded by killing his relatives, setting off the first of the Apache wars.

Although Irwin’s bravery in this conflict was the earliest Medal of Honor action, the award itself was not created until 1862, and it was not until January 21, 1894, that Irwin received the nation’s highest military honor.

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Clear and Present Dangers . . . . Alan Barth

“The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.”

~Alan Barth

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We’re all Catholic now — If not in faith, in spirit.