Republicans Claim 23 Million Unemployed?

Clint Eastwood said something at the Republican National Convention about 23 million Americans being unemployed, but the official unemployment number in July 2012 is 12,794,000 unemployed.

(*See my update towards the middle of this page.) 

And don't miss this companion piece:  If so many are unemployed, where are the benefits?

A reader asked:

Why do Republicans continue to say that 23 million Americans are out of work if your numbers suggest 12 million? Where are they getting that number from?

My reply:

It's an issue of definitions.  They are using alternate unemployment numbers, which have always been calculated, but never used officially.

Which of these groups of people would you consider unemployed other than people actively looking for work? 

People who are discouraged and have not looked for work for over a month? People who haven't looked for work for over a year?  16 year old high school kids who want to get a part-time job after school?

Someone who says they want a job but they haven't applied anywhere, spoken to anyone, or made any phone calls about employment for the past month?

People who haven't looked for work in the past month because they are ill?  People who haven't looked for work for the past month because their car has died?  People who are working part-time but want a full-time job?

People who are retired? People who are home with young children?

The constant definition of unemployment, the one that has been used for decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations, is that someone has to be actively looking for work, at least one resume, one application, one interview OR one contact, within the past four weeks to be considered officially "unemployed". 

In addition, people need to be 16 or over to be counted.  Also, people in the military or people in institutions such as prisons or nursing homes are NOT counted. 

There are alternate numbers of unemployment that include some of the groups I  listed above, but they have ALWAYS been considered "alternate". The Republicans don't want to give Obama credit for anything, so they have now pivoted away from the usual and constant definition of unemployment to one of these alternate definitions of unemployment.

Now, the "official" definition of unemployment does include 16 and 17 year olds who are looking for a part-time job after school. Of the 12,800,000 people officially looking for work, 2,000,000 of them are looking for part-time jobs. Of those 2 million, 500,000 are high school aged kids looking for part-time work during school. Another 300,000 are college aged kids looking for part-time work. If we didn't count these part-time kids, the unemployment rate would be 7.8%.

But it's best to stick to calculations like this that are tried and true and widely used.

Update 9/2/2012:   Here are various numbers of people who are considered unemployed, employed, or "not in the labor force" as of July 2012.  Which of these groups or subgroups would you consider "unemployed"?

There are 9,307,000 people 18 and over now unemployed who are ACTIVELY looking for full-time work:

• Start with 12,974,000 officially unemployed, as described above.
• The above number includes about 650,000 young people (16 to 19 years of age) enrolled in school who want part-time or summer work (vs. full-time year round work). 
• The above number includes about another 1,600,000 people 20+ who are looking for part-time work (vs. full-time work).
• The above number also includes 1,417,000 people who are on temporary layoff but expect to return to work.  
• Subtract these groups out, and there are about 9,307,000 people 18 and over now unemployed who are ACTIVELY looking for full-time work. 
• In addition, 878,000 of these 9 million people QUIT their last jobs.  (They weren't laid off, nor were they new workers; they actually quit.  Should they be counted?)

8,246,000 people who are working part-time and want to work full-time, but...

• 8,246,000 people are working part-time but want to work full-time.  However: 
• Of these 8,246,000, 5,342,000 are working part-time because of "slack work or business conditions" at their part-time job.  This includes insufficient demand (about 5,193,000*) and seasonal periods of slack work (about 338,000*).  We don't know how many of these people expect to return to full-time work in the next weeks or months nor do we know if any of these people are now actively looking for work elsewhere.  (This number is down from 5,695,000 a year ago.)* These two numbers do not add up due to seasonal adjustment factors.
• Of the 8,246,000 "involuntary part-time workers", 2,576,000 say they can only find part-time work.  We have no way of knowing how many of these people are actively looking for full-time work elsewhere.
• Remember that these involuntary part-time workers have NEVER been considered as part of the officially unemployed.  Even in the best of recent times (since 2000), we have had at least 3,000,000 involuntary part-time workers.  

About those 2,529,000 "marginally attached" workers:

• Another 2,529,000 people are "marginally attached to the labor force".  Please understand that people who are "marginally attached to the labor force" are people who have NOT LOOKED FOR WORK in the past four weeks.  However, these people DID look for work sometime in the past year.  Would you count people as unemployed if they did not look for work?   
• These are the reasons these "marginally attached" people have not looked for work in the past four weeks:
• 852,000 are "discouraged over job prospects".  (This is down from 1,119,000 last year.)
• 260,000 have not looked for work in the past month due to "family responsibilities".
• 249,000 have not looked for work in the past month because they were in school or in training.
• 203,000 have not looked for work in the past month because they have been ill or were disabled.
• 965,000 did not look for work for "other" reasons, including some who had child-care or transportation problems. (No breakdown available of these 965,000 people.)
• Remember that these "marginally attached" workers have NEVER been considered as part of the officially unemployed.  

You decide:  Who would you count as unemployed?

I will update this post later with historical numbers on these figures.  In the meantime, you decide:  Who would you count as unemployed and who would you not count?  

• Do people have to be looking for work in the past month before you would count them?  
• Should part-time people who want full-time work be counted if they aren't actively looking for that full-time work?
• Should people who quit their last job (vs. being laid off) be counted?      

Something else to think about:

If the unemployment situation is still SO bad and there has been NO

improvement- then why have the Republicans in Congress been pushing so strongly for fewer weeks of unemployment compensation for the unemployed and claiming that longer terms of unemployment keep people from getting work?  If unemployment is so bad that Obama should not be reelected.. why did they want to cut off unemployment benefits from the unemployed?    

More about the 23,000,000 unemployed HERE at the bottom of the page at Factcheck.org.