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The right tends to prefer to reference labor participation rate, whereas the left tends to prefer unemployment rate. The reason for this is obvious: right now,

The right tends to prefer to reference labor participation rate, whereas the left tends to prefer unemployment rate. The reason for this is obvious: right now, unemployment rate advances the narrative of the left, and labor participation rate advances the narrative of the right. The argument from the right is that unemployment rate does not include the very large number of people who have given up searching for work (and have found some other way to survive, be it government assistance, or family, or charity, or illegal activities, etc.). This argues that the economy is actually in much worse shape than the unemployment rate would suggest. The argument from the left is that labor participation rate does not clearly indicate who really needs or wants to be working, only who is and is not working. This argues that the people out of the work force don't actually need to be in the workforce and therefore the economy is actually fine. If ever the unemployment rate works out better for the right, and labor participation rate better for the left, you will see the sides switch which metric they prefer to reference. That's how humans work. Calling those who don't subscribe to your preferred narrative "stupid" and "crazy" is probably not helpful.

conistonwater 10y ago
> This argues that the economy is actually in much worse shape than the unemployment rate would suggest. This argument usually doesn't work because if you consider a different subset of the people who aren't working, you must then compare it to a different baseline. So being able to pick a different set of people to call unemployment (e.g., people not in labour force) doesn't actually let you claim the things are much better/worse, you still need to work further. In particular with respect to the labour participation rate, I think it's well known in leftish circles that it went down quite a lot in the GFC and that that represents a problem. I don't really know where you got your impression from. In any case, I disagree that that's the argument they are usually making when questioning unemployment statistics. It could be their argument, but they'd have to actually make that argument. There usually isn't much beyond just rejecting statistics, unfortunately. Furthermore, there is demonstrably a lot of people who think the inflation figures are downright made up (even here on HN), despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. In fact, the inflation example is even clearer, due to how little leeway there is in deciding, for example, what to call inflation. In any case, I didn't call them "stupid" and "crazy" because they "didn't subscribe to my preferred narrative", as you put it. It definitely wouldn't be stupid or crazy to make the argument you are making. There has been plenty of discussion in economics history of which measures best represent the state of the economy. However, if someone, as many politicians do, feels comfortable enough to reject that because they don't feel it's convenient, then, sure, "stupid" and "crazy" are decent enough words to describe that particular behaviour. After all, just because I can come up with a better argument for someone's position, doesn't mean I can substitute the argument they made with a different argument that I find more reasonable (it would be distinctly uncivil). Specifically with respect to unemployment rates, you and I may simply have been reading different things, but I believe what I said was accurate. One further thought: the unemployment rate (not the participation rate) is part of the Federal Reserve's mandate, and it is the rate that has traditionally been used, with perfectly decent theoretical justification, so I feel quite comfortable saying that it's not some kind of left-right partisan divide.
- ta_donk_gt 10y ago
  > Specifically with respect to unemployment rates, you and I may simply have been reading different things Certainly possible, but what I generally see is: "the unemployment rate is not what [democratic administration] says it is because they redefined the metric to not include those that have given up trying to find work...the labor participation rate has dropped several percent since the beginning of [democratic administration], and the unemployment rate has also dropped several percent in that time, and these cannot both be the case." Often the sound bytes we're shown only show the "I don't believe it" part, but if you dig a bit, at least I, generally find more context and clarification in other statements from the individual (often in an expanded version of the same quote in the sound byte), showing that the above quote is roughly the thought process of most challenging the unemployment rate statistic. What the sides are really arguing about, as is the case with most "statistics" used in politics, is what the definition of "unemployed" should be. Re people dismissing clear facts, again, this is just human nature. The brain finds a way to twist reality around facts that challenge foundational beliefs. The more foundational the belief, meaning the more structure built on top of it and the more decisions you have made based on the belief, the harder your brain will work to twist reality to allow you to dismiss this inconvenient fact. All humans do this, and both political wings in this country do it equally. Somewhat meta, but believing that only the "other side" is victim to this behavior is yet another example of the behavior (and we all do it).
  - conistonwater 10y ago
    So first of all, any significant drop in employment is overwhelmingly likely due to the GFC. Second, I must take issue with the idea that they (the administration) "redefined" the metric. As I said above, there is a genuine (and basically settled, I believe) question in economics about what the right way is to summarize the state of the economy's labour force in a number. So any concern with it is going to have to be a technical concern: does a measure summarize the state better or worse than another measure. In fact, the BLS consists of professionals with a specific job to do, so I would be really skeptical of a claim that the administration redefined a metric that was inconvenient to it. It is rather more likely that it was already settled on economics grounds previously. It would be really surprising if the BLS, an independent statistical agency, did something like what the argument accuses it of doing, so there needs to be some more solid evidence that it actually happened. Specifically with respect to people who gave up looking for work being included as unemployed, I'm pretty sure that's been like that for ages now. Third, and my main problem with that argument, is that it's an argument ad hominem. Instead of settling the choice of unemployment measure on merit (economics is a relatively old discipline, there is more than enough to talk about to decide what the merits are), the argument instead tries to argue based on imputed motivation of the current administration. That's a very dodgy road to go down, because settling it on merit is always a better thing to do. > these cannot both be the case It's not my main field of expertise, but this, I believe, is just plain wrong. The structure of the economy can definitely change with time. Two prominent examples to my mind are: (1) women entering the labour force, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged, but drastically increasing the number of working adults, (2) changes to disability and health insurance rules that sometimes mean that people who are seriously ill drop in/out of the labour force with good reason (they might be very sick yet still need to work to be able to afford things). So I think it definitely can be the case that different measures will go different ways, depending on the underlying changes in the economy. > Re people dismissing clear facts, again, this is just human nature. Meh, I don't care, I just want to get it right. Edit: On further thought, I think the argument you mentioned is pretty damn close to dismissing statistics. Your original argument, above, was totally different, and much better.

