I am told we are currently in the Great Recession. It may be true that the current economic climate demands its own title, complete with the leading superlative. But it sure is difficult to get into the spirit of things when the unemployment rate is a mere 4.1% in Lincoln and 4.9% in Nebraska. Which of course isn't to say that Nebraskans haven't been affected by any of what's going on. We have. But wow, 4.1%? We're pretty lucky as a community, yeah?
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I don’t believe the unemployment rate—as published—is a particularly good indicator of real world employment. While a couple months old, this seems to be a good article outlining how things really are:
http://tinyurl.com/nw53vb
I get the sense that we are extremely lucky here in Lincoln and Nebraska. After traveling through eastern Ohio and seeing what 60% unemployment is doing to those communities, I think we should be pretty thankful.
Plus, we’re #4!
As D.L. stated, the metrics used to calculate unemployment are flawed.
Since the great depression we have changed how we calculate unemployment.
What was ten percent then could very well be five percent by today’s standards.
The national unemployment rate is hovering around ten percent right now.
People who aren’t counted by the U3 unemployment rate:
1. People who have a job but are on unpaid leave.
2. People who works but doesn’t get paid (helps out with a family business
)
3. People who solely look for jobs online or in want ads. Must be submitting resume’s and job applications physically.
4. People who have been laid off but are currently working part-time, even if they are underemployed.
5. People who have given up on finding a job but are still unemployed.
The U6 metric measures these statistics and counts them as unemployed. The media likes to repeat the U3 measurement because it sounds better.
The U6 is generally around 5 percent higher than the U3.
The point of all this is that the Great Depression maxed out around 25 percent unemployment.
Nationally we’re at 10. Our u6 measurement is more in line with how unemployment was measured during the Depression.
So think about it. Realistically, we’re probably only about 10 percent away from Depression level unemployment.
We’re over halfway there as a nation. Considering states like Nebraska are lower than average, there have to be states higher than average.
Guess who? It’s our good friend Michigan with a 15.8 percent unemployment rate. Now, add 5 percent to Michigans unemployment rate.
Just inching past 20 percent.
Share your thoughts with the community.
Commenting is no longer permitted on this post.