Can We Beat 18.7% Unemployment. No. Oregon’s REAL Unemployment is 19.6%

August 17, 2011

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Yesterday I discussed with you (HERE) the need for the Work Source Oregon folks (the nice name for the unemployment office) to reveal to us what the REAL unemployment rate is. In advance of yesterday’s unemployment news conference I sent some questions to them and they kindly offered to oblige. Here are the questions:


Please characterize the unemployment situation in Oregon. Is it worse than the recession of the 80’s? Better?
How many people were on the sidelines or had given up looking for work in the 80’s versus now?
Explain what the U-6 unemployment rate is and what that number is in Oregon.  Is it an improvement?
After construction, what job sectors have seen the biggest hit in Oregon?

The U-6 unemployment rate reveals the people who at one time were looking for work but who have given up, the underemployed and the barely hanging on employed. July’s number was 19.5%. That means nearly 20% of Oregon’s work eligible are not working to their potential or at all.

I don’t have the info on when the government started keeping track of all stratum of unemployment U-1-U-6 although I believe it to be since 1994. How they kept the stats during the Great Depression is therefore obviously different than the way we keep track now. I looked up (again) the unemployment rates during the Great Depression on a Wiki (here):

The unemployment rate for the years 1923-29 was 3.3 percent. In 1931 it jumped to 15.9, in 1933 it was 24.9 percent. It remained at these extremely high levels until 1942, when it dropped to 4.7 percent.

The unemployment rate as you can see worsened after the FDR alphabet programs and only got better with the advent of war.

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com