Sunday, January 25, 2009

Lies, Damn Lies, and...

Statistics.

Unemployment in the US, as of January 9, is estimated to be 7.2 percent. This is certainly high by American standards, but the European Union averaged roughly 8.5 percent from 1996-2006 (Data).

I cannot help but ask: do we have an economic crisis or a media frenzy? Please, show me the numbers.

2 comments:

Rob said...

Bear in mind that the Bush (I) and Clinton administrations changed how the unemployment data is reported, which effectively lowered the unemployment rate by approximately 10 percentage points. Therefore, when the government claims that the unemployment rate is at 7%, the truth is that it is actually around 17%.

Good site to watch: www.shadowstats.com

Will Luther said...

The pertinent question for making the comparison, of course, is how unemployment is calculated in the US relative to the EU.

My understanding is that the methodologies are similar. So while your claim that the quoted rate in the US is some 10% lower than the actual rate, the EU numbers are similarly biased. As such, the comparison stands.

Please correct me if I am wrong.