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>unemployment is low Yes, but many people have been designsted as "having stopped looking for work", which means the statistic doesn't count them. Additionall

>unemployment is low Yes, but many people have been designsted as "having stopped looking for work", which means the statistic doesn't count them. Additionally, those who are employed perhaps are underemployed, working as an Uber driver or bartender or chipotle or etc. >the economy has improved For the top 6% of Americans that are millionaires, it absolutely has improved. Most of their income is from capital gains, dividends, and business equity. The average person with student loans has almost none of these things. They are relying on a wage from a job that requires them usually to pay rent, own a car, buy a monthly transport card, and so on. When you are only making $1400-2000 per month after tax, and $1,000 of that is out the door on work-related expenses alone (rent, transport, insurance, phone), there isn't much left over for a $300 per month student loan payment. Disclaimer: Don't shoot the messenger. These are merely my thoughts on what is happening. Please reply with criticism.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
miketery 9y ago
Well put. It's always nagged me how we can say the economy has improved without taking the distribution into account. It's like saying one person gained five bucks and three people lost a dollar. Sure there is two more dollars but the community/society isn't necessarily better for it.
- derekp7 9y ago
  It used to be that when someone at the top got a bit richer, they would invest that money. Which meant opening up a factory, creating jobs as a side effect. Now, it seems the better investments happen to be things that don't create as much jobs.
  - tiggybear 9y ago
    Well why would anyone invest in companies that cater to the middle and lower classes? Those people don't have any money to spend.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Those numbers are all computed, and they've all been getting better as core unemployment has (that is, they are trending together). The only number that is getting worse is the number of people retiring out at 65/67. I do agree that we have to look more at wealth equality to see what's going on.
bmh_ca 9y ago
For further reading on this, look to articles about how the Phillips Curve (the theoretical link between inflation and underemployment) is broken (if it ever worked). e.g. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/inflation-canada-outlook-1.4167888 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/inflation-canada-outlook-1.4...
- tpeo 9y ago
  The Phillips Curve, at least in it's older formulations, was just a description of a certain regularity in the data. So it isn't a "theoretical" link, strictly speaking.
tpeo 9y ago
Besides all that, I'd add that the unemployment rate is an aggregate measure. There's no guarantee that the unemployment rate for arbitrary subsets of the population (e.g. college graduates) is the same as the aggregate unemployment rate defined over the whole population. So, supposing that college educated workers actually were more likely to be unemployed than the average worker (they aren't), looking at the national unemployment rate would be just ... looking at the wrong place. But here's a "nice" graph (the graph is nice, but the trend is worrying): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11327662 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11327662. Labor force participation for college educated workers fell by 3.9 percent points since 2009. This is rather massive compared with the actual unemployment. I really wish the people at statistics offices would come up with some new measure of unemployment. Sometimes I feel a scalar doesn't cut it.
bmcusick 9y ago
This, exactly. I don't know why you're getting down-votes. It's indisputable that both (1) the economy improving on average and (2) the distribution of those gains is highly skewed to the right-side of the income/wealth table. Stories based on average numbers lose a great deal of the details that matter.
- quuquuquu 9y ago
  Completely agree, especially when the USA has nearly 330 million people! Last year according to credit Suisse, the median wealth of the typical American actually /decreased/! And if I remember correctly, it was by quite a sizeable chunk, from 49,000 usd to 45,000 usd. And the median excludes children, so it is adults only. I have all the statistics in the world to back up what I'm saying, but even more important for me is anecdotal stuff that inspires me to dig deeper. When you see the sheer number of young kids working chipotle or retail; when you see the demographics of uber drivers vs big 5 software engineers; when you realize that so much of the wealth in the US is old money that continues to centralize, pool, and grow (much like gravity); when you realize all that, at the very least, it makes you say "hmmm... I need to rethink and dig deeper into this topic on my own".
H1Supreme 9y ago
The amount of people I know with degrees who work in retail, or something completely unrelated is staggering. From my observations, I'd guess "underemployment" is the biggest contributor to the late payments. This is just another example of why I urge any young people I know (high school age) to think long and hard before choosing to go to a 4 year college. When I graduated high school in 99', we were primed to think "college degree == good job". Of course, that is anything but the truth. And, it only serves to put someone in serious debt without any guarantees. Hands on technical jobs like electrician, plumber, welder, are many times more lucrative than some bullshit business degree. A friend of mine's son is 22 or 23, and making a hell of a living welding. Granted, he's exceptional at it. But, that doesn't change the fact that his 2-year trade school investment was a good one. Or, teach yourself a skill. Like lots of us on here, I'm a self taught programmer. It took years of doing small projects in the evenings, but I make a living from it now with $0 in student loan debt.
- gbacon 9y ago
  The key is a marketable college degree. In fields such as aerospace and defense where the credential is the key to open the door, get the credential as cheaply as possible. Do a couple of years at a community college and then finish at a state school. Name-brand degrees bring no extra value. Oh yeah, and get your master’s while you’re still in the zone. The idea that trade school somehow is lower tier or oppressive is a staggering disservice. Just like every college-bound high schooler is not med school material, not every high schooler is college material. Put a wrench or saw or blowtorch in the hands of a doctor or engineer, and crummy is the likely result. Skilled trades are an honorable, respectable way to earn a good living. Forcing people into tracks for their own supposed good but where they feel hopeless is horrible social engineering.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    Not only what you said, trades can also lead you down a path of owning your own business. If that is the direction you go often you can exceed the incomes of the college educated quite handily.
coldtea 9y ago
> Yes, but many people have been designsted as "having stopped looking for work", which means the statistic doesn't count them. Additionally, those who are employed perhaps are underemployed, working as an Uber driver or bartender or chipotle or etc. Yes. In most countries I know of, employment statistics are more about making economy/government look good and hitting targets, and less about giving any real numbers that people can use to understand the big picture.
lucozade 9y ago
> which means the statistic doesn't count them They do, they're called "not in labor force" [0] If you include the unemployed as well as those who want a job but aren't actively looking, it's around 5% which is considered low. But the point of the article is that the unemployment rate is moving in the opposite direction to the arrears rate. Unless the basis for these figures has changed recently, this would require that an abnormal number of graduates aree becoming less emlpoyed while an abnormal, and larger, number of grads are becoming employed. Seems unlikely. > ...perhaps are underemployed Are you sure? I'm not totally familiar with the exact counting mechanism in the US but, in the UK, if someone is in part-time work but is looking for more hours or full-time work, then they count as unemployed, not employed. [0] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat35.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat35.htm
astura 9y ago
TFA mentions that underemployed people can get income based payments matched to their earnings.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

