U.S. Unemployment Now at Great Depression Levels, Jobs Destruction is Permanent

Economics / Unemployment
Jun 03, 2011 - 06:00 AM
By: Washingtons_Blog

Unemployment During the Great Depression Has Been Overstated and Current Unemployment Understated (We've Now Got Depression-Level Unemployment)

The commonly-accepted unemployment figures for the Great Depression are overstated.

Specifically, government workers were counted as unemployed by Stanley Lebergott (the BLS economist who put together the most widely used numbers) ... even though gainfully employed and receiving a pay check.

If we're trying to compare current unemployment figures with the Great Depression, the calculations of economists such as Michael Darby are more accurate.

Here is a comparison of Lebergott and Darby's unemployment figures:

Year Lebergott Darby

1929 3.2% 3.2%

1930 8.7% 8.7%

1931 15.9% 15.3%

1932 23.6% 22.9%

1933 24.9% 20.6%

1934 21.7% 16.0%

1935 20.1% 14.2%

1936 16.9% 9.9%

1937 14.3% 9.1%

1938 19.0% 12.5%

1939 17.2% 11.3%

1940 14.6% 9.5%

(see Robert A. Margo's Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s.) http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/meltzer/maremp93.pdf

We've Got Depression-Level Unemployment

Unemployment is currently underreported. Even government officials admit that their "adjustments" to unemployment figures are inaccurate during recessions.

In addition, the most widely-cited statistics use the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics' "U-3" methodology. But "U-6" figures are more accurate, because they include people who would like full-time work, but can only find part-time work, or people who have given up looking for work altogether. U-6 is also is closer to the way unemployment was measured during the Great Depression than U-3

Current levels of unemployment are Depression-level numbers, especially when compared to Darby's figures.

For example, economist John Williams puts current U-6 unemployment at 15.9%. That's higher than 9 out of 12 years charted by Darby.

And there are certainly Depression-level statistics in some states. For example, official Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers put U-6 above 20% in several states:

California: 22.0
Nevada: 23.7
Michigan 20.3

(and Los Angeles County has 24.1% unemployment, higher than any of the Depression years as reported by Darby)

Williams puts SGS unemployment - which he claims is the most accurate measure - at 22.3%. That's higher than 11 out of 12 years charted by Darby.

Youngstown State University's Center for Working Class Studies puts the "De Facto Unemployment Rate" at 28.76%. I'm not sure if that compares to methods used during the Great Depression, but it surpasses all 12 out of 12 years charted by Darby.

More People Are Unemployed than During the Great Depression

As I noted in January 2009:

In 1930, there were 123 million Americans.

At the height of the Depression in 1933, 24.9% of the total work force or 11,385,000 people, were unemployed.

Will unemployment reach 25% during this current crisis?

I don't know. But the number of people unemployed will be higher than during the Depression.

Specifically, there are currently some 300 million Americans, 154.4 million of whom are in the work force.

Unemployment is expected to exceed 10% by many economists, and Obama "has warned that the unemployment rate will explode to at least 10% in 2009".

10 percent of 154 million is 15 million people out of work - more than during the Great Depression.

Given that the broader U-6 measure of unemployment is currently around 17% (ShadowStats.com puts the figure at 22%, and some put it even higher), the current numbers are that much worse.

Unemployment is Long-Term

USA Today reported in December:

So many Americans have been jobless for so long that the government is changing how it records long-term unemployment.

Citing what it calls "an unprecedented rise" in long-term unemployment, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), beginning Saturday, will raise from two years to five years the upper limit on how long someone can be listed as having been jobless.

***

The change is a sign that bureau officials "are afraid that a cap of two years may be 'understating the true average duration' — but they won't know by how much until they raise the upper limit," says Linda Barrington, an economist who directs the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

***

"The BLS doesn't make such changes lightly," Barrington says. Stacey Standish, a bureau assistant press officer, says the two-year limit has been used for 33 years.

***

Although "this feels like something we've not experienced" since the Great Depression, she says, economists need more information to be sure.

The Wall Street Journal noted in July 2009:
The average length of unemployment is higher than it's been since government began tracking the data in 1948.

***

The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

The Christian Science Monitor wrote an article in June entitled, "Length of unemployment reaches Great Depression levels".

60 Minutes - in a must-watch segment - notes that our current situation tops the Great Depression in one respect: never have we had a recession this deep with a recovery this flat. 60 Minutes points out that unemployment has been at 9.5% or above for 14 months.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy notes in Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999) that - during Herbert Hoover's presidency, more than 13 million Americans lost their jobs. Of those, 62% found themselves out of work for longer than a year; 44% longer than two years; 24% longer than three years; and 11% longer than four years.

Blytic calculated last year that the current average duration of unemployment is some 32 weeks, the median duration is around 20 weeks, and there are approximately 6 million people unemployed for 27 weeks or longer.

As Calculated Risk noted last month:

According to the BLS, there are 5.839 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This was down from 6.122 million in March. This remains very high, and is one of the defining features of this employment recession.

Job Destruction is Permanent

Many leading economists say that America is suffering a permanent destruction of jobs.

For example, JPMorgan Chase’s Chief Economist Bruce Kasman told Bloomberg:

[We've had a] permanent destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs in industries from housing to finance.

The chief economists for Wells Fargo Securities, John Silvia, says:

Companies “really have diminished their willingness to hire labor for any production level,â€