BartBlog

Author’s note:
I am not against sensible gun control legislation. I simply believe that the role of prescription drugs in the shootings needs to be acknowledged and addressed in legislation. Keep in mind that the ban on assault weapons had been in effect for five years before the Columbine massacre and did nothing to stop it.

Full text:
In the aftermath of the horrific school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, the debate regarding preventive measures is focused on stricter gun control laws. While sensible gun regulations are in order, addressing the root causes of the mass shootings is more important if real preventative measures are to be taken.

What caused the gunmen to act is more relevant in terms of prevention than the weapons used. With or without stricter gun control laws, firearms will be accessible to potential mass murderers in the U.S. because there are over 310 million firearms in civilian hands that are not going to magically vanish with more gun control laws.

One common factor in nearly every school shooting and many other crimes is that the perpetrators were being treated for some sort of mental illness with mind-altering medications.

Sandy Hook Tragedy

Adam Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, is reported by multiple sources to have been suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, as well as other personality disorders and a rare condition in which he was unable to feel physical pain. He was taking medications early as age 10, according to his former babysitter, Ryan Kraft.

A friend of his mother told the New York Daily News that she said he was prone to hurting himself, including burning himself with a lighter. “I asked her if she was getting him help, and she said she was,” the friend recalled.

Joshua Flashman, a 25-year-old Marine who grew up near the Lanza’s home, told FoxNews.com that Lanza’s mother, Nancy, had been petitioning the courts to gain conservatorship over Adam in order to have him committed to a psychiatric ward and that Adam was “really, really angry about this.” Flashman also said that Nancy had volunteered to work with kindergartners at Sandy Hook, who would be first-graders now, and that Adam believed “she cared more for the children than she did for him.”

While much of this is unconfirmed because medical and court records are confidential, one thing is clear. If Adam Lanza was being treated by a psychiatrist for Asperger’s syndrome and other personality disorders, part of that treatment usually includes psychotropic medications, in particular, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). And according to statistics on gun violence, these drugs may be even more dangerous than the firearms.

School Shootings and Violence

There have been 31 school shootings since Columbine, in which Eric Harris, age 17 and Dylan Klebold, age 18, killed 12 students and one teacher, and wounded 23 others. An assault weapon ban (1994-2004) was in effect at the time. Harris was known to be taking Zoloft, then Luvox. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.

A website called SSRI Stories has compiled a sortable database that lists over 4800 incidents of suicide, violent crimes and other incidents between 1988 and 2011, including school shootings that involve people that were prescribed SSRI medications. Here is a short list of a few more school shootings that involved SSRIs:

• Steve Kazmierczak, age 27, inexplicably went on a shooting rampage on Feb. 15, 2008 in a Northern Illinois University Lecture Hall before taking his own life. He had been on Prozac, Xanax and Ambien, but had stopped taking Prozac a few weeks before the shootings. Toxicology reports showed traces of Xanax in his system. Five dead, 20 wounded.
• Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students in Red Lake, Minnesota on March 24, 2005. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
• Cho-Seung-Hui, age 23, showed signs of anger before he went on a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus that ended only after a police officer shot him dead. Officials said prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems had been found among Mr. Cho’s effects, but no details of his treatment or the medications have been released to the public. 33 dead, 17 wounded.
• Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky on Dec, 1, 1997. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded.

Violence involving SSRIs does not always involve firearms:

• Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.
• Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil). After five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.
• John Odgren, age 16, stabbed a 15-year-old student to death at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in MA on Jan. 19, 2007. Odgren was being treated for Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression and anxiety. The defense said changes in Odgren’s clothing habits, as well as changes in his sleep and speech pattern, may have indicated a problem with his medication that could have lead to a manic, paranoid state.

The list of incidents like the above on SSRI stories is seemingly endless and all of the circumstances are different except for one – all of them involve a mentally ill patient on some sort of SSRI medication. Some have claimed that up to 90 percent of school shootings have involved a shooter on prescription medications.

