(ThyBlackMan.com) An unthinkable event happened in 1994 – It was the year; the Clinton Administration initiated the scam of undercounting the nation’s unemployment rates. This unjust and horrible scam became the official policy of that administration and gained permanence. Be that as it may, it was “a rigged and deceptive act.” Here is what Dr. Robert Reich who was the Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration said, in comments to my blog about those happenings:
“Dear Mr. Davis.
You write that “it was decided by Clinton and Reich that the U-3 category rate would become his administration’s official unemployment rate.” That is untrue. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a statistical agency whose independence from politics is critically important to its credibility. Neither I as secretary of labor nor President Clinton intruded on that independence. The BLS decided and continues to decide how the nation’s unemployment rate is defined, measured, and explained to the public.”
Fast forward to today, 30 years after the vile scam got its start under the Clinton administration, President Biden continues to promote the policy of undercounting our unemployment rates, as he has done throughout his tenure in office. He wrongly says, “And [un]employment has been the lowest — been below 4 percent for the longest stretch in 50 years.” Biden used the U-3 category rate for April, which at that time, was 3.9%.
In 1994, when the unemployment rates were adjusted to make them more accurate, the U-6 category rate was chosen by economists to be the most comprehensive of our unemployment situation and not the U-3 rate. It is time for our nation to level up and acknowledge that the Biden administration and Democrats are lying about our unemployment rates, as we experience our third Economic Downturn in 16 years. The Real rate of unemployment, the U-6 category rate is 7.4% for May, and not Biden’s political rate of 4.0% (U-3).
Biden’s rate of the nation’s unemployment situation which he erroneously promotes as comprehensive is misleading, giving us the impression we have a better economy than what is true. The black rate, which averages 2.7% higher over the real rate of U-6, 7.4%, clocked in at 10.1%, for May. Thus, Black Americans are experiencing in real-time, a Great Recession, which is dismissed, by the Biden-Harris administration to Black America’s workers and their children’s detriment.
Add to the above, #1) Black Americans are the first laid-off when the economy declines, as it is doing now, #2) African Americans are being impacted by an estimated (it could be more), 4.2 million economic immigrants crossing the borders under the Biden-Harris administration, looking for employment, while Black American workers are being battered by the aforementioned layoffs, and #3) That historical number of immigrants, willing to work for lower wages, equals 20% of the total African American labor force of 22 million. The black population of 48 million are dealing with both, layoffs and ferocious competition for Jobs.
Winning the votes of Americans who truly understand the significance and impact of this scam will be troublesome for Biden. Why? Here is a plain, and simple way to visualize, or look at what Mr. Biden, and Democrats are doing to us, year after year, and month after month. If you low-ball, or undercount laid-off workers, with a Job rate lower (Biden’s May political rate of 4.0%) than the real rate for May (7.4%), President Biden willfully counts only 54% of unemployed, and laid-off working-class Americans. That leaves 46% of American workers, including African Americans uncounted, and unseen by Congressional policy makers, who use the administration’s numbers to fund legislation to help unemployed Americans. However, Biden and Democrats degradation of American workers, especially Black American workers, does not end there.
Biden wants to make this policy permanent, literally creating a permanent underclass of American workers, that 46% spoken of above, will never be funded and never be recognized as being unemployed, by the Biden-Harris administration, although they are considered unemployed, by economists. Black American workers will significantly populate this group, just as they are the first laid-off. Don’t take my word for drawing these conclusions, do the math yourself, as the following people have!
Janet Yellen, President Biden’s Secretary of the Treasury, on February 18, 2021, in an interview on CNBC, commenting on the nation’s January unemployment rate said, “We have an unemployment rate that if properly measured in some sense, is really close to 10%.” The U-3 category rate, Biden’s official jobless rate, for the month of January flashed 6.3%, while the most comprehensive, and real unemployment rate, U-6 was 11.1%.
Lael Brainard, the former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, and President Joe Biden’s current Director of his National Economic Council, stated in an article on February 24, 2021 in the Wall Street Journal the following: “When we take into consideration the more than 4 million workers who have left the labor force since the pandemic started, as well as misclassification, the unemployment rate is close to 10 percent currently—much higher than (Biden’s) headline unemployment rate of 6.3 percent.”
Biden’s former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Dr. Cecilia Rouse, on April 2, 2021, on the White House web site, stated, she felt the March unemployment rate was around 9 %, rather than the 6% official unemployment rate Biden was touting. The real unemployment rate, the U-6 category rate, clocked in at 10.7%.
Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve at the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee news conference on January 27, 2021, said, “The real unemployment rate is close to 10 percent (for December) if you include people that have left the labor force.” At that time, the U-3 official rate was 6.7%, and the U-6 rate was 11.7%.
Is the real unemployment rate for May, the category rate of U-6, at 7.4% or U-3, at 4.0%? How do we get clarity regarding our Job rates? Make this an issue of our presidential election. How do you accomplish this feat? This can be accomplished through actively urging an organization, like Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), who admittedly, themselves have integrity issues, but yet is sitting on an estimated $30 million, to run full-page ads in the major newspapers of the battle ground states of Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Florida (read the article @ the link about BLMGNF;
https://thyblackman.com/2024/04/07/cicley-gay-and-blmgnf-fact-check-joe-bidens-3-8-march-unemployment-rate-as-the-real-rate-hits-7-3-the-african-american-rate-10-0/).
Such ad pages will essentially state in a generic manner, being non-specific to either political party, what is obvious to all of us; our unemployment rates are of questionable integrity, as far as being comprehensive of our nation’s unemployment situation. This makes the ad non-political. BLMGNF, having received so much money from so many (read the article), in doing this, gives back to a grateful nation, when it comes to this issue. This will generate a needed nationwide conversation and discussion, regarding our unemployment rates, in plenty enough time for Voters to weigh-in on this profoundly important issue that touches every American life, before the November presidential election. With diversity as our strength, our capitalistic based economy will work for everyone. Unrig our JOB RATES – grow the real economy.
Staff Writer; James Davis
Question? Comment? One may use this email address; MrDavis@ThyBlackMan.com.