Actually, only 19,235,273 Americans have lost jobs, according to U.S. Dept. of Labor jobless claims figures.  You know, the ones the news media breathlessly trumpet each week when the loss is a few thousand below their expectations.

Actually, neither the department nor the media -- surprise! -- released the Grand Sum.  It was obtained by using a trusty calculator to add up all the weekly initial unemployment claims totals the dept. did release for Jan. 27 to Sept. 12, 2009.  Some are from a table, which strangely lacks a cumulative total, the most recent from their news releases.

Actually, their news handouts mainly emphasize “adjusted” data.  But they do include the raw, unadjusted numbers of Americans who applied for initial unemployment funds each week.  Those are the real-life figures which, added together, reach the Grand Total.  And show a vastly greater amount of pain and suffering among ordinary folks than is reflected in the media, which has already proclaimed the recession’s end.

It’s not 20 million yet, you say?  True, but probably around 400,000 job losses have already occurred for the week ending Sept. 19, but haven’t been reported yet by the Feds.  And we’re several days into the week ending Sept. 26.      

So the “Big 20” Obama milestone may have already occurred, or it will very soon.  But you aren’t likely to see this “expected” total reported in the news media, although they could have added up the figures too.  If the true depth of the nation’s disaster were known, Osama’s poll numbers would plummet and Congress wouldn’t pass all those wondrous trillion-dollar programs that will plague us for generations to come.

To be fair, the figures given here don’t include people who lost jobs, but  found new ones.  Nor do they reflect under-employment among those whose new hamburger-flipping work pays far less than their previous positions.   They do disclose what some might call a massive unemployment cover-up by the government/media power axis.  And so, America burns.