More than ever before, Americans are feeling uncertain about the future. Business has changed dramatically. In addition to offshoring and outsourcing of American jobs, capital investment, and innovation to foreign countries and workers and the formation of supplier and retail monopolies that injure American entrepreneurship and market selection, the U.S. government continues to insource large numbers of foreign workers on various foreign labor certification programs while ignoring the sprawling immigrant networks that illegally only hire other immigrants.
Current methods of measuring unemployment are inaccurate in that they do not adequately take into account those who have lost their jobs and become discouraged over time from actively looking for work, those who are self-employed such as tradesmen or building contractors or IT consultants making a shadow of what they once did, involuntary early retirees, those on disability pensions who still wish to work in occupations suitable for their medical conditions, those who work for payment for as little as one hour per week but would like to work full-time, the available working population incarcerated in U.S. prisons (who may or may not be working while incarcerated), the "involuntary minimum-wage part-time" workers who are grossly underemployed (e.g. a middle-aged computer networker or programmer who is working in a retail store because he cannot find a permanent job for example), involuntary stay-at-home mothers who would prefer to work, and graduate and professional school students who were unable to find worthwhile jobs after they graduated with their Bachelor's degrees doing odd jobs or working part-time, etc...
So it is no surprise that we see articles like the following which reveal about one hundred million adult Americans wake up each morning without a job to go to: There Are 100 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have Jobs
The cost of education continues to rise despite the fact that a college degree, while desirable and beneficial, is no longer a guarantee of employment anymore and student loan debt is at an all time high in the U.S. with large numbers of college graduates unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid.
If you aren't a government worker with a generous pension and guaranteed retirement and health benefits for the rest of your life and are either unemployed or underemployed, what are you going to do in this economic environment?
Several months ago, the Economist stated that 56.2% of college graduates in the United States between the ages of 25 and 29 are working low skilled jobs while the Chronicle of Higher Education last month reported that 60% of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in low skilled jobs.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) said in January that there are "no jobs for more than three out of four unemployed workers." NBC reported in February that "The numbers are staggering: 78 percent of the jobs lost since 2007 were held by men, leaving one out of every five working age men out of work."
Gallup reported in 2010 that underemployment is almost 20% and a 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed that underemployment more than doubled in all age groups between ages 30 and 54.
Furthermore there are a few disturbing reports in the media that some companies have instructed their human resource departments not to hire unemployed career professionals.
The AARP Public Policy Institute just reported that older workers"endured a staggering 331% increase in unemployment over the last 10 years" and that "During this 10-year period, the number of people unemployed individuals age 55+ increased from 490,000 to 2,114,000. The number of unemployed individuals age 65+ jumped from 143,000 to 479,000."
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010 said the employment status of persons with a disability in the United States is much higher than those without a disability even as their Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) approved 117,409 foreign workers (just on the H1B visa classification) to enter the country (in a Great Recession) and take American jobs from American workers.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s U.S. population clock reveals that this year alone, 686,106 net migrant workers entered the United States to displace American citizen workers.
Then we have to take into account the United State's birth population growth. Though U.S. population growth has been slowing, we still had 4,135,665 new births in this country this year for a material net gain after deaths were subtracted. Little people grow up to be adults that need to earn a sustainable income too.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention FastStats U.S. births
Then there are the illegals who are taking American jobs in immigrant networks built to accomodate them right here in the United States. In Texas, for example, between 2001 and 2007 the Center for Immigration Studies was able to show that 81% of all new job growth went to both legal AND illegal immigrant workers. This was widely touted in the media as a recovery for Texas and used to propel Rick Perry into the spotlight… until everyone found out Americans didn’t get the new jobs that is.
This is not good news for any of America's unemployed and underemployed workers.
Unemployed, underemployed, and grossly underpaid American citizens need jobs and access to medical care in the United States. The media and our politicians are wrong to give the lion's share of new job growth to foreign workers while ignoring the overall loss due to population growth for political reasons.
Link: http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/heres-the-real-unemployment-rate-2/
Update: Bureau of Labor Statistics Data show Americans dropping out of the labor market.
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey:
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