Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and senior managing director of the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities.
The real unemployment rate for January 2012 is closer to 22.5 percent, not the 8.3 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.
John Williams, author of the “Shadow Government Statistics” website, argues that the federal government manipulates the reporting of economic data for political purposes.
In the Feb. 3 Bureau of Labor Statistics news release, the unemployment rate was reported to have fallen 0.2 percent to 8.3 percent, from 8.5 percent in December 2011.
Williams recreates a Shadow Government Statistics alternative unemployment rate reflecting methodology that includes “long-term discouraged workers” who the Bureau of Labor Statistics (in 1994 under the Clinton administration) removed from those considered “unemployed.”
The BLS no longer considers as “unemployed” those workers without jobs who have not looked for work in the past year because they feel no jobs are available.
Williams has demonstrated that it takes an expert to truly decipher BLS unemployment statistics. For instance, in Table A-15, titled “Alternative measures of labor underutilization,” the BLS reports what is known as “U6 unemployment.” U6 unemployment includes those marginally attached to the labor force and the “under-employed,” those who have accepted part-time jobs when they are really looking for full-time employment.
While the BLS was reporting seasonally adjusted unemployment in January 2012 at only 8.3 percent, it was also reporting U6 seasonally adjusted unemployment in January 2012 was 15.1 percent.
The only measure BLS reports to the public as the official monthly unemployment rate is the seasonally adjusted U3 number.
Williams wrote that the “headline numbers” BLS reported for January 2012 were statistically manipulated and “simply not believable.”
He calculates his “Official SGS Alternative Unemployment Rate” by adding back into to the BLS U6 numbers those long-term discouraged workers who have not looked for work in the past year.
Interestingly, Williams’ “Official SGS Alternative Unemployment Rate” shows unemployment in January 2012 was 22.5 percent, a 0.1 percent increase over December 2011, whereas the BLS figures were designed to report a .8-point decline, from a seasonally adjusted U3 rate of 9.1 percent in January 2011 to a seasonally adjusted 8.3 percent rate in January 2012.
For more information on the actual unemployment rate versus Obama administration statistics, read Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” and the “Where’s the Real Birth Certificate?” e-book.
Red Alert’s author, who received a doctorate from Harvard in political science in 1972, is also author of the No. 1 New York Times best-sellers “The Obama Nation” and (with co-author John E. O’Neill) “Unfit for Command.” He has authored several other books, including “America for Sale,” “The Late Great U.S.A.” and “Why Israel Can’t Wait.” In addition to serving as a senior staff reporter for WND, Corsi is a senior managing director in the financial-services group at Gilford Securities.
Disclosure: Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in New York City providing an array of financial services to institutional and retail clients, from investment banking and equity research to retirement planning and wealth-management services. The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated’s views, opinions, positions or strategies. Gilford Securities Incorporated makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability or validity of any information expressed herein and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.
For full immediate access to Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, get your free subscription now.