i am sure they have thought of it, anything to get bush back in
Slán
~M

>Jim;
>
>The Republicans will love this. Eliminate unemployment insurance and then no one will be unemployed! :)
>
>Tom
>
>
>>Hi Ken,
>>
>>While I'm inclined to agree with the general idea you define, I'm really at odds with the chosen nomenclature.
>>
>>To the average Joe "unemployed" means "need a job but haven't found one" so it logically follows that "unemployment" would be the state of being unemployed. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with length of time without work or collecting benefits or not or ANY other factor.
>>I wonder why they didn't choose to call the number the "benefits-collection rate"??? For the clarity of the current naming they could just as well have called it the "pumpkin rate". To me there's only one reason that it is called what it's called - deception calculated to make things SOUND better than they really are!
>>
>>In addition, what would be wrong with simply taking the total number of people resident in the country and reporting the percentage of those "unemployed" (see above for definition)??? Sure, this would include children, the non-employable, students, etc. BUT over the months the relative number derived would still be useful and legitimate and it wouldn't have to have hidden factors known only to inquiring minds.
>>
>>Jim
>>>Hi Jim,
>>>
>>>My take is that it is not so much an attempt to deceive as it is an attempt to establish a measurement wherein the value is not so much the absolute number but instead, the change from one period to another.
>>>
>>>Absolute numbers of unemployed would be pretty hard to get because of all the permutations of definitions. Is a college student unemployed? Perhaps only when school is not in session? What if they do volunteer work on vacation? Did they have a parttime job and lose it? Perhaps they never entered the work force at all... etc etc
>>>
>>>Ken
>>>
>>>>>The term "unemployed" in this context is a legal - as opposed to a factual determination. To be unemployed, you have to actually be looking for work and you must be within 15 weeks of having lost your job I believe. And yes, you need to be collecting some benefit. After that, you fall off the roles.
>>>>>
>>>>>So...when more people fall off than go on the unemployment roles, regardless of whether jobs are created or not - the unemployment number goes down.
>>>>
>>>>So, yet another deliberately misleading contrivance of words by our (done same way here too) bureaucrats aimed at soothing the populace.
>>>>I guess we'd revolt if we actually knew the truth!
>>>>
>>>>Jim