Statistics say the United States has an unemployment rate of 3 percent; however, Merced County has an unemployment rate of over 11 percent.
What is the problem here?
The Federal Reserve looks at the country and sees everyone working and spending money like crazy, while we in Merced County see people sleeping under bridges or walking the streets with grocery carts full of plastic.
We are not the only poor county. There are plenty in California.
The gap between the “haves,” and those who do not have, is wide.
Part of the problem is Statistics Lie, or more correctly, people can make them lie.
Journalists can make a person say almost anything, just by the way they choose the words which come out of their mouths. Unethical journalists can lie.
What we need to do is separate the lies from the truth regarding employment. The truth is there are plenty of jobs for the people who live in our country, but connecting them with the people who need them is another matter.
Finding people who want to work is another factor. We can’t keep paying people not to work and expect them to work, and this is exactly what we have today.
How do we change this? We can try on our own, to get people back to work. There are plenty of jobs which need doing. Our seniors can not find help. Some yards in our town are overgrown with weeds. Terrible to look at, but no one seems to care.
Is the city and the county doing enough to get these people back to work? In the Great Depression, the government had projects which put people back to work. A lot of times, if you are not in the Union, then you can’t work on a job — even when you have the skill to do the job.
Seniors are living longer, and as they do, they require more help. Many of these seniors can be helped in their own home, if help was available.
What other work is there? What about our parks. Even street cleaning, which might have helped when our area was hit with storm damage. Many of the storm drains were clogged and caused overflowing. Now is the time to have these cleaned.
We seem to have given “work” a bad name. Plumbing and electrical jobs used to be low pay, but today, just try to find one of these people, and you will be surprised. They are either unavailable or very pricy.
Has working with your hands gone out of fashion? Maybe we need “back to work” schools.
When we were young, they had auto mechanics and wood shop classes as part of the school program.
There were people to pump your gas and what happen to them?
Many jobs have been legislated out of existence and these were entry level jobs. We need to get them back. Starting today, let’s let the Federal Government know the country is not well simply because they announce nationally we have a low unemployment rate.
The Federal and State governments need to look past the length of their noses.
Take a look at the poor part of the country. Take a look at the counties like ours with over 11 percent unemployment and do something about it.
And quit using statistics to lie!