The figure you cited of 298,444,215 is the estimated total population of the United States, not the number of Americans considered to be “working age”. From the article you dispaged so much:

Normally, the labor force consists of everyone of working age (typically above a certain age (around 14 to 16) and below retirement (around 65) who are participating workers, that is people actively employed or seeking employment. People not counted include students, retired people, stay-at-home parents, people in prisons or similar institutions, as well as discouraged workers who simply do not want work.

In other words the number you use has nothing to do with calculating the number of Americans considered to be participating in the work force and therefore how the unemployment rate actually relates to facts on the ground. It’s blindingly obvious that in fact you either did not read or did not comprehend my post or the link I provided.

As far as Bush doing a terrible job I simply believe that neither he nor anyone who thinks just having a job, irregardless of its pay or benefits grasps anything about the social or psychological dynamics of how people feel about the economy, which was after all the jumping off point of this discussion.

Both total employment, at 146.3 million, and the employment-population ratio,
at 63.3 percent, were essentially unchanged in March. Over the month, the labor
force participation rate held steady at 66.2 percent, about the same as a year
earlier. (See table A-1.)

Those Americans without jobs is closer to 152 million, not 120 million.

However you jumped up and down not even understanding my question. Which means you don’t even understand the participation rates either.

Because 120 million Unemployed Americans would mean we emptied all the prisons, took all the welfare moms and put most of those kids around age 10 to 16 to work. We might actually have to recall some senior citizens too. Oh and Unemployment would be Zero.

Get out your economics books and quit Wiki’ing your facts.

Population: 298,444,215 (July 2006 est.)therefore

298,444,215-146,300,000=152,144,215 unemployed Americans. Not 120 million.

Now lets throw in those Illegal aliens many of whom get counted in the census and you will find that the participation rate is well above 70 percent in this country which is at a Historical high.

In fact if you dont count them its still at an historical high and yet according to you Bush is doing a terrible job.

proof please. because you seem to be saying that 120 million Americans are jobless and that is absolute Idiocy.

I’m not saying any such thing and nowhere is there anything that could be interpreted as such. Here is a definition of labor force that includes labor force participation rate on Wikipedia. Current civilian labor force participation rate is 66.2%. This is determined by the ratio between those who are working or actively looking for work and the total estimated population 16 and over. It’s that simple in terms of how the official number is determined. The problem of course is that it doesn’t count illegal immigrants, “discouraged” workers or those who make their livings through the underground economy.

superdestroyer had chimed in with

Of course on the reason that people do not feel like they have benefited is that take home pay has not gone up at the same rate as the cost of employing people increases in social security taxes, Medicaid insurance, unemployment insurance workers comp insurance, local taxes, and state taxes.

But of course in the time frame we are discussing there had been no increase in social security taxes, taxes to cover Medicaid (In fact benefits have gone down in most places.) in most places or unemployment insurance. Workers comp, local taxes and state taxes have varied. They’ve been cut around here and state services have suffered as a result. Where they’ve increased it’s largely been because of states trying to make up for cuts the feds made so they could cover Bush’s tax cuts. I hear the complaints. My bosses agree with everything you say. While they’re good people they also believe whatever Fox News and Rush Limbaugh say. Color me skeptical.

This week Circuit City announced that they were firing huge numbers of their employees. Management had made enough questionable strategic decisions so that the company is in trouble. What is their solution? Fire thousands of people and offer them their jobs back if they’ll take big cuts in pay and benefits. If the job market was as wonderful as conservatives are claiming why would Circuit City think they could get away with this?

proof please. because you seem to be saying that 120 million Americans are jobless and that is absolute Idiocy.

My point was that you can’t just look at the percentage cited as the “unemployment rate”. You have to combine it with the workforce participation rate. Only looking at the two of them tells you anything.

For an example that doesn’t match the current numbers but should be fairly straightforward you just need to realize that a 5% unemployment rate with a 60% participation rate is not the same thing as a 5% unemployment rate with a 70% participation rate.

I think 911 had quite a bit to do with that.

In 2002 and 2004, they campaigned on the issue of war, invoking 9/11 in all their attack ads and at the 2004 Republican Convention.

And of course we all know the Democrats were totally silent on the War. I remember that most campaigns have two sides. John Kerry showing up at the Convention Saluting and saying “Reporting for duty” was an opening salvo by the Democrats telling the world that they were going to take the war head on and make it the key issue.

But of course NIC we know that it was the Republicans being forced to respond to this that therefore by default made it our issue and our central focus.

It wasn’t until the Iraq War turned a serious turn for the worse in 2006 that suddenly Republicans didn’t campaign on war anymore. And now you wonder why the Democrats are trying to use the debacle in Iraq to their advantage.

No Im not wondering at all. I only said everyones obsessed with Iraq here at TMV. I made a point you are supporting. We try to talk about something such as this Ipod debate and it turns right back to but Bush Lied.

You made your bed. Now you can sleep in it.

Your right of course NIC. Its Revenge!! Duh what was I thinking. Of course the Left does not care about the poor and the hard up. They only care about the War and revenge now.

Too bad for those in poverty and with serious social issues. They have been abandoned to the War on Terror as well.

The unemployment rate is calculated the same way as it was during the Clinton Administration. Trying to move the bar because a Republican is in the White House smacks of water carrying for the Democrats.

Of course on the reason that people do not feel like they have benefited is that take home pay has not gone up at the same rate as the cost of employing people increases in social security taxes, Medicaid insurance, unemployment insurance workers comp insurance, local taxes, and state taxes.

I find it hard to believe that Democrats really care about living wages when every single Democratic candidate supports open borders and unlimited immigration from Mexico.

If you want real wages to go up how about trying to shrink the supply.

I just read through several of your blog posts dating back to last October. It was entertaining, to say the least. I wonder though, what makes you an “independent conservative” as opposed to just a “conservative.”

“The current hysteria is a symptom of displacement, a psychological mechanism that allows one to ignore real threats like Islamic terrorism, in order to focus on imaginary phantasms like Anthropogenic Global Warming and free IPods. Part of the left’s denial of reality, a symptom of a larger mass psychosis infecting much of the American electorate.”

Michigan has some very twisted officials and is a hotbed of nitwittery even stupider than normal leftist cant.

I’d like to, too. It would be educational if you could provide a link to a news story about this, and cite the actual bill, and link to it; an editorial isn’t a news story, after all.

Alternatively, if you could contextualize the Detroit Press‘s editorial board’s general stances on Michigan Democrats and Republicans, that would also be useful: is it unusual for the Press to make this sort of declaration about the Democrats, or usual? What can you tell us about the ownership of the Press, and its history? Etc.

But citing an editorial, without a link to any actual facts, as fact, seems… unsupported, as is. There’s a reason editorials are opinion, and that there’s generally a wall of seperation between editorial/opinion writers and news writers.

Not citing any actual news story here seems, well, not to be presenting any credible news, per se. (The claims made in the editorial may be perfectly credible; all I know is that one can’t tell from this post, or that editorial. )