91 million unemployed = per capita, making 2015 far worse than any time in in US history

Unemployment Statistics during the Great Depression

 

 

Unemployment statistics for the Great Depression show a remarkable collapse in the labor market in just a few years, with recovery that did not take place until the onset of World War II created an industrial demand that brought the economy back to prosperity. In addition to unemployment, workers during the Great Depression found themselves working in an atmosphere of insecurity for lower salaries and wages than before.

Depression Era Unemployment Statistics
Year	Population	Labor Force	Unemployed	Percentage of Labor Force
1929	88,010,000	49,440,000	1,550,000	3.14
1930	89,550,000	50,080,000	4,340,000	8.67
1931	90,710,000	50,680,000	8,020,000	15.82
1932	91,810,000	51,250,000	12,060,000	23.53
1933	92,950,000	51,840,000	12,830,000	24.75
1934	94,190,000	52,490,000	11,340,000	21.60
1935	95,460,000	53,140,000	10,610,000	19.97
1936	96,700,000	53,740,000	9,030,000	16.80
1937	97,870,000	54,320,000	7,700,000	14.18
1938	99,120,000	54,950,000	10,390,000	18.91
1939	100,360,000	55,600,000	9,480,000	17.05
1940	101,560,000	56,180,000	8,120,000	14.45
1941	102,700,000	57,530,000	5,560,000	9.66

Despite the evidence of a national catastrophe, support for unemployment relief remained sketchy until FDR introduced the New Deal in 1933.

Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics

When we look at broad measures of jobs and population, then the beginning of 2012 was one of the worst months in US history, with a total of 2.3 million people losing jobs or leaving the workforce in a single month. Yet, the official unemployment rate showed a decline from 8.5% to 8.3% in January - and was such cheering news that it set off a stock rally.

How can there be such a stark contrast between the cheerful surface and an underlying reality that is getting worse?

The true unemployment picture is hidden by essentially splitting jobless Americans up and putting them inside one of three different "boxes": the official unemployment box, the full unemployment box, and the most obscure box, the workforce participation rate box
As we will explore herein, a detailed look at the government's own data base shows that about 9 million people without jobs have been removed from the labor force simply by the government defining them as not being in the labor force anymore. Indeed - effectively all of the decreases in unemployment rate percentages since 2009 have come not from new jobs, but through reducing the workforce participation rate so that millions of jobless people are removed from the labor force by definition.

http://danielamerman.com/articles/2012/WorkC.html

The Real Truth on Employment

1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.

The Real Numbers

"unemployment is over 20%, gross domestic product is shrinking by 8% and consumer prices are jumping by nearly 7%."

http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/True-or-False-U-S-Economic-Stats-Lie/?page=all