I live in a coastal Northern California county about 2 hours drive from San Francisco and I woke up this week to headlines in my local newspaper that we had reached 16% unemployment in our county. However, 16% is misleading because whatever the unemployment is you have to add in for those who have given up looking for work and those who are underemployed(less than 40 hours a week for those who need 40 hours a week to survive). If you actually factor in for these two groups you wind up with approximately 23% unemployment which is about what we had during the Great Depression in California.
My Goddaughters fancy restaurant that she works as the youngest female Wine master probably in the U.S. has cut back her hours so much that she has to get a second job to survive. She has friends in the industry that have lost so many hours that they now live in their cars full time and work when they can at their fancy restaurants.
This county is farming, tourism and not much else except rich retirees and golfers though we do have one university and several colleges. If the real unemployment rate adjusted for those who have given up looking for work either because they can't afford to anymore or just got so depressed after 6 months or so they just gave up and the part timers who actually need full time to survive, then 23% unemployment is obviously the actual unemployment rate for my county now.
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