Where Is the Pea?

In a classic shell game, there are three shells (or cups) and a pea. The trick is to guess which shell the pea is under. A good deal of the time, the pea actually isn't under ANY of the shells; it has been palmed by the operator.

I have been thinking about this con game a lot in reference to the fuzzy math we get to behold each month as the federal rate of unemployment is released. Even though most of us out here in the real world KNOW that the employment picture remains abysmally bleak, the talking heads and government wonks keep telling us that the picture is slowly growing brighter.

For example, last month we were advised that the rate of unemployment ticked down .1% to 8.9%. That's nothing to crow about, but at least it shows a wee bit of progress. Unfortunately, in several articles I have cited in the past several months, such numbers and statistics are deceptive. As Les Leopold pointed out in an article posted on AlterNet on Wednesday,

When it comes to the long-term unemployed, the recent Wall Street crash is taking us back to Great Depression levels. In 2009, there were 4.5 million in the ranks of the long-term unemployed. That number jumped to 6.4 million in 2010 – that’s 64 football stadiums filled with unemployed workers who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks and who still are actively looking for jobs. The Wall Street Journal reports that as of February there are 4.4 million people who have been out of work for more than an entire year. We haven’t seen anything like this since the 1930s.

And then there are those who have been unemployed so long and have found so few job prospects that they have stopped looking for work altogether. However, these same workers are eager to go back to work if only the jobs were there. The government calls these people “marginally attached to the workforce.” Their ranks number 2.73 million as of February 2011, and they are NOT counted in the official unemployment rate. You want dire proof that the recovery is weak? There are now 203,000 more of these ex-workers than there were a year ago when the “official” unemployment rate peaked!

If we actually counted all these workers, the true unemployment rate would be between 15.9 and 18.1 percent. Imagine what might happen if this more accurate rate became the accepted norm and Washington had to deal with it...

Utilizing Leopold's more accurate figures, we're talking about 1 out of every 6 adults OUT OF WORK. In many areas of the country, it may be as high as 1 out of every 5 adults. For minority groups, youth and older workers, the number certainly is even higher still.

And yet, for all these staggering numbers, all our elected officials -- from BOTH parties -- are doing about this mammoth problem is talking. President Obama talks about the need for job creation. So does Rep. John Boehner. Gov. Scott Walker talks this same line too. None of them, however, is doing much of anything to alleviate the problem.

That right there should tell you what they really care about.