Unemployed,

How many are there, really?

My estimates before any research are, 104 million people are working, 216 million are not, counting mothers, children, retired people, students, prisoners, and entitlement recipients; seems like more like 67% unemployment. I know that’s not how the government reports unemployment. We’ll examine that below.

How many of the 67% are employable and how many are unemployable? How to count mothers that chose to raise children? How are the incompetent, severely handicapped, and mentally ill counted? How do we count the deliberately ignorant, and handicapped workers, and the partially employable? How the under-employed are counted? And how to count mothers that choose to work; or single parents, biological or non-biological? How are foreigners, legally here and not, counted?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

Who is not in the labor force?

Labor force measures are based on the civilian non-institutional population 16 years old and over. Excluded are persons under 16 years of age, all persons confined to institutions such as nursing homes and prisons, and persons on active duty in the Armed Forces. As mentioned previously, the labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder—those who have no job and are not looking for one—are counted as "not in the labor force." Many who are not in the labor force are going to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labor force.

Who is counted as employed?

Not all of the wide range of job situations in the American economy fit neatly into a given category. For example, people are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Persons also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were:

On vacation, Ill, Experiencing child-care problems, Taking care of some other family or personal obligation, On maternity or paternity leave, Involved in an industrial dispute, Prevented from working by bad weather

Who is counted as unemployed?

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:

Contacting: An employer directly or having a job interview, A public or private employment agency, Friends or relatives, A school or university employment center, Sending out resumes or filling out applications, Placing or answering advertisements, Checking union or professional registers, Some other means of active job search

Are undocumented immigrants counted in the surveys?

Neither the establishment nor household survey is designed to identify the legal status of workers. Thus, while it is likely that both surveys include at least some undocumented immigrants, it is not possible to determine how many are counted in either survey. The household survey does include questions about whether respondents were born outside the United States. Data from these questions show that foreign-born workers accounted for about 15 percent of the labor force in 2006 and about 47 percent of the net increase in the labor force from 2000 to 2006.

Here’s what I think:

1. If you are unable to work, for whatever sensible reasons, you are not counted.

Some prisoners do work and are compensated and should be counted. Military personnel are working and compensated and should be counted. Some students are partially compensated for being a student and should be counted. If you are an uncompensated student and not working, you are unemployed.

2. If you are able to work and are not, you are unemployed. If you are unwilling to work you should be counted as unemployed.

3. If you are working, or excused from work for some sensible reason, but still considered an employee, you are employed. If you are compensated or earning future or deferred compensation of any kind, you are employed.

4. Child care is work. Unpaid family care, child or elderly, is work. Unpaid care workers should be counted as employed.

5. Those working for free now for some future consideration should be counted as employed, like Congressional aids, interns, volunteers, apprentices, etc.

6. Some number of people are employed in illegal activities (prostitutes, drug dealers, extortionists, gambling, etc.) and some work “under the table” for unreported cash, and some are in “swap-meet” and “tailgate” commerce, and some trade goods and services instead of money. These people are currently counted as unemployed, about 10 million people.  They should be counted as employed.

My estimates now are:

Not available to work: 170 million

Employed: 154 million

Unemployed: 20 million (13.9%)

It totals 344 million, more than the official population because:

Foreign nationals and illegal immigrates aren’t part of the official population estimate.

And, entitlement recipients working illegally and those in criminal and black market enterprises are supposedly not available to work but are and are double counted.

So what?

124 million people are employed. 24 million are legal and illegal foreigners, and black market cash workers.

200 million people are not working, or taking entitlements and working secretly.

30 million non-working foreigners are living here, many illegally, many receiving the entitlements and benefits of citizenship, which they have not earned.

Non-citizens, not here legally, must be returned to their native countries, then apply for acceptance into the United States. If accepted they must obey our laws and work to become citizens. If not, they and their offspring must be returned to their native homeland, no matter what a repressive, corrupt, disease infested, ignorant, crime laden, poverty ridden sewer it is.