Thread: 'Everyone in Utah is now unemployed'

'Everyone in Utah is now unemployed'

Posted: May 23, 2011
1:00 am Eastern
By Kirk Elliott
© 2011

The unemployment rate is officially at 9 percent.

In addition, a broad measure of unemployment – including workers who want a job but have stopped looking and those working part time for economic reasons – rose to 19.3 percent.

This is very grim. Let's put this into its proper perspective because a 9 percent unemployment rate doesn't really sink in.

What if there were a breaking newsflash on TV while you were watching "American Idol," and the headline was "Everyone in Utah is now unemployed!"

You would look at your spouse and say, "Oh wow! This is bad. Those poor people in Utah. I had no idea the unemployment situation was this awful! I thought we were in a recovery!"

Sadly, that would be horrible, but the reality is much more grim than that. The true unemployment picture is absolutely abysmal.

Let's dig a little deeper.

The unemployment number that we all see in the news (U3) represents the total number of people unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (the official unemployment rate). This number is 9 percent. A broader and more accurate measure of unemployment is U6, which includes marginally attached workers, or those who are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past.

Are these people still unemployed? Of course they are! Therefore, let's count them in the unemployment numbers. Just because they are so discouraged that they stopped looking doesn't mean they should not be counted as unemployed. So, when discouraged job searchers are included, the broader (U6) unemployment number is 19.3 percent!

The labor force is officially 154 million people. So using the government's official number for unemployment, the result is 13,860,000 unemployed. Using the more accurate, broader definition for unemployment, the result is 29,722,000 unemployed.

Let's jump back to the hypothetical headline from earlier. Utah has a population of 2.7 million people. So, technically, everyone in Utah is unemployed. Actually every man, woman and child in all of the following states are unemployed:

Nebraska
Idaho
New Hampshire
Maine
Hawaii
Rhode Island
Montana
Delaware
South Dakota
Alaska
North Dakota
Vermont
Wyoming
Arkansas
Kansas
Utah
Nevada
New Mexico
West Virginia

That's sobering. And we are to believe that we are in recovery when every single week the number of applications for first-time unemployment benefits is about 400,000?

The implications of this are devastating. When people are unemployed, they stop spending money. When people stop spending money, corporate revenues come down and more people are laid off, thus increasing the number of unemployed. When more people are unemployed government tax receipts for income tax, sales tax and property tax go down.

So much for projected tax revenues for 2011 being $2.5 trillion. I don't think we will hit that mark.

President Obama's budget is $3.8 trillion. That's at minimum of $1.3 trillion more than the nation will get with projected revenues. But projected revenues will be even less, thus amplifying the situation and adding to our total debt.

No wonder Congress is waffling and will raise the debt ceiling – by hook or by crook. Crook is more like it, when it is "borrowing" from the civil employee pension and disability funds. Good grief! Just stop the spending!

Things are about to get worse, much worse, before they get better. The stock market, bond market and our currency will wallow in the aftermath. What will do well? Precious metals and tangible assets as a whole should perform very well as tangible assets respond to inflationary pressures.

Well, we certainly do have inflationary pressures – not just here in the United States but globally. As the global recession continues to spread like a wildfire, the policy actions of central banks and governments around the world are to create liquidity (causing inflation), or increase taxes to hopefully generate more revenue (reduces people's bottom line). Sadly, both are occurring, and that is a recipe for disaster. Raising prices will reduce people's income.

Excellent job, politicians. Keep up the good work!

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=302173

AND YET, WE HAVE CONGRESSMEN MEETING WITH THE MAYOR OF JUAREZ ABOUT GIVING THEM MONEY FOR THEIR POOR AND UNEMPLOYED. OUR GOVERNMENT HAS ITS PRIORITIES IN THE WRONG PLACE THIS IS JUST UNBELIEVEABLE.