Having had the fortune be gainfully employed since the fall of 1990, unemployment numbers have always seemed kind of abstract to me. Eight percent doesn't really seem that high to me, but when certain people seemed to lose it over the unemployment number dropping from 8.3 percent to 7.8 percent over a couple of months, it caught my attention.

There was no way, certain pundits said, that this number could have fell by half a percent in just two months. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch even wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal laying out the fuzzy math. Welch made reference to an election year ploy and conservatives immediately jumped on that bus.

By the way, according to Welch, unemployment numbers are compiled by unemployment applications and phone calls to ask people if they've been working. Did you know that?Unemployment applications I can understand, but calling somebody and saying, "Hey, did you work last month?" That doesn't seem very scientific.

But that's not what we're here to discuss. I'm always amused and baffled by the idea that people think 92 percent employment is a sure sign the world is going downhill at a rate faster than the speed limit.

And unemployment seems to be the only area where this kind of math gets people upset. This is the south, so let's use NASCAR as an example. Every year, some driver who wins six or seven races is crowned the champion and sports pundits will inevitably call it one of the greatest performances ever. Never mind the 30 races he lost.

Or let's look at baseball, where near constant failure is rewarded with millions of dollars. Would you like to do your job successfully three out of every 10 times and have your boss give in when you demand a 10,000 percent raise or you're going somewhere else?

Yet, mention that we have 92 percent of our workforce employed and all you hear is yelling and screaming that we're a bunch of lazy ingrates with our hands out who don't deserve to breathe the same air as rich people.

And in reality, if what I've always heard is true, the unemployment rate is actually about three percent. Hold on. Stop calling me a socialist and hear me out.

The rule of thumb, so I've been told over the years, is that when unemployment hits 5 percent or less, it's thought we're fully employed. That last five percent is made of those who either don't want to work, or can't. It's a combination of the truly lazy, the physically unable, the mentally handicapped and those lucky enough not to need to work. Or so I've been told.

If that five percent rule is true, and the unemployment rate is eight percent, doesn't that mean the unemployment rate is really only three percent? Am I doing the math right on that?

I'm not trying to make light of anybody being out of work. I truly am grateful I can only imagine what it must be like to suddenly have to face the fact you could lose everything in just a few months, while being told you're a moocher who deserves nothing, much less a hand up.

But to think that a 92 percent success rate (really a 97 percent success rate if the old saw s true) is something to sneer at and be fearful of, that I just don't understand.

I guess it's all perspective, especially in the political arena. Whichever party isn't in power certainly isn't going to give the one in power any kind of credit, so I'd guess we could have one percent unemployment and there would still be hollering about that one percent and how the party not in power could so much better if you'd just elect them.

And if you're one of those people who say the numbers are all lies and the unemployment rate is actually 15 percent, I'd use the same argument about 85 percent employment.

Now, excuse me while I ponder my bad decision making in not learning how to swing a baseball bat so I could get millions for doing my job right 25 percent of the time.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575