• 723 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 723 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 725 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 1,125 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 1,130 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 1,131 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 1,135 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 1,135 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 1,136 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 1,137 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 1,138 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 1,142 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 1,142 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 1,143 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 1,145 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 1,145 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 1,149 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 1,150 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 1,150 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 1,152 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Explosion in Uncovered Employment During the Recovery

Covered employment is the set of working employees that have unemployment benefits.

Self-employed persons such as myself have to pay into state unemployment insurance programs but we are ineligible to receive benefits (we are not covered).

Similarly, people selling trinkets on Ebay as well as those involved in multi-level marketing schemes and calling it their only job are not covered either.

Covered employment was one of the topics that came up in my November 2 interview on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster.

 

 

In the interview I noted that covered employment has crashed and reader Tim Wallace frequently sends me charts to prove it. Here are the latest charts from Tim.


Uncovered Employment Since January 2009

Comparison of State Unemployed Covered to Federal Reported Jobs
Larger Image

I added data points to Tim's chart. Let's do the math.

According to the BLS, the economy added 4,951,000 since January 2009. In the same timeframe, uncovered employment rose by 6,573,468! The difference is 1,622,468.

Got that?

133% of the jobs created since January 2009 are not covered. Employment rose by less than 5 million while uncovered employment rose by over 6.5 million.


BLS Employment History

Let's look at actual levels of employment (covered or not) since 1948. The chart compares October of 2012 with October in prior years, not seasonally adjusted.


Larger Image

Employment is on an upswing but it's all self-employed or other jobs not covered by unemployment insurance benefits.

The labor force itself is flat, but it should be growing.

All of these factors severely distort the reported unemployment rate.


Structural Factors

As I have noted many times before, the falling unemployment rate is via several structural factors that actually show an underlying weak economy.

Disability Fraud: disability fraud

An amazing drop in the participation rate well beyond what demographics alone would suggest. For a discussion, please see About That "Expected" Drop In Participation Rate Also see Charting Errors in BLS Participation Rate Projections.

Obamacare: Obama Slashes Four Hours Off Definition of "Full-Time" Employment

Realistically unemployment is much higher than stated.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment