RUSH: This is James in Rolla, Missouri. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush, been listening to you for 20 the years. I’m a conservative retired university professor.
RUSH: One of my aunts is from Rolla, Missouri. My aunt Mary is from Rolla, Missouri. She married my uncle Manly, my dad’s brother.
CALLER: It’s a wonderful town.
RUSH: It is a great town. School of mines.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: It was the University School of Mines is in Rolla, Missouri.
CALLER: Yeah, now it’s called Missouri University of Science and Technology.
RUSH: Yeah, well, more than mines are being taught there.
CALLER: Yes, it is. My questions very simple: How can we have 8.2% unemployment when if you add up all the first-time jobless claims every Friday that’s been carried out since Obama’s been in office, that sums up as of the end of June to 83,918,000 people have lost their jobs.
RUSH: Well, because, if I understand your question, let’s say the number is the 400,000 number that they try to avoid, 400,000 applications for unemployment. Those are not brand-new every week. Some of those are the same people replaying.
CALLER: It says first time, though. It says first-time unemployment claims.
RUSH: First-time unemployment claims?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: The number you get is 83 million?
CALLER: 83,918,000 as of the end of June. The end of July it will be 65 million.
RUSH: This is very interesting, because within the past three months, in talking about unemployment, there was a period of a week or two where a number very close to that was cited as the actual number of adults not working in the country. And it was a scary number when you look at the fact that 210 million adults, I think the number was around 80 million adults who were not working. According to the DLS numbers, the number of Americans who are looking for work and can’t find any and those who have given up looking for work and don’t have a job, that percentage is 18.2% right now, the U-6 number is around 18.2%. Now, what that translates to in actual raw numbers, I don’t know. Since Obama took office, you’ve taken the weekly —
CALLER: The weekly numbers and summed them all up in a spreadsheet, yes.
RUSH: And first-time, you’ve found that the number every week, first-time unemployment?
CALLER: That’s right.
RUSH: And you’ve come up with 83 million.
CALLER: Now, those numbers come from, the state have to report every week how many have filed for first-time unemployment numbers. That’s where that number comes from.
RUSH: Well, you ask an interesting question. You ask an interesting question that — no question about it — deserves an answer. And, of course, you’ve called the right place. We will get the answer. Now, in May… This is what I was talking about. In May, James, we were told that 88 million Americans were no longer in the labor force. The labor force participation rate is the number that keeps shrinking, which is what keeps the unemployment percentage low.
I remember getting into arguments with people who tried to tell me that the labor force participation rate had nothing to do with the unemployment rate. I said, “You can’t possibly be right.” It was a long, drawn-out discussion of the number of jobs that no longer exist in the country, and that number is down. Since Obama took office, the government has just reduced the labor force participation rate by over two million. They just said that there are two million fewer jobs to be had.
And I would say, “Well, okay, if the universe of jobs has shrunk and you’re comparing the people seeking jobs, you’re obviously gonna have a smaller unemployment percentage,” which is why I have accused the regime of monkeying around with the numbers. Now, are you using the so-called seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers, or are you using the real, unadjusted new claims number? Do you know the difference?
CALLER: My numbers came from the US Jobless Claims Chart published by Bloomberg on the Web.
RUSH: “US Jobless Claims Chart published by Bloomberg.”
CALLER: It’s a chart, and if you click on each week, it’ll print out at the top of it the actual number for that week, and that’s where I got my numbers. These are first-time unemployment claims.
RUSH: You don’t know if it’s seasonally adjusted or raw data?
CALLER: I do not know.
RUSH: Okay, it’s probably seasonally adjusted.
CALLER: But either way, it’s tremendously different than the 8% they talk about.
RUSH: Well, see, everybody knows it’s not 8%. The government’s own U-6 number is around 18% now. That 8.2% just counts people who are looking. There are a whole lot of people who have given up looking. Their 99 weeks have expired and they’re now on disability.
CALLER: Well, if you took it to 99 weeks, the last 99 weeks there were 44 million people that filed unemployment claims.
RUSH: Well, I think it makes sense. It’s devastating out there!
CALLER: Yeah. To run a total each week that comes out when they give that number, why don’t you put the sum total for his total losses?
RUSH: We have a staff here. We have a staff, and maybe somebody on the staff will get to the bottom of it. (Me.) This is interesting. I’ll do my best to have an answer for you before the election.