Unemployment Goes Down ! For who?

2010-02-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

Hey good news folks, it looks like the unemployment numbers went down. Wait, you didn't get the memo? Yeah, me neither. I guess the power brokers wanted to keep the stock market on life support for a couple of weeks longer.

It sure was tough to spin this one away.

Watch the Spin

The economy has lost 4.0 million jobs over the last year and 8.42 million jobs since the recession began. Jobs peaked in December of 2007 and this "Great Recession" is giving employers no signal to start warming up the assembly lines in the near future.

From all accounts it looks like we are in it for the long haul. This is the longest amount of time that the economy has suffered since having peak employment post WWII.

Truth is, that if we want to find a real unemployment number we have to find it for ourselves. Why would our government or our media want to provide us with such an accurate picture of a flailing economy? News outlets hardly ever refer to U-6 statistics. And if they do, they quickly reference to the number then find a way to segue to the latest celebrity calamity or the local weather. The U-6 is the most important statistical unemployment data because it measures discouraged job seekers, people who have fallen off of unemployment benefits and people who would want to work full time but have had to settle for part time positions.

This should be the official unemployment bell weather. It reflects the way our society functions in a global competitive market and how modern families have adjusted to this model. The fact that this percentage of the unemployed is being found but not used as the real indicator accounts for the Department of Labor being out of touch with Main Street or being used as a pawn in the political football game that is Washington D.C. There should be a strong push to update how the Department of Labor articulates its estimations.

This month the U-6 number was at 16.5%. There is a record 6.31 million Americans that have not been working for 26 weeks or more.

To put this in perspective, the unemployed could over populate every metropolitan city in the United States except for New York City. However, with good faith in a crappy economy, I am sure in the next two months NYC can be taken over by the jobless as well.

It is time to take some of the 6 million unemployed to Washington, maybe then the Department of Labor can get a better count of who is still looking for work and who has given up.

And So It Begins...

2010-02-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

An idea can come to a person at strange times or divine times. Newton was hit on the head with an apple before defining gravity. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I hatched this idea whilst sitting on the couch, waiting for resumes to be answered, calls to be returned and reading about mass unemployment and how broken our current political system is. I remember, it wasn't so long ago that a great leader made an earth shaking speech about forming 'a more perfect union'. I believe that he was speaking to the general population, not the wealthy banking cartel that have seemed to taken the spotlight ever since.

My idea is simple. Go to Washington and sit on the Capital Lawn until meaningful reform is passed. Well it sounds simple but in reality it will take dedication and organization. This is not a protest or to be done out of spite. It is a mere demonstration of the frustration that Americans are feeling on Main Street. After all, this has been labeled by some as a jobless recovery. In that case maybe the jobless part of it needs to be internalized by the suits in Washington D.C.

It might take some time and dedication. But if you are unemployed, what the hell else are you doing? If enough people show up, with the correct intention .. True Change can be initialized.

The Unemployed Sit In

Unemployment Goes Down ! For who?

And So It Begins...