How Many Americans Really Want Jobs?

The myth of the unemployment rate is easy to forget, and it seems like the Adminstration and the press wants us to forget.

This morning, we learned that the economy added 192,000 jobs as the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.9%. That put the number of unemployed Americans at 13.7 million -- but this doesn't tell the entire story. This number does not take into account Americans who, for various reasons, are not considered in the labor force. Some of them still want jobs right now, even by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' standards. What would the picture look like if we include these Americans?
For starters, how many were there? In February, BLS estimates 6.4 million Americans want jobs now, but are not considered part of the workforce. They are not included in the tally of unemployed Americans.
If you add these additional workers into the number of unemployed, you find that just over 20 million Americans want a job right now, but do not have one. That's obviously a much grimmer picture than the 13.7 million that the headline number suggests -- it's nearly 50% higher.
This new calculation of Americans who want a job also shows a much larger portion of the nation struggling to find work, compared to the 8.9% unemployment rate. The portion of Americans who want a job was 12.6% in February. 

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Why Won't Obama Give You a Job?

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I don't know about you, but I don't see "Change We Can Believe In" coming from the White House.

t r u t h o u t | Why Won't Obama Give You a Job?:

"The stimulus plan passed earlier this year appears to have been too modest in scope, as many economists warned at the time. While it helped halt the economy’s free-fall collapse, unemployment still topped 10.2 percent last week, and analysts warn us that “bleak data point to a stark future for job seekers and employers.”

But while caution’s prevailed in Washington when it comes to bailing out “Main Street,” Wall Street’s enjoyed a degree of socialism that would make Hugo Chavez blush. The Obama administration has essentially continued Bush’s policy of loading up dump trucks with tax dollars at the Treasury and dropping them on the banks with little oversight and next to no strings attached."

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Recession causes more families to go without food | McClatchy

This is unacceptable in the most wealthy country in the world. Who says greed doesn't run America?

Recession causes more families to go without food | McClatchy:

"The number of U.S. households that are struggling to feed their members jumped by 4 million to 17 million last year, as recession-fueled job losses and increased poverty and unemployment fueled a surge in hunger, a government survey reported Monday.

These 'food-insecure' households represent about 49 million people and make up 14.6 percent, or more than one in seven, of all U.S. households. That's the highest rate since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began monitoring the issue in 1995.

Additionally, more than one-third of these struggling families — some 6.7 million households, or 17.2 million people last year — had "very low food security," in which food intake was reduced and eating patterns were disrupted for some family members because of a lack of food.
"

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MADAGASCAR: Poverty Forces 2 Million Children into Hard Labour

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It's a sad statement about Earth to find millions of children forced to work for food instead of going to school. What future can they have? How much is this poverty about the world economic crisis and food riots going on all over the 3rd world?

Poverty has increased dramatically in Madagascar since January, when a national protest movement to end the regime of former president Marc Ravalomanana plunged the country into a socio-economic crisis. Since then, the number of child labourers has risen by a whopping 25 percent.Two million children under the age of 15 go to work every day instead of attending school, according to newly published research by the International Labour Office ILO, United Nations children’s fund UNICEF and the National Institute of Statistics known by its French acronym, INSTAT.In Ambalakely, a rural town in the south of the island, more than a hundred children pitch up for physically gruelling work in the local stone quarry. They crush stones alongside their parents to produce rubble for the building industry. Due to widespread poverty and unemployment, day labour under the harshest conditions is their only means of survival.

via MADAGASCAR: Poverty Forces 2 Million Children into Hard Labour - IPS ipsnews.net.

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