According to the U.S. Census Bureau, we have right at 400,000 new businesses being born each year in this county. Before you order pizza on that news, consider that we also have, now, 470,000 businesses dying.
We are told that there are 92 million able-bodied adults who are not working. There are just no jobs. Let's allow for all the scams and scamming that goes on. It's still a horrendous figure.
Just let that figure sink in for a bit. We have in this country, what, 225 million adults (whatever their attitude for work is)? And there are 92 million who cannot find work? And the government says there is a 6.7% unemployment rate? Really?
Since 2009 the US has LOST 9 million jobs. That takes in economic conditions, bankruptcies, 'moving off-shore,' government regulations and general 'going-out-of-business' reasons within that figure.
Digging underneath the Labor Department's pretty face of the U-3 figures used to come up with the public mention of the 'wonderful unemployment rate' of 6.7%, a different picture emerges. Add the Labor Department's less-public U-6 figure of a 11.3% of those who have gone through 99 weeks of unemployment without finding work, and you only start to see the real number.
Divide 225 Million Working-Age Adults By 92 Million Not-Working Adults and See What You Get
Of course you get a little over 40%...roughly. This takes in the 62.5% of the US workforce that can work is actually in the workforce.
Granted, I am one of the last folks you should trust with math nor insight into how the Labor Department comes up with its numbers, but I cite two people you should listen to.
David John Marotta, an influential Wall Street adviser with a large fee-only practice in Charlottesville, VA of people wanting to know how best to invest their money, did his own calculations.
I will encourage you to read up on Mr. Marotta's findings at http://rt.com/business/us-unemployment-economy-crisis-assistance-006/ and also below. I find it interesting that as a Forbes contributor and working in his own financial advisory businesses, he loves the mathematical precision of teaching computer science.
Jim Clifton is the CEO of Gallup, the polling organization. He has written a dynamic editorial this week of questioning why anyone should take the official US unemployment figure seriously as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Not knowing if the two gentlemen even know each other, Mr. Clifton's work and Mr. Marotta's work use different paths, but get to the same conclusions.
“The Official Unemployment Rate Is an Inaccurate Mess...”
This is quoting Mr. Clifton. He decries current methodology and says that Gallup has developed a Payroll-to-Population (P2P) metric. It represents adults in full-time jobs receiving a paycheck as a total of the US adult population.
The new Gallup metric answers the question, What percent of American adults have a full-time job?
In this case the answer has fallen to the lowest point since March of 2011 with a rate of just 42.9% in December 2013 from 43.7% in November of last year.
It is with interest that we see general agreement in the two men's work. We could also include the clunky 40.8% figure that the Quad State Business Journal got from simply dividing the 225 million by the 92 million able-bodied adults.
The Quad State Journal Case for Lessening the Area Unemployment
We desperately need the involvement of every organization even remotely attached to business in the Quad State region.
That goes triple for area chambers of commerce. The economic development authorities can certainly have an at-large seat at the table because they are already engaged in the front line battle and we need them working for their respective regions all they can.
That means it is up to us to develop plans—not just programs—that make sense for local-area small businesses.
Granted, it takes both business owners and organizations to agree. Now with most chambers, programs can take the shape of forums, non-competitive owners sitting down together. These forums must be facilitated by a business owner or person with enough business battle scars that the attending business owners feel it worth their while to attend.
There Are the Big Five Reasons Way to Grab the Interest of Small Business Owners.
- Help the businesses FIND more customers, patients, donors, members and so on;
- Help the businesses create new and greater customer enrichment opportunities that increase the 'spend' of their customers;
- Help the businesses increase the number of customer visits;
- Help the business develop more referrals and fans of their business;
- Help the business hire and keep employees who keep the reputation and profits of their employer uppermost in their minds.
If we could strive to have our business organizations determine to plan every meeting with one or more of the above five, interest and participation rates will go up.
These five objectives are on the mind of EVERY business—or should be. And the wise organization catering to business owners would do well to lock in this agenda.
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For further reading on Mr. Marotta's 37.2% unemployment rate: http://rt.com/business/us-unemployment-economy-crisis-assistance-006/
For background on David John Marotta: http://blogs.forbes.com/people/davidmarotta/
For Mr. Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, Column:
Original Quad State Business Journal listing: http://www.quadstatebusinessjournal.com
To contact the author on the Quad State 5-Fold Objectives for Businesses:
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