If we're gonna have employment statistics, why not have real ones?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

How many positions? In what sectors? Full time or part time? How many hours? Benefits yes or no? Pay per hour w/out benefits? Pay per hour w/ benefits? Retention rates? Upward mobility and increased income? Downward mobility and decreased income. Average median income of employee compared to CEO as percentage of gross labor costs

Many if not most companies could give you this information without breaking a sweat. This is what they analyze all day long

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. Because then you'd need people to collect all that data and analyze it,

and let's face it, the government can get pretty damn lazy about some things. Hell, I'd be satisfied if they included the discouraged worker rate to create a more accurate "not working" stat.

[sandnsea]

2. They do

When companies do their quarterly reports, they report income and job sector number. They have to do it for unemployment insurance too. They don't report the hourly wage, but by reporting gross income and number of workers in different sectors, they can figure it out.

There are reports at bls.gov.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. It's only spreadsheets and data input.

that should be coming right off of payroll input anyway. Why not find out what's really going on?.

I even think employers should be required to input race age and sex statistics and then I think some of the figures would start to smoke off the page.

[tritsofme]

4. Knock yourself out

http://www.bls.gov/data/

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. WHAT TOOK THEM SO LONG????

They are just now screaming about how bad the economy is.

Some of us were kicked out of the middle class in the 1990s. We stopped looking for jobs a long time ago, and we are overqualified.

I think the real unemployment rate is far higher than they will admit.

[bullimiami]

6. i agree. and i dont trust any govt statistic

that might reflect badly on these gangsters currently posing as our executive branch.

[KT2000]

7. They keep two sets of books

I recall Kevin Philips saying on C-Span that there is another set of numbers that reflect more accurately the unemployment numbers. He said that number is about double the one we hear about. The name of the second set of numbers is a letter - like G?"

He should know - he was part of the Reagan admin. which is where they really started screwing with how they kept those numbers.

[backscatter712]

9. There's the U3 stat, and the U6 stat

U3's the Official(TM) unemployment rate, which does not include "discouraged" workers, workers who are working part time, but want full-time work, that sort of thing.

U6 is the older statistic that does include discouraged workers and part-timers who can't find full-time work and such.

The U3 rate is what 7.2%? U6 (which is the better statistic in my book) is 13% Shadowstats.com has their own statistic that adds more categories of discouraged workers or underemployed, and they have it at almost 18%. :scared:



Of course, the government, the corporatists and their media would have you believe everything's just ducky, so all they give you is the U3 stat.

[KT2000]

10. Yes - that's it!

Thanks - and the graphic is pretty amazing.

[leftofthedial]

8. then it would lose its propaganda value.