Economy worse today than Great Depression

There is a neat article at Zero Hedge blog called "Why this feels like a depression for most people" by Jim Quinn from the Burning Platform Blog.  He said that even though there are no soup lines, the statistics confirm that we are presently living through economic hardships that are far worse than the Great Depression.

Surely we must consider there were fewer people in the U.S. during the great depression, but these statistics are overwhelming regardless.  Consider.

• There were 12.8 million Americans unemployed during the Great Depression. These were the men pictured in those soup lines. This is estimated, because the Department of Labor did not keep official unemployment numbers until 1940. That comes to 24.9% of the Labor Force. 
• Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed. This is the U3 number that is reported, which comes to 5.1% of the Labor Force.  It does not include the people who have stopped looking for work, so it actually makes the economy look better than it really is.
• Today, there are 94 million people not working or not participating in the Labor Force, this is the highest this number has been (or the lowest labor force participation rate) since 1977. This is the U6 unemployment number, which comes to about 14%. It includes all the working age people who are currently not working.  
• Those 94 million not looking for work are not starving; they have become official dependents of the government
• 94 million not looking for work, 8 million officially called unemployed, equals 40% of the population not working. 
• Sixty-two percent of the labor force is working; 38% not working
• Today, there are 123 million households in America and 23 million of them are on food stamps. Therefore 19% of all households in America require food stamp assistance to survive. So food stamps have replaced soup lines, so they are not seen.  We do not see hungry people in the U.S. today, so we do not know how bad the economy really is. 
• In 1933, there were approximately 126 million Americans living in 30 million households.  
• In 1933 there were no food stamps
• In 1933 there was no welfare
• In 1933 if you did not work you didn't eat
• In 1933 there was no incentive to stay at home and collect welfare, because if you didn't work you didn't eat.  You see, people did not give up looking for work, because they needed to feed themselves and their families.  
• In 1933 people didn't become dependents of the state
• In 2015, greater than 109,631,000 live in households receiving federal welfare benefits, according to the Census Bureau. That equals 35.4 percent of all 309,467,000 people living in the U.S.
• In 1933, you had to work, you had to walk to and stand in, soup lines to receive charity
• In 2015, you can be among the 94 million not working and have a roof over your head, have a cell phone, a car, your home is probably air-conditioned, and you're eating as much as you want.
• Daily Caller: "Fifty-one percent of working Americans make less than $30,000 a year." This data from the Social Security Administration. That's $2,500 a month before taxes. That is just above the federal poverty level for a family of five. "The new numbers come from the National Wage Index, which SSA updates each year based on reported wages subject to the federal income tax." So half the folks who are working don't have any disposable income, and therefore are unable to propel the economy.

Then you can add the following, and it gets even worse.

• Open borders so anyone can get in, legal or not
• Our borders are flooded with low skilled, low educated people who cannot command any kind of a decent wage because they're not qualified, and most qualify for entitlements that we pay for
• People who work are paying for it, whether they want to or not.
• Government controlling what kids learn, and not parents. It's called Common Core, although most schools won't call it that because 54% of Americans hate Common Core.  It's faceless bureaucrats in Washington deciding what kids should learn instead of parents. 
• We are $18 trillion in debt
• We are printing money left and right and dumping it into the stock market (called quantitative easing) to maintain the stock market bubble that is going to pop some day
• We are paying people not to work

What these statistics show, other than that we are in a depression, is that liberals like Obama are buying votes. That's why we have 94 million people not working and they are all eating; they are all living comfortably off the government, and that's why these numbers keep getting worse; that's why so many people vote for liberal democrats, and why Bernie Sanders even has credibility in the democratic party despite publicly claiming to be a socialist who hates capitalism. That's why Obama got elected two times. He, in essence, bought votes with our money. That's what FDR did too.

And don't get me wrong, I do want to help the needy. I'm all for charity.  However, the best way to help the poor is not by giving them something for nothing.  The poor must work for what they receive. We need to put them to work if they receive assistance.  We need to make the poor uncomfortable so they have an incentive to keep looking for work.  

Look, these statistics show that, even adjusting for the population increase, current abysmal economic statistics are far worse than during the Great Depression.  We have more people not working, and more people not looking for work.  And it isn't getting better, won't get better, by creating more programs that take from those who work to create more government programs that give to people who quit looking for work; who have no incentive to look for work.  

Related Links.

• ZeroHedge: Why This Feels Like A Depression For Most People
• ZeroHedge: Record 94 Million Americans Not In The Labor Force; Participation Rate Lowest Since 1977
• Millennials Are Coming of Age in a Depression -- They Just Don't Know It
• Ed Source: Poll shows most parents hate common core

People who believe unemployment rate is 5.5% are fools

So, the White House is reporting a 5.5 unemployment number, the best it's been since 2008.  This sounds good, especially considering 4.6% is considered no unemployment. This is true because it's not possible for every person to have a job all the time, as people are shifting jobs all the time.  So the 5.5% unemployment number comes out and we are supposed to be all happy and think that the recession is over.

