What are the Real Unemployment Numbers?

• Author: Bryan Miller
• Posted: 2024-02-22

According to the American federal government, and nearly every single corporate-owned mass media network, America's unemployment rate is standing at a very impressive 4%, with only 6.5 million people unemployed. What's even better, according to the government and mainstream media, is the fact that fewer people are drawing unemployment benefits now than in the past few decades. This is the line served to the American people by the exact same people who claim that food shortages and exponentially higher gas prices are just signs that America's economy is actually booming, and so there's nothing to worry about. The issue, however, is that people are worried. Staff shortages are a plague in America, and it's hard to square the circle that every location you visit needs help but there's somehow no issue with unemployment in the country. How does this make sense? Well, the mass media might not want to mention it, and the government administration certainly never will, but the numerical facts suggest that the numbers served to the American people are flat-out wrong.

Unemployment insurance claims are up over 10% in February alone, and they were up over 20% in January. In fact, every single month of Joe Biden's presidency, unemployment claims have been up. However, with so many claims being denied, the claims themselves are never mentioned. The same thing holds true with the amount of people who've quit their jobs. Nearly three-times that 6.5 million number have quit their jobs since last November, due to a combination of low pay and vaccine mandates. These untold truths about America's unemployment numbers are entirely ignored by mass media. Anyone can understand why the federal government would avoid mentioning these numbers, but that the media doesn't cover the facts is more than a little concerning.

It Matters How Data is Counted

The average American might be a little skeptical of this fact, but it is nevertheless a fact in the country: The people who count the data to compile the unemployment numbers very carefully pick and choose which numbers to count in order to craft a narrative. For example, last November, 8 million Americans quit their jobs and were unemployed. That number of walk-outs alone is 1.5 million more unemployed Americans than the Biden administration claims nationwide as the total number. How does that even happen? Well, it's just a fact that those who are considered "willingly" unemployed are not counted. Different administrations have flip flopped back and forth with these numbers over the years, so it's not something the Biden administration started on its own. It is, however, something they lean on very heavily.

People being forced out of their jobs due to mandates are considered willingly unemployed, because most quit their jobs before suffering the indignity of being fired. That information is not considered when counting the actual number of unemployed people in America.

Jobless benefit claims are also a set of data that is used to put the current government in a favorable light. Alluded to earlier, those who are denied unemployment benefits are thus not counted as unemployed. These are people who are likely suffering, without a job, and they want another job, yet the government refuses to count them as unemployed people. This is how they're able to keep the numbers low. What's even worse about this statistic is that people whose benefits have expired are also removed from the unemployed list. This means that people who were counted, say, in January as unemployed will not be considered employed in February if that's when their benefits expire. The way this data is manipulated is literally considered a federal crime if a private company was doing it. Though when it's the federal government doing it, it's passed off as "elections have consequences," if it's spoken about at all.

Job Growth Isn't Really Growing

Critics of the Biden administration claim that the most sinister way the government is lying about the numbers is by claiming job growth where there isn't any at all. For example, a lot of businesses that were closed down in states like Texas and Florida cost tens of thousands of jobs, as you can understand. Most of those people stopped being counted as unemployed once their benefits expired. However, what's worse about this is that when these states loosened their COVID restrictions and opened these businesses back up, the Joe Biden administration claimed this as a victory for the President's "strong economic policies," claiming that people who got their jobs back was an example of brand new job growth in America. Again, this is misinformation that the mass media doesn't bother to challenge.

The truth is that there are over 30 million people in America who are unemployed, but nearly 80% of them are not counted by the government.