While that is impossible to verify without the release of medical records in all cases, enough have been confirmed to establish a link between SSRIs and violence, especially when the black box warnings on the medications mention the potential for violent side effects.

Mental Illness and Medications

Many psychiatrists and physicians use the physician’s desk reference (PDR) in determining which medications to prescribe for patients. A hospital pharmacist with over 20 years of experience had this to say:

First of all, any real pharmacist knows that the PDR doesn’t stand for physician’s desk reference, it stands for poor drug reference. It’s useless. SSRIs increase the effect of serotonin in the brain. Atypical anti-psychotic medications do the reverse in terms of serotonin release. They are dopamine-2 and serotonin receptor antagonists which mean that instead of regulating the release of these chemicals to brain cells, they allow the release, but block the reaction of brain cells. In both cases, these drugs artificially manipulate the chemistry of the brain.

The black box warning on many of these drugs list side effects such as, akathisia, aggression, apathy, sexual dysfunction, even death in the elderly – to name a few. Another known side effect that the FDA does not require in the black box is suicidal tendencies. Drugs like that drive me nuts, mostly because of the overuse of them. Standard practice is to give patients a ‘drug-free holiday,’ meaning that psych patients and Ritalin patients should periodically be taken off their meds to see how they are doing without medication, but only under close medical supervision. In other words, don’t try that at home.

According to Evelyn Pringle in an article published by Lawyers and Settlements, an online legal news source, akathisia is the side effect “most likely to drive people to suicide or violence against others.” The DSM-IV acknowledges the association of akathisia with suicidality and states: “Akathisia may be associated with dysphoria, irritability, aggression, or suicide attempts.”

While it is uncertain exactly which personality disorders Adam Lanza had in addition to Asperger’s syndrome, a registered nurse with 14 years of experience working with psychiatric patients speculates that it is most likely a form of fractured identity:

A part of personality lives in the shadow of the psyche due to its perceived trauma. That creates anger and feel for the need of vengeance. A person with fractured identity personality disorder should not be given a drug that allows integration of personality through opening a path in the brain without proper therapy. Any trauma at a young age, however seemingly minor to adults, is extreme when away from the security base of parents and home, such as a school.

Drugs that integrate the psyche without a healing for that part of what it suffered do not heal anything – they bring that out, create insanity and are insanity. Patients need healing and therapy that is integrated with medication in order to prevent their violent personality from taking over. A personality put it in the shadow for so long is not controllable by any medication alone.

When I was in high school, I may have prevented a school shooting. I sat through a gym class with a misfit that had been incessantly picked on by boys and mostly girls. He was so distraught that all he could say was that he was going to bring a gun to school the next day and kill them all. I pleaded with him that it is not the solution and we can work it out in other ways. I insisted other students leave him alone as I talked to him. I convinced him not to bring a gun to school the next day. I then went to the gym teacher and told him that this guy is planning to bring a gun to school and kill people if the other students did not leave him alone. The gym teacher told me to “go play in the street.” This was in 1987. Now I watch over patients that are overmedicated and I rarely have more than a few moments to speak with them.

Several inferences can be made from the above information. Adam Lanza and many other school shooters were being treated with medications for mental illnesses. That treatment is usually heavy on medication and light on therapy. The medications commonly prescribed in the treatment can cause violent behavior. Despite gun control laws already in place, the school shooters had relatively easy access to firearms.

Preventative Measures

It is clear that preventative measures need to be taken that reach much further than more gun control laws in order to reduce gun violence. It is also clear that some sort of compromise between firearm owners and those demanding stricter gun laws must be achieved.

President Obama acknowledged that authorities must work to make “access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun,” and the country needs to tackle a “culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence.” Lawmakers in Congress have proposed reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and banning the sale of high capacity magazines.

Wayne LaPierre of the NRA argued in a press conference today that bringing more guns and armed police officers into schools is the solution. He suggested that the problem is children exposed to violence in movies, video games and music and guns are the solution. Some states have gone as far as to propose requiring or allowing teachers to bring weapons into schools.

