9 ms·

I agree that there is no "true" measure, just different measures. That said, the standard unemployment measure the author is objecting to is just as (more real

I agree that there is no "true" measure, just different measures. That said, the standard unemployment measure the author is objecting to is just as (more really) disingenuous in practice. It also stacks confusion. "Unemployment" used as a primary barometer for the labour economy. People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. They don't consider that most unemployed 58 year olds are not counted because they "retired," stopped seeking work or receive a disability benefit. When/if these become substantial, the measure means very little. Every time a journalist note record high/low unemployment of X%, it's probably just as deceptive or (more likely) misleading. The measure itself means something different in 2020 than it did in 1980, or in a different country/region. At least the "true" appendage makes clear that there are differing and divergent ways to measure unemployment, and that these cn result in huge differences.

itsoktocry 6y ago
>They don't consider that most unemployed 58 year olds are not counted because they "retired," stopped seeking work or receive a disability benefit. Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? Every time there's a discussion of unemployment, or inflation, people bring up the measurements as "misleading". The BLS tracks this stuff because people in the real world need to use it, not because there's some disingenuous political purpose. There are a ton of different metrics to get a broad picture of the labour market, as defined, and they put them out there, free to use. The idea that the army of economists at the BLS don't understand things like people being retired is just wrong. We spend a lot of time criticizing journalists and politicians, but how many people bother to look at the data themselves if interested?
- em500 6y ago
  Yup, the occasional hedonistic adjustments and product substitutions that they do for CPI is already prime fodder for perpetual inflation conspiracy stories. It will be a disaster when they do even more subjective "degrees-of-unemployment weights".
- michaelt 6y ago
  > Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? Because we're actually trying to count "people who would be employed, were there more jobs available" But as we can't read people's minds, we can't tell the person who's happily retired at 58 from someone the same age who'd rather be in work but can't find it, and has started drawing their pension out of necessity.
  - refurb 6y ago
    But that’s exactly how the survey works. They ask people if they are available to work and if they are actively seeking work, regardless of age. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed
    - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
      You can want a job, but not be looking for a job because your prior attempts to secure one have been unsuccessful. This is called discouraged unemployment and figures into the overall category of marginally-attached workers.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Well it's a spectrum. Many of those who are happily retired would be willing to go back to work if someone offered them enough money. As wages rise the labor force participation rate also goes up.
    - malandrew 6y ago
      > As wages rise the labor force participation rate also goes up. Wouldn't any such effect be temporary though? As wages rise, doesn't inflation rise as well, negating the benefit of a rising wage. Wouldn't it also be true that as certain goods deflate in price, labor force participation should go up as well since the same wage allows you to buy more stuff? This goes back to wealth isn't the money you have, it's what you can buy. Today most people, even those at the bottom, have access to many things today than even John D. Rockefeller didn't have access to when he was alive. Anyways, not asserting anything in particular here, but just raising that it seems far more complicated than just wages rising lead to greater labor force participating.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I thought I'd bother after reading your comment. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm and the numbers: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm It's actually kinda straightforward, and very clear about what measures they're using. The numbers are bit scary - "The employment-population ratio, at 56.6 percent, changed little over the month but is 4.5 percentage points lower than in February." "The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job, at 7.2 million, changed little in September; this measure is 2.3 million higher than in February. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the last 4 weeks or were unavailable to take a job." So that's 12m officially unemployed, plus 7m "not in the labor force" but who want a job. So yeah, the article is kinda on point; that the numbers don't mean what they think we mean. But I have to agree: that's not because the numbers aren't available for anyone to look at and understand.
  - hajile 6y ago
    74.1 million children 54.0 million over 65 48.9 million on disability 328.2 million total population 185.8 million people employed at 56.6% employment 128.1 million people not employed (including children) 54 million people not employed, but marginally employable (max income is $1,260 per month if on disability and $18,240/yr when retired) In any case, under-employment is still a bigger issue than unemployment.
    - shuckles 6y ago
      Am I reading this right: almost 1 in 5 American adults is on disability?
      - darawk 6y ago
        Yes. Disability numbers are shockingly high. It's an issue that is really not talked about enough.
      - bostonvaulter2 6y ago
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > people in the real world need to use it There is absolutely no purpose other than propagandistic for the percentage commonly referred to as "unemployment" with no other qualifiers. That number's only purpose is to start dropping a short time after an unemployment shock whether or not any jobs were actually added to the economy. The other numbers aren't to give a "broad picture" of the labor market, they're to give the entire picture of the labor market. "Unemployment" contributes nothing. At the time of a shock it echos other metrics, and after a pause of a few months it announces that whatever the administration announced its reaction to the shock would be is starting to work, no matter what the other numbers say.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    But the article's graph shows exactly the opposite. According to the "true unemployment rate", the job market has fully recovered from the COVID shock and is sitting at where it was in 2017-18, whereas the official unemployment rate indicates that there's still a problem. I assume we can agree that there is indeed still a problem, so it seems like the official statistics have it right here.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? Because they still need to find work to live, pay heath expenses, and so on, and can barely make it in third-world style conditions without it...
