Government Fuzzy Math....

No, this isn't a blog about the budget...although there's plenty of fuzzy math in those numbers (but that's a story for another day).

Today, I'm thinking about a simple issue: jobs. To hear our government tell it, things are on the upswing and unemployment is WAYYYYY down. But as we know, Uncle Sam has a funny way of calculating the numbers.

The Bureau of Labor only includes those who are without full time employment in its estimates of the unemployment rate. Seems simple enough, right? Problem is that the BLS numbers don't give the full story. As any student or professor of economics will tell you, a nation's lack of productivity is not simply defined as "people who aren't working full time"...but is more aptly defined as "who can be productive but isn't."

What the numbers don't include are people who have given up looking for a job -- but still would want one and folks who want to and are able to work full time but have been forced to take a part-time job. According to a recent Washington Post article, most economists believe that this population of able-bodied -- but unemployed or underemployed -- workers has grown by nearly 30% in the last three years.  

Let's not forget the many able bodied but non-tax paying adults who are multigenerational recipients of welfare. Yup, they don't count either....but in my opinion, they should be part of those we count as unemployed as well (because frankly they are).

When people are working, they are not only being productive members of society but they will also become active consumers of products and services as well. People who are employed both add value and consume value -- and that is what is needed for our economy to recover. No fuzzy government math needed : ).