Jeff Greenfield on his CNN show on June 27 made an interesting observation regarding the real number of unemployed. What I heard him say was the following: If you add to the government's statistic the number of those who are unemployed but no longer eligible for unemployment insurance and those who are not eligible for unemployment and who are working in temporary jobs, you come up with an unemployment figure of around 9.9%.

I would be interested to hear reactions to this.

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), June 29, 2001

Answers

The broadly defined labor "unemployment" rate may well be typically about 20%. Add the "hidden" unemployment rate to the official rate. Now add the ranks of the UNDERemployed, those workers not using their skill sets. Then add those seeking full time work but employed only part time. The total workforce minus this grand total, constitutes the true "capacity utilization" rate for Labor.

For Capital, this value is typically about 80%. There's no reason to believe the "capacity utilization" rate for Labor is any higher. This translates into a true typical "unemployment plus underemployment" rate of about 20%. And it surely is much higher during recessions.

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), June 29, 2001.