Burroughs,
I never believed the "official" numbers that the government tries to sell via the media. I think it's simply a way for government officials to either save face or to prevent panic. Over the years, for many years, I've felt like the numbers were always doctored. From natural disasters that happen here in the US (I believe a lot of times the media reports a lower number than the actual number of people who died in major disasters like hurricanes), to the number of US soldiers killed in the war that has been going on for the past 12 years.
When I kept hearing the morons on the news saying the unemployment rate here was less than 10 percent, in my mind I kept saying to myself that it's a load of b.s. Plus, they don't count the people that lost a decent paying job and were forced to take a job that pays very little in order to survive. Instead they spin it into a success and say "new jobs were created". They just fail to mention that the person is making 1/2 to 1/3rd of what he was making before.
On top of this, all you have to do is look around. Either by talking to the people you know or just observing people in general, you know the unemployment rate is MUCH higher than they're saying it is. And it's not unusual to hear about people who have been looking for work for over a year, and either still haven't found work or after a year or two of searching, have finally found work. Once again, when they do, it's usually not at the level of pay they had before.
Although I know the level of unemployment is high, my belief was that instead of the lowball percentage they were giving, that it might be closer to 25-30% unemployment, with a good percentage of those working being underemployed/making less money for their level of skill. If the number really is closer to 40%, like this article says, I thought it was bad but it's even worse than I thought. Not sure how accurate their numbers are but I'd say 33-35% might be a realistic number if you account for possible errors. So my official, b.s. guesstimate is that there's an unemployment rate of 33%, or 1/3rd. Hey, if the government can do it, so can I.
