O-pression: Experts Put Real Unemployment At Between 18% and 22%

Mike Shedlock crunches the numbers and comes to an inescapable conclusion: real unemployment is far, far worse than official government statistics reflect.

60% of 6,484,000 = 3,890,000
Civilian Labor Force: 153,421,000 + 3,890,000 = 157,311,000
Unemployed: 13,747,000 + 3,890,000 = 17,637,000
Unemployment Rate = 11.2%

According to the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics], there are now 8,600,000 workers who want a full-time job but instead are working part-time. The BLS labels this group "part-time for economic reasons". The number of rose by 167,000 last month.

...If you factor in those working part-time for economic reasons the unemployment rate rises to 15.9%, and if you factor in students and those in forced retirement who really would rather be working, it is likely another 1-2 points higher still.

In other words, it's probably in the 18% range.

ShadowStats thinks things are even worse: a little over 22%.

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

Let's just compromise and call it 20%.

Either way, this president's bankruptcy-inducing policies have set this nation on a course for an unprecedented fiscal calamity. We are seeing a preview of coming attractions in Europe, the results of unchecked deficit spending and the spread of socialist welfare programs that can't work and have never worked throughout human history.

And yet Democrats lobby for more: more spending, more deficits, more unchecked wealth redistribution schemes. They know they are unsustainable, yet they plow ahead, bankrupting future generations for some mirage of a Utopian society where everyone is equal, no matter how hard they work.

And that, my friends, truly is the definition of insanity.