No one has posted on the topic in a while. Heard some local news here in Tampa the other day saying that only 5,000 people were without health insurance in the "entire bay area." Where are they pulling these numbers? I know for a fact that there are well over 5k 100% homeless in my county alone. The Tampa bay area is actually three counties, population in the millions.
I have also heard that the national unemployment rate is derived from those collecting unemployment pay, and those currently employed but working less than 32 hours. This means that everyone who is really not working and in no way qualified to collect unemployment benefits is not counted in the national unemployment rate?
The media constantly speaks of job growth when big corps like General Motors show a good quarter earnings because they reduced their overhead after firing another 30 or 50,000 workers. I suppose if a company reduces their overhead (work force) than all the potential and unsuspecting American GM customers never realize that the 375,000,000 quarterly profit really came from not having to pay 50,000 (30k per year)employees.
My best guess is the unemployment numbers are not meant to tell us how many people are out of work. The unemployment rate is just that, a "rate" of unemployment we can not figure out because we don't have any actual unit of measure to apply the rate to. Population is not x because too many aren't old enough to work, too old to work, or tax exempt.
*I think I just hurt myself* lol just saying.