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NATIONAL
JOBS FOR ALL COALITION
UNCOMMON SENSE 4
© rev. September 2014
EMPLOYMENT
STATISTICS:
LET'S
TELL THE WHOLE STORY
By
Helen Lachs Ginsburg, Economics, Emerita, Brooklyn College of
the City University of New York,
Bill Ayres, Director, World Hunger Year,
and June Zaccone,
Economics, Emerita, Hofstra University
Unemployment
figures are not always what they seem. The U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) regularly reports the nation's monthly and
annual "official" unemployment rate. In 2013, this
official unemployment averaged 7.4 percent, representing 11.5
million people. But these numbers don't tell the whole story.
The BLS report provides data on
large groups that are not counted as unemployed. Among them
are 7.9 million involuntary part-time workers who wanted but
weren't able to get full-time employment, as well as another
6.4 million people who wanted jobs but were not actively seeking
work. Of that group, 2.4 million had searched for work during
the previous year and were available to take a job immediately.
The rest wanted work but had not looked for it because they
didn't expect to find any, or weren't able to work for a variety
of reasons, including lack of child care or transportation,
or a disability. Public policy changes, for example, affordable
child care, would enable many of these people to work. In addition,
in 2013 (the most recent year for which such data are available),
another 18.5 million people who worked full-time all year--more
than one out of six full-time workers--had annual earnings below
$23,824, the government's meager poverty line for a family of
four.
We need a new set of employment statistics
that includes each of these four groups. Here is an example for
2013:
| Officially
Unemployed Workers |
11.5 Million |
| Involuntary
Part-Time Workers |
7.9 Million |
| Non-Job
Seekers Who Want a Job |
6.4 Million |
| Full-Time
Year-Round Workers Earning less than Poverty Level* (for a
family of four, 2013: $23,834) |
18.5
Million [Estimate] |
| TOTAL
|
44.3
Million |
*Source: estimated from
Current Population Survey 2014 Annual Social and Economic Supplement,
Bur. of the Census, 9/2014) and
Poverty
thresholds
It should be noted that these numbers do not include
the vast jail and prison population (2.2
million in 2012) [1] that grew rapidly in the 1980's and 1990's,
peaking in 2008, made
up disproportionately of young, unskilled minority men
As
of 2012, one in 108 American adults was incarcerated. In
2010, 1 in every 10 Black men in their thirties was in prison
or jail. If inmates were counted as unemployed, the official
jobless rate would rise by nearly 1½ percentage points.[2]
Even these adjusted unemployment data do not capture
a full picture of the job market now. This would have to include
the decline
in the overall labor force participation rate [3] since its peak
during early 2000. For example, the rate
for prime-age men [25 to 54 years old] has been close to its postwar
minimum: for all men, it decreased from about 92% in the mid 1990s,
to 88.4% in August 2014.[4] For Black men, it was then 82.0%,
recovered from its postwar minima during the fiscal crisis, but
is not back to pre-crisis levels.
While the BLS does report the wide differences
in unemployment by sex, age, race, ethnicity, education, and region,
these are not often given much attention. Some, such as race,
disability or youth, are very significant. To
illustrate, in August 2014, when overall unemployment was 6.1%,
the black rate was 11.4%; for those with a disability, 12.8%;
for teens, 19.6%; and for black teens, 32.8%, and
generally even worse for young black men. Current data are
reported in our monthly unemployment report.
Contrary to a widespread misperception that all
of the unemployed collect unemployment insurance, a majority of
them do not. [5] And on average, unemployment
benefits replace less than half of an unemployed worker's lost
wages.[6] (Official unemployment figures come from a sample survey
of the population, not from unemployment insurance offices.)
Unemployment fell after 1992 to a three-decade
low of 4 per cent in 2000 but has risen sharply since then, throwing
more workers onto the scrap heap. Historically, elites have preferred
higher unemployment because of the unfounded belief that lower
unemployment necessarily means higher inflation. [7] [See Uncommon
Sense 3.] Though lower unemployment in the 1990's was accompanied
by lower inflation, this belief is likely to be resurrected if
unemployment starts to fall to the lows of the late 1990's.
These elites also fear that lower unemployment leads to more worker
power and higher wages. Average hourly wages
in the private sector did rise modestly during the late pewstates1990's,
and that was good news. But they are still below their 1973 peak
in purchasing power.[8] So even if unemployment falls again to
4 percent, that's not good enough. We can't
stop before everyone who wants a job has one and all jobs pay
a living wage. Until we recognize the extent of unemployment and
low earnings, we will not develop the programs and policies to
guarantee living wage Jobs for All Americans!
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[1] Bureau
of Justice Statistics 2012] Yearend 2012, 6.9 million people,
or 1 in 35 adults, were under "correctional supervision"--probation,
jail, prison, or parole.
[2]"...if you add to it [official unemployment +discouraged+involuntary
part-time] the millions of people that you have in jail in the
U.S. -- which is four times the amount of any civilized country
as a share of population -- than unemployment is probably closer
to 20 percent. And that's just among the average population. For
minorities, the youth, or unskilled people that don't have a high
school degree, the number is closer to 30 percent." Nouriel
Roubini interview, Foreign Policy, 10/11
[3] "The participation rate
is the share of the population 16 years and older working or seeking
work." BLS See "Is
the Decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate During This
Recession Permanent?"
[4] http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=ln
[5] During recessions, more of the unemployed receive benefits
as job losers are a larger fraction of the unemployed, but even
with extended unemployment benefits and other special programs,
fewer than half of the officially unemployed received benefits:
only 26 per cent in August 2014. Congress let
emergency federal unemployment insurance expire at the end of
2013, so the long-term unemployed no longer receive it.
http://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
and http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/wkclaims/report.asp
See Historically Small Share of Jobless People Are Receiving Unemployment Insurance
[6] That
rate for 2013 was 46.64%.
[7] "The debates over full employment and Federal Reserve policy are generally dominated by the interests of the minority who worry more about inflation and asset values than those who worry about jobs and paychecks." Jared Bernstein,Wash. Post.
See also [Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard] Fisher on Wagesand Brad DeLong's take on Fisher.
[8] http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERP-2014/pdf/ERP-2014-table15.pdf
For monthly updates
on unemployment statistics, see jobnews.html
on this web site. For further information about employment statistics,
see Sheila Collins, Helen Lachs Ginsburg and Gertrude Schaffner
Goldberg, Jobs for All: A Plan for the Revitalization of America,
Apex Press, 1994, pp. 40-48 and 59-61.
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