NATIONAL JOBS FOR ALL COALITION 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 853, NY, NY 100115; 212-870-3449
UNCOMMON SENSE 4 © rev. December 2000

EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS:
LET'S TELL THE WHOLE STORY

By Helen Lachs Ginsburg, Professor of Economics, Brooklyn College of the
City University of New York, and Bill Ayres, Director, World Hunger Year

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) regularly reports the nation's monthly and annual "official" unemployment rate. In 1999, this official unemployment averaged 4.2 percent, representing 5.9 million people. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. In the same BLS report, we can find large groups that are not counted as unemployed. These official numbers don't include 3.4 million involuntary part-time workers who wanted but weren't able to get full-time employment. Nor do they include 4.6 million people who wanted jobs but were not actively seeking work. Of that group, 1.2 million had searched for work during the previous year and were available to take a job immediately. The rest wanted work but had not looked because they didn't expect to find any, or weren't able to work for a variety of reasons, including lack of child care or transportation, or a disability. Public policy changes would enable many of these people to work. In addition, in 1998 (the most recent year for which such data are available), another 16.7 million people worked full-time all year, but had annual earnings below the government”s meager poverty line for a family of four.

We need a new composite set of employment statistics that includes each of these four groups. Here is an example for 1999:

Officially Unemployed Workers 5.9 Million Involuntary Part-Time Workers 3.4 Million Non-Job Seekers Who Want a Job 4.6 Million Full-Time Year-Round Workers Earning less than Poverty Level* 17.1 Million (for a family of four, 1999) TOTAL     31.0 Million

*SOURCE: estimated from Money Income in the United States, Bureau of the Census, Sept. 2000, Table 11

It should be noted that even these numbers do not include the vast and rapidly growing prison population (1.8 million in 1998), disproportionately young, unskilled minority men. If inmates were counted as unemployed, the official jobless rate would rise by over 1 percentage point.

Unemployment has fallen in recent years, and that's good news. But we still have far to go. The full story about unemployment and low wages in the United States is not a pretty one. Until we stop denying the extent of the problem, we will not develop the programs and policies to guarantee living wage Jobs for All Americans!

For monthly updates on unemployment statistics, see jobnews.html on this web site. For further information about employment statistics, see Sheila Collins, Helen Lachs Ginsburg and Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Jobs for All: A Plan for the Revitalization of America, Apex Press, 1994, pp. 40-48 and 59-61.

source: National Jobs for All Coaltion