The assault weapons ban did not prevent the Columbine massacre. The more guns in schools approach ignores statistics that have proven more guns lead to more gun violence. America does not need more militarization of public institutions, such as turning schools into virtual prisons with armed guards.

Americans and their leaders need to use common sense in dealing with this issue, not knee-jerk reactions. Sensible gun control laws are already in place and a few more may not necessarily infringe on 2nd amendment rights, but the link between psychotropic medications and gun violence must be acknowledged and addressed in any new legislation.

Atypical psychotropic and SSRI medications are what really need more regulation. Drug companies need to improve the black box warnings or face liability if a patient commits a violent crime due to a side effect that is not listed. Psychiatrists, psychologists and physicians need better information on these medications. Patients that are prescribed these medications could be entered into a national database.

With all legally registered gun owners and all mentally ill patients on medications in national databases, the information could then be cross-referenced. A regulation that no prescriptions for psychotropic medications can be filled if firearms are kept at the residence of the patient could then be enacted and enforced.

That still leaves Americans a choice: Either have your guns or your meds, but not both. If a gun owner wants themselves or a member of their household to be treated with psychotropic medications, then they should have to remove their guns from the residence or opt for inpatient care. Inpatient care could be made more accessible in these cases through an expansion of Medicaid.

The same regulations that are in place for automobile ownership could also be a model for firearm ownership. Every firearm could be registered, licensed and details such as where the firearm is kept stored in a national database. States could have the option of yearly renewals with updated information.

Mandatory minimum liability insurance could be a condition of gun ownership just like most states require for automobile owners. Gun owners do not seem to have a problem with those requirements in order to own and operate a motor vehicle. There should be no reason to have a problem with that regarding firearms either, since guns are not as important to own as a car.

Law-abiding firearm owners in a good state of mental health, with no one on psychotropic medications in their household, would not be subject to any “gun-grabbing.” They can have assault weapons with high capacity magazines, as long they have liability insurance on their weapons. Most gun-owners would retain all of their 2nd amendment rights – it would just cost them more money to own firearms.

People on psychotropic medications would then have more difficultly accessing firearms, which could eliminate spontaneous actions, just as the waiting period for handguns does. Liability would keep more guns under lock and key or at least carefully monitored by owners. Choosing between firearms and medications may also provide an incentive for patients and their families to seek real therapy that in many cases has proven to be more effective than medications. Two new laws – two problems solved.

While laws like that would raise compliance issues, law enforcement does not seem to have a problem with enforcing similar firearm restrictions in cases of domestic violence, or with anyone on probation or parole. Law enforcement can and will verify compliance in those cases and if firearms are not removed from the residence voluntarily, law officers will come by and pick them up.

Of course, gun lobbyists and pharmaceutical lobbyists would scream bloody murder on Capitol Hill, but surely there would be some insurance company lobbyists behind this sort of initiative. Gun owners would also complain about the higher cost of ownership, but unlike an outright ban, it still leaves them a free market choice with their rights intact.

What is most important, however, is that any new approach in terms of preventive measures is worth a try if it does not infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens, does not lead to further militarization of public institutions and prevents the death of even one child or teacher like the 26 that died last week in Connecticut.

Get links, a slideshow and a video here: Madison Independent Examiner – Mental illness, medications and school shootings: Preventing another Sandy Hook

It’s night: December 21st 2012 and one more end of the world prophecy gets tossed into the dumpster…

Isn’t it time you…

(more…)

“Because politicians are ALWAYS ‘out to get our goat.’”

Raise the age for Social Security, the right screams for John Kerry so they can get another teabagger in and we get thrown under the bus again? Remind me, who did we vote for this year?

