Real U.S. Unemployment Rate Is 11.8%

Investor's Business Daily has calculated the real unemployment rate in this country and it's a lot higher than the numbers released by the Obama administration. One of the Labor Department's "dirty little secrets" is that the monthly jobless rate does not count people who have given up looking for work. When you factor in those folks, the real unemployment is in double-digits: 11.8 percent to be exact.

From Investor's Business Daily:

Census employees "faked" employment survey data, possibly accounting for an unemployment drop just before the 2012 election, claims the New York Post.

But even taking the government figures at face value, the jobless rate is radically distorted — and by far more than a short-term drop of a few tenths of a percentage point.

The unemployment rate was 7.3% as of October, still high but essentially at the lowest level since the end of 2008. However, almost all of the apparent improvement has come from a historic exodus from the labor force.

Excluding this dramatic shift, the jobless rate would be 11.8%, 4.5 percentage points above the official figure and virtually unchanged from peak levels.

Read the full story at the newspaper's website.