4 ms·

As the CA farms going unstaffed show (or our 4.9% unemployment rate), we clearly don't have a weak labor market. If you believe welfare is "stingy", can you na

As the CA farms going unstaffed show (or our 4.9% unemployment rate), we clearly don't have a weak labor market. If you believe welfare is "stingy", can you name a good or service that non-workers lack? (Remember, I have a secret power - I sometimes read Census and BLS reports and pull them out in internet arguments.) I wonder, by the way, how carefully you read the article claiming... I read it carefully enough to separate the factual claims from the mood affiliation. You should try it sometime.

emodendroket 10y ago
U6 unemployment numbers and inflation-adjusted household incomes don't tell the same story, and the anecdote about Californian farms hardly seems like much to base an argument on. But you've got superpowers and are uniquely capable of separating facts from opinion so why bother arguing with the plebes?
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  U6 includes people who aren't looking for work but tell the survey take that they might possibly take the right job if it were dropped in their lap. Inflation adjusted hourly compensation has done nothing but rise. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Check out table 4: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf For the bottom quarter by income, real wages are largely flat between 1979 and the publish date of that pdf.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Chart 1 of your own source shows the reason for that - growth has been more in benefits and less in wages. If you want to fix this, ban non-wage compensation (e.g. employer sponsored health insurance, 401k, etc).
      - adjkant 10y ago
        Let's go back a second: you're claiming that blue collar unskilled labor jobs are going unfilled, but are also arguing that the growth in pay is in benefits. Yet, the jobs you say are going unfilled don't exactly have 401K matching here... And to be clear, I'm not taking either of those claims as true or false, just highlighting the dissonance.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        How much in benefits do you think people making $25,000 a year are getting today? Anyway, It'd be interesting to see a binned version of the real compensation information. And also I think instructive to look at percent of income spending for things like housing and healthcare for the same bins over time.

emodendroket 10y ago

U6 unemployment numbers and inflation-adjusted household incomes don't tell the same story, and the anecdote about Californian farms hardly seems like much to base an argument on. But you've got superpowers and are uniquely capable of separating facts from opinion so why bother arguing with the plebes?

yummyfajitas 10y ago
U6 includes people who aren't looking for work but tell the survey take that they might possibly take the right job if it were dropped in their lap. Inflation adjusted hourly compensation has done nothing but rise. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Check out table 4: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf For the bottom quarter by income, real wages are largely flat between 1979 and the publish date of that pdf.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Chart 1 of your own source shows the reason for that - growth has been more in benefits and less in wages. If you want to fix this, ban non-wage compensation (e.g. employer sponsored health insurance, 401k, etc).
    - adjkant 10y ago
      Let's go back a second: you're claiming that blue collar unskilled labor jobs are going unfilled, but are also arguing that the growth in pay is in benefits. Yet, the jobs you say are going unfilled don't exactly have 401K matching here... And to be clear, I'm not taking either of those claims as true or false, just highlighting the dissonance.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      How much in benefits do you think people making $25,000 a year are getting today? Anyway, It'd be interesting to see a binned version of the real compensation information. And also I think instructive to look at percent of income spending for things like housing and healthcare for the same bins over time.