From: "Robert G Lewis" 


"Mark"  wrote in message
news:41bd0efb$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Please Bob, the unemployment rate is similar to, if not exactly the same,
> as it has always been. Further, there are exponentially more self-employed
> people than there ever were before, making even the equivalent employment
> number unreflective of the real conditions.
>

Well its a good thing they are self employed as payroll is down

http://www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm#analytical

I don't consider the unemployment rate to be a good number, after some
amount of time people are no longer counted. What the real conditions are I
don't have a clue. Looking solely at Employees on nonfarm payrolls it
doesn't look  good. Unless we have had a loss of population the number of
payroll employees has dropped .  If you know of a better way of looking at
the numbers over time I would like to know about it ( not being a smart ass
here, just want to know ). I won't even claim to know anything
about any of this 

Bob Lewis

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