Real Unemployment Rate Over 21%

The following article originally appeared on OpEdNews.com.

"Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gleefully proclaims on the Senate floor.

Harry Reid is not really happy with the loss of 36,000 jobs. He is just happy if the American people are silly enough to accept this as really good news.

Come on folks. Is it really good news to keep losing tens of thousands of jobs each month (the number is likely higher than whatever they are telling us).

So here is what the good consumers of America are supposed to believe. People keep losing tens of thousands of jobs, but miraculously the unemployment rate trickles down a bit each month.

But what is the real umemployment rate?

Well the government's U6 number reports that the unemployment rate for February is up a bit to 16.8 percent. That number "is the broadest measure of unemployment in the civilian labor force in the U.S. economy and includes those who need work but have given up the search, and those who have taken part-time jobs while still seeking full time employment."

But wait; there are some statisticians that claim even the government's U6 number is a lie.

According to Shadow Government Statistics, ".....the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting..... Payroll Drop of 36,000 was 51,000 Net of Census Hiring • Broader February Unemployment Measures Rose: U.6 at 16.8% (up 0.3%), SGS at 21.6% (up 0.4%) • Economy Remains Headed into Deepening Downturn"

Let's face it; the economy is in a mess and has been in a mess well before the official Great Recession started in 2007. Oh, and if you recall, the media/government economists kept telling us we weren't in a recession all the way up to the Spring of 2008. These are the same media/government economists that, like Senator Reid, are proclaiming the good news of US jobless unemployment at 9.7% for this past month.

Ronald Reagan once said something like "a recession is when your neighbor is out of work and a depression is when you are out of work."

Well we might be able to turn that around a bit for Harry Reid.

A really big day in America is when "only 36,000 lost their jobs" but a really really great big day in America will be when Harry Reid loses his job.