-A-Non-E-Moose

Author’s note:
I’m with you on that thought, Jane. Here’s more…

Full text:
In the wake of the horrible tragedy at an elementary school in Connecticut, with 20 small children and seven adults shot and killed weighing heavily on the conscience of America, many will look for quick and easy measures that can prevent something like that from happening again. Stricter gun control laws seem like the easy answer, but that is not the solution.

More gun control legislation, while sensible on many levels, is akin to plugging a small hole in a dam that is already cracked and gushing. That simply will not solve the problem of gun violence in this country.

The latest in a series of mass murders involving firearms will undoubtedly reignite the debate about gun control laws. Many will validly argue that laws should be stricter and the emotions of most Americans will be with them. Unfortunately, stricter gun control laws are only a small part of the solution to preventing firearm violence, because it is too late for them to have much of an effect. Political, social and economic changes, while more difficult to pinpoint and achieve, are the only hope for ending the culture of violence that the U.S. has become known for.

Even if the U.S. banned the sale of every firearm to everyone, which is unrealistic, that would still leave millions of guns already in the hands of Americans. A 2012 report by the Congressional Research Service estimated that as of 2009, there were about 310 million nonmilitary firearms in the U.S. and firearm sales have skyrocketed since then. Banning the sale of guns, like illegal drugs, would only make matters worse by creating a truly unregulated black market for them.

Keep in mind that the weapons used in the recent Connecticut murders and the Portland mall murders were not purchased or owned by the shooters. Stricter laws regulating the purchase of firearms, therefore, would not have prevented the Connecticut school shooting because the weapons used were already out there. Potential shooters will still have relatively easy access to firearms unless every firearm is confiscated, which is even more unrealistic than banning sales of guns. Furthermore, any attempts at confiscating guns from legal owners would probably result in more gun violence than it would be intended to prevent. It may even ignite a civil war.

Many will correctly argue that the 2nd amendment right to bear arms applies to a well-armed militia to guard against tyranny, not to ordinary citizens armed to the teeth in schools, movie theatres, churches and malls. Many will argue that more guns lead to more murders, which is statistically true. Many will argue that legislation such as the Tiahrt amendments and the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 tie the hands of researchers and law enforcement while protecting firearm manufacturers from legal repercussions – also true. While all these arguments are valid and stricter gun regulation is becoming more popular, it misses the point.

The point is that America must embark on more deep and fundamental changes in order to end the culture of violence that has permeated American society throughout its existence. And that can only begin with a real examination of the social, political and economic circumstances that feed into the collective consciousness of American society and create the minds that pull the triggers. That will be difficult, if not impossible, but there are a few starting points.

Political Changes

Michael Moore, director of several documentaries including “Bowling for Columbine,” which examined the 1999 Columbine school shooting and its aftermath, was one of the first to take to Twitter after the Connecticut school shooting and demand stricter gun control laws. He makes a lot more sense in the video at the left than he does with his tweets.

The points he made in the aforementioned film also go deeper than gun control legislation. Other themes in the film are the fearful heart and soul of America and the militaristic culture our leaders have sown. Ironically, Moore points out, Colorado is the home of several defense contractors, including Lockheed-Martin in Littleton that manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

President Obama’s speech in the wake of the Connecticut massacre was warm and heartfelt by a nation in mourning. Americans should be thankful for a leader that can empathize with the victims and express that side of him. But left out of the minds of many are the amounts of children that have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and several other nations over the past 11 years as a result of U.S. foreign policy.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London reported that from June 2004 to mid-September 2012, drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen killed between 3,017 and 4,517 people, of which 544 to 1,119 were civilians, including at least 247 children. And that does not include civilian deaths in the countries that the U.S. invaded.

Assault rifles were shipped to drug cartels in Mexico by the U.S. Justice Department in the “Fast and Furious” operation, and the cartel wars in Mexico have claimed up to 60,000 lives with another 10,000 missing.

Americans have been taught to ignore or become desensitized to news like that – until something like it happens here. Then most wonder why. The same media outlets that are cheerleaders for the wars and virtually ignore the deaths of children in other countries, or describe it as collateral damage, are still engaged in nonstop coverage of the tragedy in Connecticut.