miketery 9y ago

Well put. It's always nagged me how we can say the economy has improved without taking the distribution into account. It's like saying one person gained five bucks and three people lost a dollar. Sure there is two more dollars but the community/society isn't necessarily better for it.

derekp7 9y ago
It used to be that when someone at the top got a bit richer, they would invest that money. Which meant opening up a factory, creating jobs as a side effect. Now, it seems the better investments happen to be things that don't create as much jobs.
- tiggybear 9y ago
  Well why would anyone invest in companies that cater to the middle and lower classes? Those people don't have any money to spend.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Those numbers are all computed, and they've all been getting better as core unemployment has (that is, they are trending together). The only number that is getting worse is the number of people retiring out at 65/67. I do agree that we have to look more at wealth equality to see what's going on.

bmh_ca 9y ago

For further reading on this, look to articles about how the Phillips Curve (the theoretical link between inflation and underemployment) is broken (if it ever worked). e.g. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/inflation-canada-outlook-1.4167888 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/inflation-canada-outlook-1.4...

tpeo 9y ago
The Phillips Curve, at least in it's older formulations, was just a description of a certain regularity in the data. So it isn't a "theoretical" link, strictly speaking.

tpeo 9y ago

Besides all that, I'd add that the unemployment rate is an aggregate measure. There's no guarantee that the unemployment rate for arbitrary subsets of the population (e.g. college graduates) is the same as the aggregate unemployment rate defined over the whole population. So, supposing that college educated workers actually were more likely to be unemployed than the average worker (they aren't), looking at the national unemployment rate would be just ... looking at the wrong place. But here's a "nice" graph (the graph is nice, but the trend is worrying): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11327662 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11327662. Labor force participation for college educated workers fell by 3.9 percent points since 2009. This is rather massive compared with the actual unemployment. I really wish the people at statistics offices would come up with some new measure of unemployment. Sometimes I feel a scalar doesn't cut it.

