Unemployment really at 16% – Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck ended today’s radio program with John Williams of Shadowstats.com re: how the government has rejiggered the way it reports both the unemployment and inflation figures.

Williams gave the history of when that happened. Said the government didn’t count numbers during Great Depression — only began doing it in the 1940s, and since then, again in the 1990s, “adjusted” the way unemployment is measured, eliminating “discouraged workers” and counted them for only less than a year.

Says unemployment in real numbers is at 16% — worst level since post-WWII – because it counts the “discouraged workers”, something the gov stopped reporting on years ago. The government actually uses six levels of numbers:

U-3 is what they report publicly, currently at 9.9% unemployment.

U-6 includes ALL unemployed, including “discouraged workers”, and that is currently at 16%.

Less than 30% of all US teens had a job this summer.

We have lost since 2000, 32% of all manufacturing jobs.  Lost 42,000 manufacturers since 2001.  We don’t make anything anymore.

46% more going to food pantries since 2006.  Time to unleash capitalism!

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Inflation:

The government changed the way it measures that in the 1980’s through 2000.  Looking at the CPI, which means maintaining a constant standard of living, the government says the rate of inflation has been 3.8% a year.  The REAL number is 11.4% — John Williams says the reason the government does this is so they don’t have to adjust Social Security payments to reflect the real increases.