The danger of the misleading U-3 unemployment figures demonstrated yet again
U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning is citing the latest "drop" in the unemployment rate as a sign that the economy is improving. Hence, he says, there's no reason at all to extend long-term unemployment benefits for the jobless, and he will therefore use his power as an elected Congressman to make sure that benefits are not extended.
But the economy is not improving. The latest feel-good U-3 rate the government likes to trot out and speak about exclusively is an unemployment rate made artificially smaller merely by the statistical trick of ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are considered to have been "dropped from the labor force". Unable to find a job and given up looking for work? You are dropped from the labor force -- along with millions of other discouraged Americans. As a result, the unemployment rate declines, and Republicans like Tom Reed will use that as an excuse to cut off vital unemployment benefits.
And this is all because, when discussing unemployment, both dishonest corporate Democrats and Republicans alike prefer to cite the deliberately misleading U-3 unemployment rate, which omits from its metric "marginally attached workers" (discouraged job-seekers) and involuntary part-time workers (those who want but can't find full-time work).
The U-6 unemployment rate, on the other hand, includes both those categories, and is therefore provides a better picture of the unemployment reality.
Don't expect the White House to start using it, however.
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