4 ms·

In June: "And a broader definition of unemployment, which includes people who have given up looking for a job out of frustration, fell to 7.6 percent." - NYTime

In June: "And a broader definition of unemployment, which includes people who have given up looking for a job out of frustration, fell to 7.6 percent." - NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/upshot/we-ran-out-of-words-to-describe-how-good-the-jobs-numbers-are.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/upshot/we-ran-out-of-word...

bilbo0s 8y ago
I have no reason to believe either of you are being dishonest. So taking what you've both posted at face value, i have to conclude that nearly every other adult demographic in the US, does much better employment wise than men. Which is odd? I wonder if you actually only counted white and asian men, would the statistics look any better? EDIT: I just realized how terrible that may have sounded. I'm genuinely only curious about what's causing this apparent disparity. (A disparity that must be a bit severe mathematically speaking.) So my "off the cuff" guess would be that large sections of black, hispanic, and native american men are not really able to participate in the employment markets. And that's maybe how the numbers get so high for men in general?
- jessaustin 8y ago
  The difference may more likely be due to different ways of classifying a particular person as unemployed? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-...
- tylerhou 8y ago
  The parent poster said "11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 months." It's very possible that ~4% of those people don't want to work, or don't work for various reasons (stay-at-home-dad?).
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  If you look at Glaeser's publication[0] (page 10) he defines the rate that he is citing as "the share of men who are not currently employed, or one minus the employment to population rate for prime men". That is a much broader measure of unemployment than even the already very broad U6 measure that NYT is reporting as this would include every single person without a job regardless of the reason that they don't have a job. This number would include full-time students, stay-at-home parents, disabled people, retirees and so on. For comparison, using that measure the absolute lowest level of unemployment that the US has ever had for the age 16+ population as a whole is about 35%[1] (this source reports employment to population rate, so it will be 100% minus the rate that Glaeser is using) or 18% for all people age 25-54[2]. Men in that age range are actually employed at a higher rate than most other demographics. He is making a point about men in that age range being employed at a relatively low rate compared to historic rates for that same demographic, not their employment rate compared to other demographics now. Men age 25-54 have at times had rates getting close to 5%[3]. However, this can't entirely be blamed on a poor job market because it has become much more acceptable for men to take the role of a stay-at-home parent or caretaker than it would have when their employment rate peaked in the late 1960s. There are almost far more students in that age range than there would have been in the 60s. [0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/jobs_for_the_heartland_nberwp.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/jobs_for_the... [1] http://www.multpl.com/us-employment-population-ratio http://www.multpl.com/us-employment-population-ratio [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25TTUSM156S?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=categories https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25TTUSM156S?utm_sourc... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSA156S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSA156S

bilbo0s 8y ago

I have no reason to believe either of you are being dishonest. So taking what you've both posted at face value, i have to conclude that nearly every other adult demographic in the US, does much better employment wise than men. Which is odd? I wonder if you actually only counted white and asian men, would the statistics look any better? EDIT: I just realized how terrible that may have sounded. I'm genuinely only curious about what's causing this apparent disparity. (A disparity that must be a bit severe mathematically speaking.) So my "off the cuff" guess would be that large sections of black, hispanic, and native american men are not really able to participate in the employment markets. And that's maybe how the numbers get so high for men in general?

jessaustin 8y ago
The difference may more likely be due to different ways of classifying a particular person as unemployed? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-...
tylerhou 8y ago
The parent poster said "11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 months." It's very possible that ~4% of those people don't want to work, or don't work for various reasons (stay-at-home-dad?).
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
If you look at Glaeser's publication[0] (page 10) he defines the rate that he is citing as "the share of men who are not currently employed, or one minus the employment to population rate for prime men". That is a much broader measure of unemployment than even the already very broad U6 measure that NYT is reporting as this would include every single person without a job regardless of the reason that they don't have a job. This number would include full-time students, stay-at-home parents, disabled people, retirees and so on. For comparison, using that measure the absolute lowest level of unemployment that the US has ever had for the age 16+ population as a whole is about 35%[1] (this source reports employment to population rate, so it will be 100% minus the rate that Glaeser is using) or 18% for all people age 25-54[2]. Men in that age range are actually employed at a higher rate than most other demographics. He is making a point about men in that age range being employed at a relatively low rate compared to historic rates for that same demographic, not their employment rate compared to other demographics now. Men age 25-54 have at times had rates getting close to 5%[3]. However, this can't entirely be blamed on a poor job market because it has become much more acceptable for men to take the role of a stay-at-home parent or caretaker than it would have when their employment rate peaked in the late 1960s. There are almost far more students in that age range than there would have been in the 60s. [0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/jobs_for_the_heartland_nberwp.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/jobs_for_the... [1] http://www.multpl.com/us-employment-population-ratio http://www.multpl.com/us-employment-population-ratio [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25TTUSM156S?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=categories https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25TTUSM156S?utm_sourc... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSA156S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSA156S