ShadowStats: Unemployment Really at 22%

From a New York Post article on unemployment numbers:

"Starting in the Clinton administration, Americans who told Census Bureau investigators, over a period of a year, that they were too discouraged to even look for a job simply vanished from U-6.

And considering how prolonged today's periods of unemployment can be, there are probably more people simply falling out of the count, although the Labor Department has no idea how many for certain.

My friend John Williams of Shadow Government Stats thinks the true unemployment rate would be 22.1 percent if everyone -- all discouraged former workers, encouraged, involuntary part-timers and the like -- were included.

Here are more numbers to fry your brain and cause a temporary sense of helplessness.

The government's household survey (the one from which the unemployment rate of 10.2 percent comes) showed a "decline in employment" of 589,000 in October, which followed a 785,000 employment drop in September.
That number also includes people who say they retired and others who were fortunate enough to have died during the past month and no longer require a job.

More numbers: Last Friday's 190,000 loss of jobs (from the survey of companies) would have been worse if 86,000 imaginary jobs weren't included to the tally."