How many Americans are unemployed?

According to the latest government figures 15.1 million people are unemployed.

According to Fox News the figure is a little higher.

Fox news

A little research using ballpark figures finds there are 307.5 million people in the U.S.  74.2% are in the labor force.  That’s 228 million people who have jobs. A little math .. 307 million – 228 million = 79 million to include the unemployed, kids and all retired people.    I tend to believe the government over Fox News. 

21 thoughts on “How many Americans are unemployed?”

  1. well Jonco right wing sites are gonna be higher just like left wing sites are gonna be lower,I dont trust any Government sh*t

  2. Fox news just left off the decimal, 14.9. If you could ever see a CNN world news outside of the US, like the one they show in Asia. (24/7 negative on US) No wonder we didn’t get the Olympics.

  3. Main Stream Media getting facts wrong? How can that be? How many people in the USA do not have health insurance? Is it 49 million? 31 million? 16 million? 7 million? It all depends on who’s counting and what they’re counting. And, sometimes they just make it up. Same holds true for elected officials occasionally.

  4. Wow, where do I start? If you want the best two page review of this, go to http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/10/employment-population-ratio-10.html

    With data from the CIA, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html , the available work force should be around 200 million people
    15-64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
    The actual work force is 154.3 million (includes unemployed) (2008 est.) That means there are 50 million plus who are of working age who aren’t working, for whatever reason.

    According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the underemployment rate is 17%. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

    Also from the BLS, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t13.htm
    Total not in the labor force 82,706,000
    Persons who currently want a job 5,650,000
    Marginally attached to the labor force 2,219,000
    Reason not currently looking:
    Discouragement over job prospects 706,000
    Reasons other than discouragement 1,513,000

    From http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
    The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.3 percentage point in September to 65.2 percent. The employment-population ratio, at 58.8 percent, also declined over the month and has decreased by 3.9 percentage points since the recession began in December 2007.

    To summarize from Dennis Prager, “I Prefer Clarity to Agreement”

    God gave us two eyes, two ears and one mouth for a reason. God wanted us to use them in their proportions to each other.

  5. Believing the government is why we are this mess to begin with.
    Dont forget, the same bunch of people trying to repress any discontent with Their authority, are the same people that spent a large portion of their youth doing just that,Protesting and questioning authority.Any “fact” brought to you by A public official will have an alterior motive tied to it. And the truth is rarely going to be the intent.

  6. Fox news is news for Republicans because it tells them what they want to hear, not actually what happened. If they are happy in their own world, then leave them there.

  7. I just noticed. As I read this post, there is an advertisement on your blog to go read Ann Coulter’s column every week FOR FREE!!!

    Oh boy! Oh boy! Oooohhhh Boy!

    I can’t wait to hear what that nut-job crazy witch has to say… NOT!

  8. I have no control over the ads that appear here. As a matter of fact, I can’t even see them on my computer. I’m not sure why that is, but I can’t.

  9. I know your advertisements are automatically inserted there according to the “key words” that come out of the page, but it was still funny to see Ann Coulter advertising on such a serious publication as Bits and Pieces.

  10. In your calculation of 79 million you left out people who are of working age who are neither employed nor seeking employment. Housewives and househusbands are not considered unemployed. College students are not considered unemployed.

  11. First of all…my condolences to Sander. Though i’m married & i think my penis is at least in the under-employment category. Fox News may lean right, but keep in mind that from what I’ve read 40% of their viewers are democrats. And what if they do lean right? Other news outlets, whether it be other cable news, print, etc., all tend to lean one way even though they don’t say so. Cable news as a whole tends to lean left. So why does everyone get so worked up over Fox News? I don’t watch a lot of other cable news stations because i think they skew too much to the left. The places that Fox News bashers get their news probably just skews left…they just don’t realize it because that’s how they see things. And without a video, we have no idea if it was a typo or not.

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