Courtesy of Mish.
Reader Roger asked me “What is the total number of people without full time work, compared to Jan 2009?“
That’s actually an easy number to calculate. The problem is the number is totally misleading. First let’s answer the question straight up.
Those Not Working Full Time
The above very scary-looking chart shows the civilian noninstititional population minus those usually working full time.
Noninstitutional means those over the age of 16, not in prisons, mental institutions, etc.
The current noninstitutional population is 129.61 million. At the beginning of 2009 it was 118.92 million and at the start of the recession in November of 2007 it was 111.06 million.
Since the beginning of the recession, the rise in the number of people not working fulltime is 18.55 million.
Calculation Discussion
The first problem with the above chart is that it fails to account for demographics. There is a huge rise in population as well as huge rise in boomer retirement.
Moreover, over time, there has been a legitimate rise in the number of people going to college after high school graduation.
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