The same President who alluded yesterday to taking a closer look at gun legislation when the time is right presided over the proliferation of firearms to a neighboring country involved in a shooting drug war. The same leader who wiped tears from his eyes over the deaths of American children yesterday is the same one who said, “I have two words for you: Predator drones. You’ll never see them coming.”

While there is no excuse for 20-year-old Adam Lanza’s horrific actions yesterday in Connecticut, Americans should consider the sort of subliminal message that U.S. foreign policy and behavior towards people in other nations implant in the consciousness of American society.

Violence begets violence. Peace begets peace.

Social Changes

Political changes overlap with social changes. There is one glaring commonality with at least 14 of the school shooters since 1999. All of them were undergoing treatment for psychological disorders and were taking psychotropic medication.

Adam Lanza was said to have had a “personality disorder” and was undergoing treatment, which usually involves medication. The Columbine shooters were known to be on anti-depressants. Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech murderer, was taking anti-depressants. James Holmes, The Aurora, CO movie theatre shooter was also undergoing treatment and taking prescribed medication, in addition to being affiliated with mind control research that his father pioneered with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

Virtually all massacre perpetrators are known to have been taking a psychiatric medication, usually an anti-depressant, including:

• Jared Lee Loughner, the Arizona shooter
• Kip Kinkel
• Ted Kaczinski the “Unabomber”
• Michael McDermott
• John Hinckley, Jr.
• Byran Uyesugi
• Mark David Chapman
• Charles Carl Roberts IV, the Amish school killer

Perhaps some societal changes regarding health care and treatment for mentally ill patients before they get their hands on a gun and pull the trigger are another possible solution.

Many psychiatrists and psychologists in America are too quick to hustle patients in and out of their offices with a prescription in hand because health care is a profit-driven industry. The pharmaceutical companies want it that way and therapists make more money on quantity, not quality of treatment. Real behavioral modification or the time-consuming process of working with a patient through psychotherapy or group therapy has given way to handing out pills to patients like they are Skittles.

Some social changes in terms of the health care system may be in order. Perhaps Medicaid should be expanded to cover everyone with psychological issues. Of course, that entails more government spending, but most would agree that would have been worth preventing the deaths of those 20 children.

A single payer system that cuts out the profit-driven middlemen and gives therapists an incentive to spend more time with their patients, as well as a way of controlling the profits that drug companies reap, may be a part of the solution to keeping the fingers of potential homicidal maniacs off of triggers.

Economic Changes

The correlation between a bad economy and an increase in crime is debatable, with many studies showing that crime does not necessarily increase during tough economic times. The caveat in many studies, however, is that while violence and crime does not increase in the short term, there is little data available to examine that in the case of a prolonged recession.

Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs, told the Las Vegas Sun that while “there’s simply no correlation between crime rates and economic indicators such as unemployment…there is a correlation between crime and sustained poverty.”

Most of the perpetrators in the wave of mass shootings this year were young and several, including Holmes and Lanza, were described as being highly intelligent. While these are not economically motivated crimes like burglary or robbery, it is quite possible that Americans are starting to see the effects of an economy that gives many young people little hope to improve their lives or attain the same socioeconomic status of their parents despite having the attributes to do so.

The way to move up the economic ladder for young people used to be to earn a college degree. With tuition skyrocketing, student loan debts reaching crisis levels and 53 percent of recent college graduates jobless or underemployed, that is no longer the case. It does not make sense for young people to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of debt and then be forced to work for a wage they could have attained without going to college.

Another long term economic factor to consider is that many cities such as Detroit, Newark, and several in California have been forced to cut law enforcement budgets. If the economy does not improve, many more will follow.

We live in a culture where individual worth is defined by wealth and material possessions. One look at the mobs fighting it out for cheap Chinese-made goods on Black Friday is enough evidence of that. The link is to a video posted on You Tube, coincidentally, by a user named “funwithgunsinns.” However, one might ask, is that really a coincidence?

