During an interview on NBC’s Today show on April 5, 2011, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus criticized President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy saying we’ve lost 26 million jobs since he’s been president. Of course he was quickly criticized. I have a hard time finding real job numbers well documented anywhere.
My father told me never to cheat at golf, because if I didn’t count every swing or miss, I would never know if my game was getting better. I quit golf a long time ago when my game stalled out but it would be nice to really know the score on unemployment.
So I pieced together numbers from various websites to make a “educated” guess. My guess is that the cost to the taxpayers of these unemployed and underemployed is about $500 billion dollars a year or about $3,800 for every employed worker. Imagine the good they could do if that 500 billion was put through a job voucher program.
Total Americans (millions)…………………………307
over 18……………………………………………………..226
Less
over 65……………………………..36
In college…………………………….5
In military……………………………2
Stay at home………………………..6
Severe Work Disability…………6
On welfare …………………………..5
Homeless not working…………..2
Institutionalized……………………1
in jail……………………………………3
Available to work……………………………………….160
Less Working……………………..133
Unemployed……………………………………………….27
Plus Underemployed……………..9
Unemployed
and underemployed…………………………………….36
Percent Unemployed ………………………………..17%
Percent underemployed and unemployed……23%
Of course if we add in social security, welfare, disability, welfare, and the institutionalized that figure per working person goes up to $10,600 per working person. Interestingly however, if we add the cost of government employees and divide the number by working private employees the number jumps up to over $24,000 per working private employee per year. Considering that the average wage in America is about $43,000, well that is alot of cost to cover. Just figuring……
Clif Carothers
Job Voucher Plan 