Yesterday, here:
"Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed, and 94 million not working. Now, these 46 million people, these are the counted unemployed. This is the U-3 number. The counted unemployed represent 14% of the population."
Limbaugh somehow gets this convoluted mess from here, which he cites but which clearly states the 46 million are those on food stamps, not the U-3 "counted" unemployed:
"The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions). These 46 million people represent 14% of the U.S. population."
In the latest Employment Situation Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for September, those actually counted as unemployed are listed at 7.915 million (2.5% of the population) and the not counted as unemployed at 1.9 million:
"In September, the unemployment rate held at 5.1 percent, and the number of unemployed persons (7.9 million) changed little. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.3 million, respectively. (See table A-1.) . . . In September, 1.9 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 305,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)"
U-3 is not a number in millions as Limbaugh says but a rate, the percentage of the labor force which is unemployed (7.915 million / 156.715 million), namely 5.1%.
Limbaugh doesn't understand that lots of employed people get food stamps. Individuals grossing up to $15,312 annually can still qualify for assistance.
Almost 49 million individuals made up to but not more than $15,000 annually in 2014.
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| The unemployed in Sept. 2015 numbered 7.9 million |
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| U-3 is a percentage |
