Millions are Underemployed in McJobs. LISEP says ‘The Official Unemployment Rate is Deceptive.’ The Accurate Rate for Blacks is 29.6%, 28.5% for Latinos and 23.3% for Whites

Employment researchers are warning that the share of Americans who are only loosely attached to the labor force is on the rise, and that the true rate of unemployment may be far higher than official figures suggest.

A new report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) found that 25.2 percent of the U.S. workforce could now be classified as "functionally unemployed"—meaning jobless, seeking but unable to secure full-time employment or earning "poverty-level wages." This marks an increase from 24.8 percent in November and, as LISEP notes, represents the highest "True Rate of Employment"—or TRU—since June 2021.

"By accounting for underemployment and poverty-level wages, the TRU offers a more complete picture of our economic health."

According to the most-recent employment report from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the economy added 50,000 jobs in December, following a gain of 56,000 the prior month. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, ticked down to 4.4 percent from a revised reading of 4.5 percent for November, while the total number of unemployed Americans remained broadly stable at 7.5 million. 

While the headline unemployment rate has seen a notable jump from 4 percent last January, LISEP believes the official rates reported by the BLS are "deceiving" given the share of workers employed on extremely low wages or forced into reduced hours.

"If we continue to define success as solely having a job, even if that job is just for an hour or more every two weeks, without asking whether that job pays enough to support living above a poverty wage, we are effectively blinding ourselves to the very structural challenges that we would hope policymakers are trying to address," LISEP's chair previously told Newsweek.

By demographic, the group said the TRU rose 1.5 percent for both Black and Hispanic workers in December—now at 29.6 percent and 28.5 percent, respectively—while the rate for white workers dipped to 23.2 percent from 23.3 percent. Additionally, the share of men "functionally unemployed" increased 0.3 percentage points to 20.5 percent, while the rate for women rose to 30.3 percent from 30.1 percent. [MORE]

PHOTO IS THE PROPERTY OF VINCENT BROWN, THE UNDECEIVER

According to FUNKTIONARY:

SOUP – Society of Overworked Underpaid People. 2) Society of Oppressed Underdeveloped People. 3) Society of Obsolete Underprivileged People. 4) Single Oppressive Unified Pattern. 5) Strapped Overruled Useless People. The Ruling Overclass along with Doggy, Hidalgo, the Beasthood, CrimethInc., et. al, have no more use for the majority of people on the planet, therefore prepare for further depopulation efforts to permeate the planet such as existing ones, e.g., AIDS, strategic starvation, biological warfare, genetic manipulation, Eugenocide and other nefarious stratagems and techniques.

McJob – a “low-pay,” low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future job in the feudal looks-like-it-could-be food chain service (servitude) sector of the New God Economy. (See: Economies, Cainsian Economics & Quantity Theory of Money)

poverty – the ultimate legal defense. 2) the absence of conscious effort (self-determination) options; a surmountable obstruction. The glamorization of self-sufficiency in a monopoly capitalist system is an underhanded way to accuse those who will not exploit others of being responsible for their own poverty. You can determine which side of the poverty line you are on by this simple formula: Do you have more than you need or do you need more than you have? (See: Gangbanking, “The Law,” Maya Banking, Privilege, Power, Tapeworm Economy, Free-Range Slavery, Voluntiered Slavery, Taxtortion, Property, Wealth & Corporate State)