"Joe" wrote in message
.net...
Sadly, unemployment rates aren't a true indicator of *REAL* unemployment.
As has been stated before, many people who don't have jobs are dropped
from
the unemployment rolls, if they have gone thru the entire period of their
unemployment payments and still not found suitable employment.
Under-employment is another issue, as well. Just because someone came
off
the unemployment rolls, doesn't mean they found a job that pays what they
once made. It is more likely that a furniture factory worker, who lost
his
job due to outsourcing, will find a job, in the retail sector which pays
much less than his previous job paid In general, many more
retail/service
industry jobs are filled, by the formerly unemployed, than high
paying/hi-tech jobs. What with outsourcing, under-employment and
employment
of foreign workers--hi-tech or otherwise, official statistic don't
realistically indicate the health of the over-all economy, regionally or
nationally, IMMHO.

I didn't realize that unemployment worked differently between the left
and right coasts. Remember this started with your bogus claim of living
in a "high-tech mecca".

Let me get this straight: You can't read, but you want to question me on
the very non-technical aspects of unemployment records keeping?

I don't recall having said that unemployment stats are handled differently
regionally, nor nationally, just that I *believe* that their is more to
unemployment than the government's statistics suggest--no matter which
corrupt party is in power. The stats have been figured the in same manner
for quite some time, I believe. As I posted previously, I just don't think
that the unemployment rolls, as they are calculated, are a realistic
indicator of the true number of unemployed/under-employed people in the
country.

Since folks are taken off the unemployment rolls if they find a job, no
matter what that job might be (I'll follow-up on this later under the term
"under-employed"), or if their time on the unemployment roll runs out,
before they find a job, these folks are assumed to not be unemployed,
technically speaking of course. If a person is dropped from the
unemployment roll, as their unemployment payments have ended--see only those
folks that sign-up for unemployment payments are on the government's
*official* roll of the unemployed--they are still unemployed just the same.

And what about those folks that don't qualify for unemployment payments,
(people who have been fired and didn't appeal to the unemployment
compensation board of their state or appealed and lost that appeal, folks
that didn't work during a certain specified time period that is required to
receive unemployment checks and those folks that simply didn't think they
would need to sign-up for unemployment compensation, for whatever reason)
but are nevertheless unemployed?

"UNDER-EMPLOYED"

Now, should you become confused by my use of the term "under-employed," I'll
explain a bit further. Let's say that you are a furniture factory worker,
steelworker, autoworker, electrician or computer analyst... yet you can't
find a comparable position in the city in which you live? Furthermore, you
can't afford to move your family to a city that *might* actually have job
openings in your particular field of endeavor. So you are left with taking
a job waiting tables, working at Wally World as a greeter, or you are hired
as a fry king at Mickey D's. It's very likely that your current wages
aren't going to come close to those of your previous job, right? Expanding
on this theme, let's suppose that nationally their are many thousands
(likely in the tens of thousands, but very possibly in the hundreds of
thousands) of people in this position. In this case, wages go down over a
very large segment of society. Thus, buying power, for this segment of
society is decreased. If there are a great many people in this
"under-employed" position along with the unemployed, but not on the
*official* unemployed rolls, the economy suffers even more so than is
indicated by the *official* unemployment records would suggest--regardless
of the political party in power!

HTH

Op