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Most people retire with an income stream that is enough to live one. Now I'll grant that enough to live on is low standard of living, but it will pay for food, health care (most get some form of medicare), your apartment, and you can afford a basic car. Of course if you live in a high cost of living area like San Francisco it isn't enough, but for most of the US you will live an nice enough life. You can always want more, but your needs are met. Third world conditions are much worse than that. I've seen families sleeping on sidewalks. No car, no health care. Sure everybody wants more. There are a lot of retired people who would like a job, but that is as much about the social connection as money. There are also those who lost their money (scams target retired people) and need a job, but that isn't most of them.
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      I think the bit you're missing is that there is a cohort of people who haven't retired, precisely because they lack an income stream that is enough to live on, but they are counted as retired by most measures of unemployment. My father turns 70 in three days, and he has struggled to find long-term work for the last ten years. He'll work for a year, search for work for 15 months, work for another 18 months, etc. He would like to be working now, but COVID-19 probably marks the end of his working days forever. He's been counted as retired a few times during the last decade, though he never was until this year.
      - refurb 6y ago
        How do you know he was counted as retired? BLS shares their survey and how they determine if someone is unemployed - they basically ask if they are available to work and actively seeking work. I didn’t see any cutoff for age. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed
- acruns 6y ago
  Wouldn't it be great if HBO provided us a link to their "important new data" but since they don't we can't look at it for ourselves.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dalbasal 6y ago
  >> Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? There is no abstract reason, unless we're just talking about what the word unemployed "really" means. Pointless semantics. The reason they should be considered unemployed is contextual. "Unemployment" is the measure used by journalists & politicians to gauge the labour market. In that context, it is very important to consider these people who have stopped expecting to work unemployed. They are part of the "slack." Their experience experience of the labour market is "i can't get a job." If unemployment is lower than it was in year X because people stop applying or qualifying for some unemployment benefit... that doesn't mean the labour market is better. Everything is contextual. People arguing for alternative unemployment measures aren't (generally) arguing semantics. Their arguing that the metric is misleading us.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "Why should any of these people be considered 'unemployed'?" if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy, it's important to get a full picture of how many capable people are un-/under-employed. when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use, not arbitrarily just those who have recently become un-/under-employed (nominal unemployment).
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy There is no single "we" who allocates those resources. That is a fundamental fallacy in this whole way of looking at things. We seem to have this belief that, if only our government experts could find the right aggregate measure and micromanage the economy based on it, everything would work just fine. That belief is false. > when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use That's not something the government should even be trying to do, because no central planning entity can do it. What the government should be doing is guaranteeing a level playing field, and letting freedom work. Historically, times when the government has done that have been the times when the US economy has created the most wealth.
    - bushin 6y ago
      you sound like a religious fanatic
    - clairity 6y ago
      that "we" is the whole of the citizens and residents of the country, not a central planning committee. the government is the power apparatus that is meant to express and realize our common good. as a power apparatus, it cuts both ways, and we must remain vigilant as citizens on keeping it aligned with our goals and desires. wealth by itself, especially as we measure it, is hollow and a poor collective goal, and its singular pursuit expressly undermines the level playing field and much of our humanity. prosperity is a more holistic expression of our collective goal, with wealth creation not being the principal ingredient of prosperity. industry, purpose, solidarity, community, well-being, welfare, success, esteem, respect, free expression, etc. are all (much) higher on that list. it behooves us to look beyond simplistic ideologies (which only benefit the political, by collapsing our horizons insidiously) to perform our duties and responsibilities to each other as a society.
- crpatino 6y ago
  > Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? In general, because governments around the World use doctored Unemployment Rates to claim their economic policies are more effective than those really are. It is practically the same as Principal Skinner taking Bart Simpson and all the other School's idiots to a field trip the very day the Standardized Test is due. How do we know the measure is doctored, you say? Because they changed it, and they have been comparing old figures to new figures. Sure, they put a tiny note in illegible print at the bottom of their charts. You know what an engineer does? We give the damned new thing a new damned name. Then in the damned chart you clearly see one line stops one year and then another line of a different color starts that very year. If anyone gets fooled by that, it's because they are willfully ignorant. > We spend a lot of time criticizing journalists and politicians, but how many people bother to look at the data themselves if interested? Journalists are paid to report, and if they cannot report accurate figures, why should we pay them? Politicians compete to get into, what in theory is called, Public Service. Servers are expected to provide accurate reports regarding the service they are providing. If their reports are self serving, why should we trust them with anything more important than window dressing?
sk5t 6y ago
> People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. They don't consider that most unemployed 58 year olds are not counted Would not "high stakes" non-dilettante observers know about, and review trends in, the labor participation rate and other metrics?
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
