Yikes! You won't believe the real jobless numbers

The real U.S. unemployment rate may be 22.1 percent for February 2011, not the 8.9 percent reported by the government, according to economist John Williams, author of the “Shadow Government Statistics” website, who has argued for years that the federal government manipulates the reporting of economic data for political purposes.

The government announced today the unemployment rate was reported to have fallen 0.1 percent to 8.9 percent in February 2011, although that is the “seasonally adjusted number.”

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics Table A15, the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment number for February 2011 was 9.5 percent.

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Separately, Gallup disagreed with the BLS, reporting earlier this week that unemployment had risen to 10.0 percent in mid-February, as seen in the following chart:

But Williams recreates an SGS (Shadow Government Statistics) alternative unemployment rate reflecting methodology that includes “long-term discouraged workers” that the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1994 under the Clinton administration redefined away from those considered “unemployed.”

The BLS no longer considers as “unemployed” those workers without jobs who had not looked for work in the past year because they felt no jobs were available.

Williams demonstrated that it takes an expert to truly decipher BLS unemployment statistics.