“A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom…of the income distribution; a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top.”

The real unemployment rate is somewhere in the 17.5% range. Actually, as it is shown in the featured article, the unemployment rate can be further explained per income brackets and shows very interesting results. They (government agencies) always quote the friendlier 10% or less numbers but that does not include those unemployed that have given up looking for work. They have been hiding the fact that the US in in a state of absolute, catastrophic economic meltdown. The deception is great for the sucker’s rally in the DOW though. Combine their dismal economic future with the combination of rampant anti-Americanism globally and you have an historic empire collapse that will rival the collapse of the Roman and British empires. History repeats itself again.

Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

By Joel S. Hirschhorn EconomyInCrisis.Org

Can you trust national averages? As bad as the jobless data you hear are, you have not been told the whole truth. If you think the terrible impact of America’s Great Recession is shown by an official unemployment rate of about 10 percent, think again.

Economic inequality and the myth of Reagan trickle down logic are shown by new data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. The report noted: “What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets.” The researchers found a correlation between household income and unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2009: Look carefully at these numbers and see how unemployment rises as income drops:

1. $150,000 or more, 3.2 percent
2. $100,000 to 149,999, 8 percent
3. $75,000 to $99,999, 5 percent
4. $60,000 to $75,000, 6.4 percent
5. $50,000 to $59,000, 7.8 percent
6. $40,000 to $49,000, 9 percent
7. $30,000 to $39,999, 12.2 percent
8. $20,000 to $29,999, 19.7 percent
9. $12,500 to $20,000, 19.1 percent
10. $12,499 or less, 30.8 percent

Ten times worse unemployment in the lowest class than in the highest class! Truly amazing and disheartening, don’t you think? And you can also infer that in some hard hit geographical areas the poorest people and people of color are being even more adversely impacted. And don’t think for a minute that things have really improved in 2010.

The report summed up the situation: “A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom…of the income distribution; a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top.” People at the top remain winners no matter how bad the whole economy. Why? The wealthy Upper Class controls so much of the political system and benefits from countless government policies. They may lose something in an economic meltdown but not enough to suffer significantly. You can read the rest from EconomyinCrisis.Org

In an economy predicated on ‘consumption’, there simply can not be any real recovery until people begin to ‘consume’ again, and that won’t happen until people get back to work.

The almost daily pronouncements about ‘stock market’ recoveries and slides, is meaningless nonsense and simply reflects the speculation involved in manipulating and betting on stocks. It has little to do with what is happening in the real economy and real world and in the creation of real wealth as opposed to money.

The next thing we will begin to hear from the ‘experts’ and self-styled pundits is that there is a ‘jobless recovery’ – more nonsense of course that does diddley-squat to the under-employed, unemployed, or working poor.

Having the ‘unemployment rate’ redefined so that it appears better than it actually is does nothing but provide political cover for politicians who really refuse to face the deepening social crises or whose ideology prevents them from actually confronting and doing something other than issuing the same sort of banal assurances that we are over the hump and things are looking brighter. ‘Indeed, the ‘times they are achanging’ and ‘a hard rains going to fall’.

Related posts:

1. US Real Unemployment Rate at 17%: ADAHow are the figures really determined? Figures for unemployment are published on a monthly basis are in fact derived from a monthly survey of 60,000 households in the United States,...
2. Canada’s real unemployment rate edges up to 14 percent“The Canadian “U6″ is around 14% while the official is now edging past 7.5 percent. Canada calculates that number but doesn’t publish it to the mainstream media. The jobless rate...
3. The real unemployment rate is scarier than thought“don’t forget the difference between U3 (steady at 9.7%), U6 (rose to 16.9%) or even John Williams’ SGS Alternate, which presumable has stayed near 22%. + 162,000 may be the...
4. Unemployment rate flirts with 10 percent“In 2008 and 2009, we lost 8.36 million jobs,” he said. “We’ve gained back 951,000, which is 11.4 percent of what we lost, so it’s taken us a year to...
5. 263,000 "jobs lost" and unemployment rate up to 9.8%Headlines: 263,000 “jobs lost” and unemployment rate up to 9.8%. That’s not good – there goes the “second derivative” argument. Weekly earnings are also down by $1.54, which is bad...
6. US unemployment reaches 10 per cent; government hiding real numberBernanke on Unemployment: ‘we don’t think it will get to 10 percent’ A better measure of unemployment is the U-6 numbers and this would make the real number around 17.5...

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