THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: A Deliberate Deception About Unemployment

Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO of the Gallup Poll
organization, has just written an op ed stating flatly that
the current 5.6% “official” unemployment rate, put
forward by the Obama administration, is an outright lie.

The Prairie Editor, and many others, have been saying
this very same thing for more than a year.

The reason it is a lie is that the Obama administration,
using the Bureau of Labor Statistics measurement,
has conveniently and consciously deleted at least half the
unemployed workers in the U.S. because “they are no
longer seeking jobs” or are so hard-core unemployable
they cannot find a job. Removing them from the official
unemployment statistics does not make them in any way
“employed,” but it does make the unemployment statistics
look much better than they actually are.

Initially, I pointed this out as motivated by Mr. Obama
and his collaborators for purely political reasons prior to
the 2014 national midterm elections. It obviously did not
work as intended. Voters delivered a landslide rebuke to
Mr. Obama. Today, the continued use of this technique is
an attempt to deceive the public that the economy is in
better shape than it is.

How many are truly unemployed in the nation? We don’t
know for certain, but using the administration’s own
numbers of workers no longer counted out of work, it is
probably at least about double the 5.6% figure. It could
even be more.

Mr. Clifton, a high-profile observer of the national scene
from a politically neutral organization is to be applauded
for telling the truth, but his revelations should be neither a
surprise nor a shock to voters. It has been part of a
widespread cover-up of economic conditions in the nation
that includes the real-life fiscal consequences of Obamacare
(now becoming more and more evident), higher taxes and
increased federal regulations on small business.

Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee
in 2016, will sooner rather than later have to decide whether
she endorses the administration numbers and its approach
to the domestic economy or not. Serious Republican
presidential contenders, hitherto silent on this subject, will
also have to decide if they are willing to be candid about
this issue.

If the mask of this public deception is not removed, a solution
to a very serious national problem will continue to be delayed,
and millions of Americans will not have jobs.

[ADDITION TO THIS POST ON FEBRUARY 7, 2015:
Some readers have written to The Prairie Editor to point out
that the unemployment measure used by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics is not new with the Obama administration, but has
been used for several decades under both Democratic and
Republican administrations. To be fair to Mr. Obama, he did
not originate this measure, and it would be unfair to imply
that he did. This, however, does not in any way lessen the
degree of deception that the statistic implies, nor does it excuse
Mr. Obama for perpetuating its misleading nature.   It will be 
up to a future administration to require a more transparent and
accurate measure of unemployment.]

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Copyright (c) 2015 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.