bmcusick 9y ago

This, exactly. I don't know why you're getting down-votes. It's indisputable that both (1) the economy improving on average and (2) the distribution of those gains is highly skewed to the right-side of the income/wealth table. Stories based on average numbers lose a great deal of the details that matter.

quuquuquu 9y ago
Completely agree, especially when the USA has nearly 330 million people! Last year according to credit Suisse, the median wealth of the typical American actually /decreased/! And if I remember correctly, it was by quite a sizeable chunk, from 49,000 usd to 45,000 usd. And the median excludes children, so it is adults only. I have all the statistics in the world to back up what I'm saying, but even more important for me is anecdotal stuff that inspires me to dig deeper. When you see the sheer number of young kids working chipotle or retail; when you see the demographics of uber drivers vs big 5 software engineers; when you realize that so much of the wealth in the US is old money that continues to centralize, pool, and grow (much like gravity); when you realize all that, at the very least, it makes you say "hmmm... I need to rethink and dig deeper into this topic on my own".

H1Supreme 9y ago

The amount of people I know with degrees who work in retail, or something completely unrelated is staggering. From my observations, I'd guess "underemployment" is the biggest contributor to the late payments. This is just another example of why I urge any young people I know (high school age) to think long and hard before choosing to go to a 4 year college. When I graduated high school in 99', we were primed to think "college degree == good job". Of course, that is anything but the truth. And, it only serves to put someone in serious debt without any guarantees. Hands on technical jobs like electrician, plumber, welder, are many times more lucrative than some bullshit business degree. A friend of mine's son is 22 or 23, and making a hell of a living welding. Granted, he's exceptional at it. But, that doesn't change the fact that his 2-year trade school investment was a good one. Or, teach yourself a skill. Like lots of us on here, I'm a self taught programmer. It took years of doing small projects in the evenings, but I make a living from it now with $0 in student loan debt.

gbacon 9y ago
The key is a marketable college degree. In fields such as aerospace and defense where the credential is the key to open the door, get the credential as cheaply as possible. Do a couple of years at a community college and then finish at a state school. Name-brand degrees bring no extra value. Oh yeah, and get your master’s while you’re still in the zone. The idea that trade school somehow is lower tier or oppressive is a staggering disservice. Just like every college-bound high schooler is not med school material, not every high schooler is college material. Put a wrench or saw or blowtorch in the hands of a doctor or engineer, and crummy is the likely result. Skilled trades are an honorable, respectable way to earn a good living. Forcing people into tracks for their own supposed good but where they feel hopeless is horrible social engineering.
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  Not only what you said, trades can also lead you down a path of owning your own business. If that is the direction you go often you can exceed the incomes of the college educated quite handily.

coldtea 9y ago

> Yes, but many people have been designsted as "having stopped looking for work", which means the statistic doesn't count them. Additionally, those who are employed perhaps are underemployed, working as an Uber driver or bartender or chipotle or etc. Yes. In most countries I know of, employment statistics are more about making economy/government look good and hitting targets, and less about giving any real numbers that people can use to understand the big picture.

lucozade 9y ago

> which means the statistic doesn't count them They do, they're called "not in labor force" [0] If you include the unemployed as well as those who want a job but aren't actively looking, it's around 5% which is considered low. But the point of the article is that the unemployment rate is moving in the opposite direction to the arrears rate. Unless the basis for these figures has changed recently, this would require that an abnormal number of graduates aree becoming less emlpoyed while an abnormal, and larger, number of grads are becoming employed. Seems unlikely. > ...perhaps are underemployed Are you sure? I'm not totally familiar with the exact counting mechanism in the US but, in the UK, if someone is in part-time work but is looking for more hours or full-time work, then they count as unemployed, not employed. [0] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat35.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat35.htm

astura 9y ago

TFA mentions that underemployed people can get income based payments matched to their earnings.