The Myth About the Unemployment Rate being at 10 percent (its really close to 24 percent)

It is amazing that the government, the media and most of the people are buying into the supposed fact that the unemployment rate is at an "astonishing and tragic" 10.7 percent.

Actually everyone, its more like 24 percent. Yes, you read it correctly, 24 percent.

One must wonder how it is possible that I came to that conclusion. Well it is certainly not just me, but a steady stream of intellectuals, politicians and bloggers who are realizing that the governments' current guidelines for determining the unemployment rate is horrendously flawed.

'After a year, if you haven't found a job, they assume you gave up and dont count you anymore!'

According to Jason Termin a jobs analyst who works for the Department of Labor, the unemployment figures are skewed to give a much better picture and its been this way for decades. "Basically the unemployment rate is figured by guessing how many people have been looking for a job for a year or less" Termin says.

"If you have been looking for a job longer than a year, than the government assumes you gave up and doesn't count you in the tally of unemployed, even though in this recession, according to MOST job sites it can take almost 1 to 2 years in this climate to find the ideal job."

He went on to point at the latest jobless figures. "If you figure in the people who STILL havent found work after a year, its certainly close to, if not more than 20 percent unemployment, and most job statisticians would agree with that figure".

So what is the solution? Termin says we should really "press the media to stop buying into the goverments flawed way of calculating the unemployment rate and demand that the government give accurate figures"

The bottom line is, both sides of the government are at fault for promoting this lie. People deserve the truth. Unfortunatley the truth may be too sobering for both sides of the media and goverment to admit to, especially when the truth points to that grim fact that this recession has a jobless rate almost equal to that of the Great Depression.