Writing in the New York Times in November 2003, Austan Goolsbee, then a professor at the University of Chicago, flamboyantly accused the government of "cooking" the books regarding unemployment. "The situation has grown so dire," he said, "that we can't even tell whether the job market is recovering. The time has come to correct the official unemployment statistics to account for those left out."
Professor Goolsbee is now a top economic advisor to President Obama. Would he admit that the official jobless of 9.5% grossly underestimates the pain of job losses in America and do something to correct the situation? Findings in recent IBD/TIPP polls suggest that now would be a good time to undertake such a project.
According to Labor Department data, the civilian labor force in June totaled 153.7 million people, 14.6 million (9.5%) of whom were unemployed. But in the latest IBD/TIPP poll conducted last week, 28.6% of respondents said at least one member of their household is unemployed and looking for work. This number for June was 27.8% and for May 28%.
When we project our household job-seekers rate and calculate the share of Americans who are unemployed and looking for work, we get a job-seeker rate of 24.1% for July for a total of 37 million Americans vs. the government's aforementioned 14.6 million.
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