By Patrick Wood, Editor A few eco­nomic ana­lysts, including this writer, have been protesting that the real unem­ploy­ment rate in the United States is much higher than sta­tis­tics released by the Admin­is­tra­tion. Now, in a candid speech just deliv­ered by the pres­i­dent of the Fed­eral Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a top Fed offi­cial finally tells it like it is:

“If one con­siders the people who would like a job but have stopped looking — so-called dis­cour­aged workers — and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unem­ploy­ment rate would move from the offi­cial 9.4 per­cent to 16 percent.”

This is 70 per­cent higher Read the full story

The “green shoots” shoots of eco­nomic recovery are really brown weeds. Still, there is no slowing in the rise of new job­less claims, with 627,000 new claims in the week ended June 20. The pre­vious week recorded 612,000 new claims. There are now a total of 6,709,000 ongoing unem­ploy­ment claims. Read the full story