08-17-2011, 05:11 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-17-2011, 05:14 AM by PonderThis. Edited 2 times in total.)
I'm pretty sure they say unemployment at the peak of the Great Depression was 24%, measured by however it was they measured it then. This says in Oregon we're really at 19.6% now (and holding):
Think Oregon's 9.5 percent unemployment is bad? Try 19.6 percent, once everyone's counted
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index...unemp.html
In the official world of government reports, Oregon's economy has stalled at 9.5 percent unemployment with almost no job growth since February. Economists call the July numbers, issued Tuesday, distressing.
And in the real world inhabited by Scott Pickard and many others no longer counted as jobless, actual unemployment is far higher. Pickard, 49, of Tigard, lost a human-resources job in early 2009, exhausted his unemployment benefits and moved in with his mother in February.
Pickard scrapes by. He earns a few bucks coaching other jobless people on interviewing skills. He falls into a broader government measure, called the U-6, of under- and unemployed people.
Some label this figure, a whopping 19.6 percent in Oregon during the year that ended March 31, the real unemployment rate. Oregon's "U-6" rate is fourth highest in the country, behind Nevada, California and Michigan. It's far above the national 16.5 percent U-6 level.
"There's very little hope, but still I'm not saying there's none," said Pickard, who hunts for work seven days a week. "There's certainly very little improvement for those of us who are long-term unemployed."
Oregon can take comfort in the fact that official unemployment dropped from 11.6 percent in spring 2009, seasonally adjusted, to 9.5 percent in July. The number of unemployed also fell, from 210,649 a year ago to 189,501 in July.
But the broadest measure of underutilized workers in Oregon, the U-6, remains stubbornly high at more than twice the official unemployment rate. It's only 1.1 percentage points below Oregon's U-6 peak of 20.7 percent in 2009.
...Unemployment, and how it's counted, is subject to widespread misunderstanding. Some critics contend the government uses the official definition of unemployment -- the U-3 -- to understate joblessness, making the economy appear healthier than it is..."
Think Oregon's 9.5 percent unemployment is bad? Try 19.6 percent, once everyone's counted
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index...unemp.html
In the official world of government reports, Oregon's economy has stalled at 9.5 percent unemployment with almost no job growth since February. Economists call the July numbers, issued Tuesday, distressing.
And in the real world inhabited by Scott Pickard and many others no longer counted as jobless, actual unemployment is far higher. Pickard, 49, of Tigard, lost a human-resources job in early 2009, exhausted his unemployment benefits and moved in with his mother in February.
Pickard scrapes by. He earns a few bucks coaching other jobless people on interviewing skills. He falls into a broader government measure, called the U-6, of under- and unemployed people.
Some label this figure, a whopping 19.6 percent in Oregon during the year that ended March 31, the real unemployment rate. Oregon's "U-6" rate is fourth highest in the country, behind Nevada, California and Michigan. It's far above the national 16.5 percent U-6 level.
"There's very little hope, but still I'm not saying there's none," said Pickard, who hunts for work seven days a week. "There's certainly very little improvement for those of us who are long-term unemployed."
Oregon can take comfort in the fact that official unemployment dropped from 11.6 percent in spring 2009, seasonally adjusted, to 9.5 percent in July. The number of unemployed also fell, from 210,649 a year ago to 189,501 in July.
But the broadest measure of underutilized workers in Oregon, the U-6, remains stubbornly high at more than twice the official unemployment rate. It's only 1.1 percentage points below Oregon's U-6 peak of 20.7 percent in 2009.
...Unemployment, and how it's counted, is subject to widespread misunderstanding. Some critics contend the government uses the official definition of unemployment -- the U-3 -- to understate joblessness, making the economy appear healthier than it is..."