conistonwater 10y ago

> This argues that the economy is actually in much worse shape than the unemployment rate would suggest. This argument usually doesn't work because if you consider a different subset of the people who aren't working, you must then compare it to a different baseline. So being able to pick a different set of people to call unemployment (e.g., people not in labour force) doesn't actually let you claim the things are much better/worse, you still need to work further. In particular with respect to the labour participation rate, I think it's well known in leftish circles that it went down quite a lot in the GFC and that that represents a problem. I don't really know where you got your impression from. In any case, I disagree that that's the argument they are usually making when questioning unemployment statistics. It could be their argument, but they'd have to actually make that argument. There usually isn't much beyond just rejecting statistics, unfortunately. Furthermore, there is demonstrably a lot of people who think the inflation figures are downright made up (even here on HN), despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. In fact, the inflation example is even clearer, due to how little leeway there is in deciding, for example, what to call inflation. In any case, I didn't call them "stupid" and "crazy" because they "didn't subscribe to my preferred narrative", as you put it. It definitely wouldn't be stupid or crazy to make the argument you are making. There has been plenty of discussion in economics history of which measures best represent the state of the economy. However, if someone, as many politicians do, feels comfortable enough to reject that because they don't feel it's convenient, then, sure, "stupid" and "crazy" are decent enough words to describe that particular behaviour. After all, just because I can come up with a better argument for someone's position, doesn't mean I can substitute the argument they made with a different argument that I find more reasonable (it would be distinctly uncivil). Specifically with respect to unemployment rates, you and I may simply have been reading different things, but I believe what I said was accurate. One further thought: the unemployment rate (not the participation rate) is part of the Federal Reserve's mandate, and it is the rate that has traditionally been used, with perfectly decent theoretical justification, so I feel quite comfortable saying that it's not some kind of left-right partisan divide.

ta_donk_gt 10y ago
> Specifically with respect to unemployment rates, you and I may simply have been reading different things Certainly possible, but what I generally see is: "the unemployment rate is not what [democratic administration] says it is because they redefined the metric to not include those that have given up trying to find work...the labor participation rate has dropped several percent since the beginning of [democratic administration], and the unemployment rate has also dropped several percent in that time, and these cannot both be the case." Often the sound bytes we're shown only show the "I don't believe it" part, but if you dig a bit, at least I, generally find more context and clarification in other statements from the individual (often in an expanded version of the same quote in the sound byte), showing that the above quote is roughly the thought process of most challenging the unemployment rate statistic. What the sides are really arguing about, as is the case with most "statistics" used in politics, is what the definition of "unemployed" should be. Re people dismissing clear facts, again, this is just human nature. The brain finds a way to twist reality around facts that challenge foundational beliefs. The more foundational the belief, meaning the more structure built on top of it and the more decisions you have made based on the belief, the harder your brain will work to twist reality to allow you to dismiss this inconvenient fact. All humans do this, and both political wings in this country do it equally. Somewhat meta, but believing that only the "other side" is victim to this behavior is yet another example of the behavior (and we all do it).
- conistonwater 10y ago
  So first of all, any significant drop in employment is overwhelmingly likely due to the GFC. Second, I must take issue with the idea that they (the administration) "redefined" the metric. As I said above, there is a genuine (and basically settled, I believe) question in economics about what the right way is to summarize the state of the economy's labour force in a number. So any concern with it is going to have to be a technical concern: does a measure summarize the state better or worse than another measure. In fact, the BLS consists of professionals with a specific job to do, so I would be really skeptical of a claim that the administration redefined a metric that was inconvenient to it. It is rather more likely that it was already settled on economics grounds previously. It would be really surprising if the BLS, an independent statistical agency, did something like what the argument accuses it of doing, so there needs to be some more solid evidence that it actually happened. Specifically with respect to people who gave up looking for work being included as unemployed, I'm pretty sure that's been like that for ages now. Third, and my main problem with that argument, is that it's an argument ad hominem. Instead of settling the choice of unemployment measure on merit (economics is a relatively old discipline, there is more than enough to talk about to decide what the merits are), the argument instead tries to argue based on imputed motivation of the current administration. That's a very dodgy road to go down, because settling it on merit is always a better thing to do. > these cannot both be the case It's not my main field of expertise, but this, I believe, is just plain wrong. The structure of the economy can definitely change with time. Two prominent examples to my mind are: (1) women entering the labour force, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged, but drastically increasing the number of working adults, (2) changes to disability and health insurance rules that sometimes mean that people who are seriously ill drop in/out of the labour force with good reason (they might be very sick yet still need to work to be able to afford things). So I think it definitely can be the case that different measures will go different ways, depending on the underlying changes in the economy. > Re people dismissing clear facts, again, this is just human nature. Meh, I don't care, I just want to get it right. Edit: On further thought, I think the argument you mentioned is pretty damn close to dismissing statistics. Your original argument, above, was totally different, and much better.