When some young people lose hope of attaining the sense of self-worth that is defined by our culture, they can develop a mind set that there is nothing to lose by putting a bullet in their head – or in someone else.
Even if the waves of mass shootings this year are not taken into consideration, there is no doubt that America needs economic changes. Economic changes also overlap with political and social changes.
The best steps to improving our economy are cutting spending, increasing revenue and bringing back or creating well-paying jobs. The easiest cuts can come through ending the wars and cutting defense spending. The best way to generate more revenue is to increase the amount of well-paying jobs and provide a better tax base. Tax incentives that stop outsourcing and make it more profitable for corporations to hire American workers than overseas workers, using some of the billions that are spent on wars and defense to invest in infrastructure and sustainable, clean energy may be a good start.

While none of the above provides a shred of excuse or even a good explanation for the senseless, horrible acts of mass murderers like Adam Lanza, they can contribute to a healthier social environment that reduces the propensity for gun violence. Of course, it is impossible to conclude that these measures would stop gun violence, but they would contribute to a culture that gives more young people more hope for the future.

Reasonable gun control laws are in order, but the real solution is to pursue deep, fundamental changes in American society. America needs to change more than just gun laws. It needs to change the culture of violence that leads to people using guns on their fellow citizens.

The other alternative is to pass a few more gun control laws, call it a day, waste away as a nation and witness more wasted lives, both overseas and at home.

Get links, video and a slideshow here: Madison Independent Examiner – Despite tragedy in CT, stricter gun control laws are not the solution

President Obama has just promised to take action against those who kill children in cold blood. One thing that he could do immediately to carry out this promise is to stop killing innocent children with his guns, missiles and drones — for no other reason than because they were born in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Palestine instead of in Connecticut.

400 innocent Palestinian children were shot in cold blood in Gaza during Cast Lead I. 48 innocent children and 12 innocent women were shot in cold blood in Gaza during Cast Lead II. Unarmed, these innocent women and children were slaughtered as they stood and had no weapons in the face of their killers — who were armed to the teeth. Tell me again how this is different (and more justified) than what happened in Connecticut?

PS: The shooter at Sandy Hook pretty much fits the national profile of a young person who had been prescribed anti-depressants and consequently the drugs made him nuts — a la Columbine.  Also, here’s a link to Dr. Gary Kohl’s article on the sad effects of anti-depressants on adolescents.  Scroll down to the bottom to see the impressively long list of young shooters who have gone postal while taking anti-depressants. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-colorado-batman-shooter-de-mystifying-mass-murder-in-america/32135

Author’s note:
A disclaimer – I am not bashing Obama. The only jobs a President can create are government jobs. Let’s hope congress can pass legislation that helps bringing decent jobs back to America or at least slows down outsourcing.

Full article:
According to a report released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were approximately 146,000 jobs added in the U.S. in November and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 percent, which would be the lowest since 2008. The report is based on a survey of households and employers, and does not accurately depict the reality of the jobless rate in the U.S. today.

The 7.7 percent rate is the government’s most widely publicized unemployment rate, known as the U-3, which takes into account only those who are collecting unemployment benefits and actively looking for work. It does not take into account those whose unemployment benefits have run out, those who have given up seeking work, those who are underemployed – desiring full time work but forced to work part time, or those who have dropped out of the labor force more than 12 months ago.

There is also a factor in the calculations known as “seasonal adjustments.” The BLS uses a software program known as X-12 ARIMA, a complex modeling algorithm, to factor in seasonal adjustments to the jobs reports. As with any software program, the results are only as good as what the data input is and the results are easily manipulated. Job growth reports from the BLS have a 100,000 jobs margin of error on a monthly basis, but outside of that margin they are 90 percent accurate.

In fact, the numbers in the reports are regularly (and quietly) revised each month. Last month’s jobs report suggested that the economy had added 148,000 jobs in September and 171,000 jobs in October. That has now been revised downward to 132,000 and 138,000, respectively.

