this is a lie, the real unemployment rate is around 20% over 21 million Americans are currently out of work. that 7% number just tells us one side of the story that is how many people are still looking for work. While millions of people have dropped out of the work place and have stopped looking for work.

From my understanding, the last time the methodology was changed was in 1994; but it was also changed several times before that. The changes have been consistent in that they have all changed how unemployment was calculated by removing people from being considered unemployed.

Like I said in the other thread... I'm about 90% sure now, that we calculate the jobs number seasonal adjusted... and the unemployment rate isn't.

Though yeah, unemployment rate is stupidly calculated because it doesn't take into account participation rate.

Also, the people rushing to call Richard a conservative make me laugh. Really shows who pays attention in the off topic and who doesn't.

Thank you. You beat me to it.

Obama 2012!

July, august where adjusted and added jobs.  ADP that does pay rolls said last month that there where 200,000 jobs and they are usually right. Will jobs report came out and said 98,000. THey have adjusted it up to 180,000 or so, don't quote me. However you seem to be like every other, in denial. You always find negatives and say it isn't true when it doesn't favor your position. Seems most of my debates have been right and you will deny that too!!!

Make sure to catch rush limbaugh monday, he will deny it too.

I'm not saying that you have a history of posting conspiracy theories, just saying that in general there have been too many Republican conspiracy theories recently.

Hunh?   What i'm suggeting is that far more people were actually hired then the 114,000 listed mentioned.  Though said number is "reduced" when reported due to seasonal adjustments which tries to normalize monthly job growth for things like holiday seasonal hiring paterns.

That would be considered a postive for Obama... and more or less the last thing Limbaugh would want to say.

Seasonally adjusted unemployment is higher then unadjusted unemployment because of this.

Rush limbaugh will likely say it's a conspiracy and complain about the participation rate, while still at dangerous lows, wasn't really a factor this jobs report.

The unemployment rate is a false metric because it only includes individuals actively seeking employment. It does not include those such as working mothers, or those who have given up on looking for a job but would still like one. Never read into it.

Why would you consider working mothers as unemployed?

Perhaps you mean stay at home mothers? If so they should be excluded from the unemployment stats because they do have a job, just not one that pays: being a mother to their kids. Long term stay at home mothers could be argued to have a very beneficial effect on society and the economy, if they do a good job of parenting.

Unemployment figures are meant to be an indicator of the health of the economy, stay at home mothers (99% of them by choice) / part-time working mothers are not a negative indicators of the health of the economy. The stay at home mother would be staying at home in good economic times and bad. So to add them to the unemployment figure would cause the unemployment figure to be misleading as economic measure, and arguably cause false negative imnpressions of the economic situation. If 10% unemployment is a psychological barrier in economic measurement then having stay at home mothers push the unemployment figure above 10% would create an unnecessarily negative view of the economy.

Those who have given up looking for work are a different matter. They indicate severe economic problems because in a good economic climate you should have very few people who have lost all hope of finding work. In some resepcts only recording the number of peole who have given up hope of finding work is a very good state of the nation metric. If that number is climbing then things are bad and getting worse, if the number is dropping then things might still be bad (if the number is high) but they are improving.

That percentage doesn't include homeless, people that are underemployed, or have stopped looking for work. The actual amount of unemployed individuals in the U.S. is actually closer to 20-25%.

The number that gets thrown around is always politics and misinformation.