"Real" Oregon unemployment: 23.5 percent
The national unemployment rate has risen to 9.5 percent, the highest level in more than a quarter-century. Yet it still excludes all those who have given up looking for a job and those part-time workers who want to be working full time.Include them — as the Labor Department does when calculating its broadest measure of the job market — and the rate reached 23.5 percent in Oregon this spring, according to a New York Times analysis of state-by-state data. It was 21.5 percent in both Michigan and Rhode Island and 20.3 percent in California. In Tennessee, Nevada and several other states that have relied heavily on manufacturing or housing, the rate was just under 20 percent this spring and may have since surpassed it.
| Posted at 6:08 PM | Permalink |
|
Comments (6)
We're #1, we're #1!!!!!!
That ought to make the smurfs real happy.
Posted by mp97303 | July 26, 2009 7:54 PM
It also doesn't include people who ran their own businesses but have had to close them. They get no umemployment so they aren't counted either; when you count people like real estate folks, bookkeepers, and a ton of other folks - I think the umemployment number is even higher.
Posted by native oregonian | July 27, 2009 8:01 AM
I'm confused. Should we believe rush hour traffic in PDX or the New York Times.
Posted by David E Gilmore | July 27, 2009 8:36 AM
David E. Gilmore: What rush hour traffic? I made the drive to my office on Barbur Blvd. from Gresham this morning in 24 minutes.
Posted by Dave A.. | July 27, 2009 8:54 AM
Dave A: Agreed. I purposely timed my trip home from the Gorge last Monday to not hit downtown at 5pm. I arrived in Troutdale about 5:45 and drove all the way to Hillsboro with no problems. If it weren't for the curve onto I-5 from I-84 and the need to merge two lanes to get to 26, I wouldn't have even needed a brake pedal at all. Summer vacations are part of the traffic reductions, but certainly not all of it.
Posted by Chad | July 27, 2009 9:39 AM
No one should be suprised at Oregon's unemployment figures. The leaders of this state have spent the last couple of decades killing traditional Oregon industries and replacing them with not much. With this latest go around of tax increases what is left will leave.
Posted by Darrin | July 27, 2009 10:06 AM