Yet this is not true once we investigate the numbers.  First of all, we must realize that the 5.5 number is the U3 unemployment number. It does not count the number of people who have given up trying to find a job after being out of work four years. If you're not actively seeking a job and you don't have one, you're not counted as unemployed. When you count those who are no longer looking, it's called the U6 number. The current U6 unemployment rate is 10.3%.

Right now there are a record 92.8 million working age people no longer in the workforce, and that is a 37 year low (and it's been a record low now for 11 consecutive months).  The total number of people 16 and over who are able bodied people who could be working is 243 million, so that means that almost half of the people who could be working are not.

Of course the actual percentage of working age people working is currently 62.8%, which is at a 37 year low.  That means that 37.2% of working age people are not working.

What we do know is that all of these people are eating. It used to not be that way.  It used to be that if you weren't working you weren't eating, and that was your incentive to get a job.  If you weren't eating when you weren't working, you bit your pride and got any old job. That might mean working at McDonalds.  That's not the case today as a record 50 million people are on food stamps.

No matter how you look at it, people who think the 5.5% unemployment is accurate, and that it's an indicator that the economy is getting better, are fools.

Further Reading:

• Articulating ideas: A closer look at jobs numbers
• Track the U6 Unemployment rate
• Rush Limbaugh: CNN overjoyed by phony jobless numbers

A closer look at economic numbers

The White House announced that the latest unemployment number is at 5.5 percent, which is the lowest it has been in seven years.  So does this mean that Obama's economic policies are finally working, and the economy has recovered?

If you listen to Christine Romans on CNN you would think so.  She said: "Sometimes a good headline is just a good headline, Carol, and that's what this report shows us. When you look within these pages and pages of tables, you see an American economy that is creating jobs again across the spectrum. The trend here has been good. Jobs added consistently month after month. The unemployment rate, really important milestone here for the unemployment rate, 5.5%. It's been trending down for a year. The lowest since May 2008."

However, when I attended journalism school at Ferris State University school back in 1988, we were told to look deep into statistics to make sure they were completely accurate. If you do otherwise, if you report only the numbers reported without analyzing them, you are letting other people direct the flow of news for you.  Or, in other words, you are just being a pawn, so to speak.

I will give you a quick example.  In 1988 Ferris State University released a statistic showing that 98 percent of their graduates were employed. On the surface this number brought joy to a lot of faces. However, after a deep look into this number, I learned that it included any job, including jobs at McDonalds.  In the end, we learned this number was misleading.  

So, that in mind, is an unemployment number of 5.5 percent really telling us that the economy is improving?   Let us look deeper into the number.  

Labor Force.  This includes all people over the age of 16 who are not in the military or an institution. This number is currently at 249,899,000.  

Labor Force Participation Rate.  This includes the percentage of of the Labor Force that is actively working or actively seeking work. This number currently stands at 62.8 percent, which is a 37 year low.  The last time this number was this low was in 1978, or when Jimmy Carter was president. What this means is that a total of 92,898,000 Americans have given up looking for work, and this number is at a record high. Since Obama was elected in 2008,12,369,000 Americans have left the workforce.  Right now, at the time of this writing, the rate is the lowest it's been in 37 years, as it stands at 62.8%. 

U3 Unemployment Number.  This is an unemployment number that does not include anyone who has looked for a job fore greater than four years and has stopped looking.  That 5.5 percent unemployment rate is the U3 number. Of the 157,002,000 who did participate in the labor force, 148,297,000 had a job, and 8,705,000 did not have a job but were actively seeking one -– making them the nation’s unemployed (5.5%). This is usually the number the White House reports because it is the one that usually makes it look the best.

U6 Unemployment Number.  This includes all working age adults who are capable of working who are not working.  This unemployment number currently resides around 11.5 percent.  This number is considered by economists to be more accurate than the U3 number.

Everybody Eats.  As a nation, we have set up a system where everybody eats, whether you have a job or not.  At present we have 50 million Americans on food stamps, and of course there are many other programs that make sure everyone eats.  As recently as 20 years ago, if you didn't have a job you did not eat.  This was a great incentive for people to search hard to find a job. 

Jobs numbers.  This number includes all the jobs lost over a month, and the number of jobs created. The jobs created also includes part time work.  For example, last July the Obama White House reported that 273,000 jobs were created in June, and this meant the economy was improving.  Of this, I wrote: First of all, the numbers he uses are misleading. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that 273,000 jobs were created last month, 800,000 people left the workforce. So while the unemployment rate presently sits at 6.3%, the U-6 unemployment rate sits at 13.6%. This is a more accurate depiction of the 963,630,000 people in America currently not working..

Further reading:

Bottom line.  A good journalist would dig deep into numbers and report the whole story, rather than just letting the White House tell the story with the numbers it releases.  

• Record 56,023,000 women not in work force
• CNN overjoyed by phony jobless numbers
• Obama's economic statements misleading