According to the BLS report, 53,000 of the 146,000 jobs added in November were in the retail sector. That would obviously factor in as a seasonal adjustment, because most of those jobs will disappear after the holiday season. Combining that with the potential for a 100,000 job margin of error could mean job losses and a rise in the real unemployment rate last month. It is also difficult to factor in anomalies like the amount of people temporarily out of work due to Hurricane Sandy during the survey week, although the BLS reported that the effects of that were minimal.

Brad Plumer, writing for the Washington Post, explains the potential for discrepancy:

The discrepancy…has to do with what’s known as “seasonal adjustments.” The U.S. economy follows certain predictable patterns in hiring and layoffs every year. School districts always let workers go for the summer and hire in the fall. Retailers always staff up for the Christmas holidays and lay people off afterwards. Students always flood the labor market in June. And this is exactly what BLS does in its monthly jobs reports.

The BLS report releases the highly publicized U-3 unemployment rate along with a lesser known rate called the U-6. There are, in fact, six different scales of unemployment known as “alternative measures of labor underutilization,” that are numbered U-1 through U-6. The U-6 rate is the most inclusive gauge of the statistical unemployment rate in the U.S. because it takes into account “total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force.”

Another BLS report shows, for example, that the official U-6 unemployment rate for the state of Wisconsin is 13 percent. Nevada’s U-6 rate is 21.4 percent, up from just 7.6 percent in 2007. Washington State is at 17.1 percent. Economically troubled California has a 19.6 percent real rate, while Rhode Island is at 18.3 percent, more than double its 8.3 percent rate in 2007. Only four states, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Oklahoma have a U-6 rate that is under 10 percent.

Indeed, many have already pointed out that the lower unemployment rate has more to do with people dropping off the unemployment rolls and out of the labor force than with job creation, as evidenced by a reduction in the numbers reported in the labor force. See here and here.

Even the U-6 rate, however, does not accurately measure the true amount of eligible workers who are out of work.

The key words in that report are “marginally attached.” Persons marginally attached to the labor force are described as those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want to work, are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work.

Many Americans have given up on the job market and have not looked for work in the past 12 months. Many do not have a phone or mailing address through which to respond to a household survey. There is no way to count all of the unemployed in America who are no longer “marginally attached” to the labor force and according to some estimates that number is staggering.

These people have been called by CNN “The 86 million invisible unemployed” and that, taken together with some simple math, shows that the true jobless rate in the U.S. is far higher than 7.7 percent.

The total U.S. population is approximately 330 million. 24 percent of those, however, are young people not eligible to work and 13 percent are retired. So the total pool of available workers in the United States is 100% – (24% + 13%) = 63% of 330 million people, or about 208 million workers. The U.S. government officially admits that 7.7 percent of the labor force is “visibly” unemployed, which accounts for about 16 million people. Together with the “invisible” that means about 102 million Americans are available to work but do not have a full time job. And with 102 million out of 208 million available workers not working, the true jobless rate in the US right now is closer to 49 percent, not the 7.7 percent the U.S. government and corporate media is propagandizing about.

That calculation is consistent with a recent survey of income and program participation (SIPP) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that shows that well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that figure does not even include Social Security and Medicare.

The implications for the U.S. economy should be obvious. Government benefits for the unemployed merely provide enough for families to get by and cover basic living expenses. They leave no room for the type of discretionary spending that keeps businesses thriving in America. The amount of citizens out of work, not contributing revenue and receiving benefits, combined with billions in defense and war spending, bank bailouts, tax breaks for huge corporations that outsource jobs, etc., is simply unsustainable.

The only solution to the economic downturn in the U.S. is to bring back or create well-paying jobs in the U.S. Even though seasonal retail jobs that pay less than $10 per hour make good headlines in reports, they are not the solution.

Get links and a slideshow with graphs here: Madison Independent Examiner – 7.7% unemployment inaccurately depicts real jobless rate