Labor stats are hard work

Dear John: There has got to be an easier, more effective and more honest way to compile employment statistics.

How about this: The government demands that companies who hire, fire, lay off or have employees retire report this information to the Labor Department. I’m sure most companies keep these records.

Seems easy to me. C.H.

Dear C.H. You are forgetting that companies already report new hires and fires to the government — in the form of payroll taxes.

If you hire someone, there’s a withholding tax associated with his or her Social Security number. If you fire someone, the tax stops.

The problem is, companies don’t report changes in employment immediately. There’s a lag, which could be as long as month.

And in our society we want to know everything immediately.

The Labor Department is proud of the job it does and feels misunderstood. Eventually, its numbers are finetuned and accurate. The statistics just aren’t precise when they are first reported. If the department thought they were, the figures wouldn’t be revised for years afterward.

So why don’t they just stop reporting all monthly economic statistics? Wall Street wouldn’t like it.

That would be like saying, “Let’s pull lottery numbers every month instead of every few days. It’ll be easier.” Investors gamble on those employment numbers you hate. They’ll have to go to the casino instead if you take away their action, or get a real job.

Dear John: Where do you guys get your unemployment numbers? Do you just pick them out of thin air?

You claim those not looking for work would make the unemployment figure 22.5 percent. Romney claims 11 percent. No wonder no one trusts Republicans. You guys come up with your fabrications, hoping the general public will believe them. We’re smarter than that, and you just end up looking like lying fools. N.M.

Dear N.M. Well, to be frank, I actually don’t believe you are very smart. But I do believe the general public instinctively knows if the unemployment rate is elevated or not, no matter what politicians or journalists say.

So, back to the issue of your ignorance. If you pay attention, maybe next time you won’t hurl accusations around.

Go to the Labor Department website, www.bls.gov. In the right column, you’ll see Payroll Employment and Unemployment Rate. Click on either of those links.

Now find table A15, which is called the Alternate Measure of Labor Underutilization. You’ll see the broadest measure of unemployment that the government recorded in September was 14.7 percent. That includes people who want, but can’t find, fulltime jobs.

But table A15 doesn’t include people who haven’t looked for a job in 12 months because they are too discouraged. Nobody has a figure for that because Washington decided to stop counting discouraged workers in 1993, during the Clinton administration. The estimates, however, are that 23 million people are unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking. That would add up to over 20 percent.

And, by the way, I voted for President Obama in 2008 but won’t this time around. So don’t try to guess my political loyalty.