Are Unemployment Rates in America Really Down?

On October 5, 2012 the government released the current official unemployment rate to be 7.8% - a .3% decrease in past month. While Obama is using this to his advantage, Fox News journalist John Lott, in his article “What the 7.8 percent jobless number really means,” argues that this is not an accurate representation of the current unemployment rate in America.

            Lott refers to the decrease – “That may seem like great news. However, a more serious analysis of the job market numbers indicates continued gloom.” He then goes on to explain how this increase in jobs measures part-time workers as employed. People all over the country with families are being forced into part-time jobs because that is their last resort. Some people are even finding themselves forced from their full-time jobs to part-time within their own companies, who can’t afford to keep them on full-time. “People who are classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as ‘part time for economic reasons’ soared from about 8 million to 8.6 million, a 581,000 increase,” reports Lott. Meanwhile, the full-time employment rate has dropped by 218,000. Can we really be excited about this .3% decrease, after knowing the truth about those numbers? Is a decrease in full-time employment by 218,000 really on the road to recovery from these unemployment rates in this country? “After all, businesses shifting workers from full-time to part-time in large numbers is not signaling a general economic upswing.”

            It is important for us to do research on numbers that we are given from the government. While it’s true that the “unemployment” rate has dropped by .3%, we have to realize what those numbers are measuring. It is good to stay well-informed and not to go with the flow when it comes to misleading statistics.