While this may be true, the article's premise that the BLS was somehow cooked up to hide the "true" unemployment rate rings hollow, mainly because the BLS also tracks and reports tons of other labor-related statistics, including for example "discouraged" workers, those working part-time but want to work full-time, overall labor force participation rate, etc. These days I even see mainstream media outlets report lots of different numbers beyond the "baseline" unemployment rate, so I just feel like this whole article is written from the "you're not considering my preferred statistic as the 'true' one so you're wrong" angle.
- II2II 6y ago
  Question: which figures are reported more prominently by the BLS? I am asking because my country's equivalent tends to report unemployment figures, based upon a similar definition to the US, more prominently. This is especially true if a casual seeker is unfamiliar with the terminology used while reporting these figures. Incidentally, it is also worth noting that one does not have to believe that the numbers are cooked up to believe that they are misleading. Having a consistent definition is important when comparing figures, unfortunately having a consistent definition also means that the reported numbers may not reflect societal expectations over time (e.g. regarding retirement or multiple income households).
  - m000 6y ago
    The BLS statistics are pretty much like the food labels: They'll slap a huge "0% fat" sticker on the front of the package to appease the public conscience. But you need to carefully read the fine-print on the back to find out what's that you're consuming.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >They'll slap a huge "0% fat" sticker on the front of the package to appease the public conscience. But you need to carefully read the fine-print on the back to find out what's that you're consuming. ...as opposed to what? being "honest" by slapping a "contains scary sounding chemicals" sticker on the front of the package? how can a manufacturer possibly know what people would hate, considering that people can hate literally any ingredient?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 6y ago
> People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. No, this is intentional deception. The party out of power talks about "real" inflation rates and "real" unemployment rates, and the party in power touts the official numbers. The best number to go by for unemployment has always been the prime age employment (not unemployment) rate, and all honest discussions of the current state of employment start with it. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060
- airza 6y ago
  This rate seems like it would hide the extremely real phenomenon of people being forced to work after 55.
  - zdragnar 6y ago
    > people being forced to work after 55. Did you mean 65? Only teachers and a few other public union members regularly retire at 55 in the US, and even for them many choose to continue working to earn a fatter pension. Except, of course, for the rare people disciplined enough to be frugal and invested a lot of every pay check, and became self made multi millionaires.
- makomk 6y ago
  Yeah. I remember back in 2016, all the self-proclaimed fact checkers insisted that the official headline unemployment rate was the real unemployment rate, and that any claims about employment that didn't match up with it were lies by Trump. Now that he's the incumbent...
- warvair 6y ago
  Thanks for posting this site. I was a bit confused by the recent dip in this chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTLL2564 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTLL2564 Until I realized it's likely due to COVID-19 deaths.
  - 6y ago
duxup 6y ago
I feel like it is on the reader to understand that to some extent everything about measuring is about HOW you measure. This article is one of MANY that recognize this, and it's by a journalist, and I've seen politicians note it as well....
- zdragnar 6y ago
  Sean Hannity talked about it non-stop during Obama's second term, then mysteriously dropped it when Trump took office. Basically, there are no surprises here. Everyone uses the numbers that favor them and hurt their opponents. Everyone.
  - duxup 6y ago
    I think there is a varying level of folks intent and awareness of their biases to the extent that 'everyone' isn't accurate.
goldenManatee 6y ago
The “true” is a little sensationalist though I doubt they were expecting anyone to care about their investigations. They were still going for “a more true”. They’re not accounting for retired 65+ year olds. That’s a little suggestive of just wanting to quickly look away. They looked at people that are structurally unemployed or stopped looking because they were disillusioned after some time; they also tried averaging a national rent gauge (yeah, regional would’ve been better - so that means approving them grant funding) to better understand the cost of living and who can afford to survive off their wage/salary. So they drew a line across the chart saying people below $X can’t even afford surviving in America right now. There’s some PBS specials on rural American single moms unable to feed their kids mid COVID - enter school lunch funding issues - and Twitter also has its share of people posting their anecdotes of plight.
rubyfan 6y ago
The statistic they are describing as the “True Rate of Unemployment” isn’t that. It’s the rate of which society is earning a poverty level wage or less. It’s a useful statistic and one that deserves discussion but it’s not the “True Rate of Unemployment”. They are just different.
smsm42 6y ago
There's labor force participation and it is measured. It's just much more complex and can not really be understood as a single number - people can be out of workforce because they are retired, because they are sick, because they are wealthy, because they can't find work, because they are in prison, because they rely on somebody else to supply their income, etc. etc. Probably too complex for an average newspaper headline.
Mvandenbergh 6y ago
>People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. Is that the case? A journalist covering an economic story will know and be familiar with U3 and U6. Maybe a local politician like a city council person, mayor, or potentially a freshman state rep in some American state might not know, since some of them are really just used car salesmen or local lawyers who've convinced their local party to put them in as their candidate but even then I suspect that they learn the conceptual if not the technical difference very quickly. I am not familiar with the political systems of all countries of course but I think you would struggle to find, say, a Dutch of British MP who would not know this.

itsoktocry 6y ago

>They don't consider that most unemployed 58 year olds are not counted because they "retired," stopped seeking work or receive a disability benefit. Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? Every time there's a discussion of unemployment, or inflation, people bring up the measurements as "misleading". The BLS tracks this stuff because people in the real world need to use it, not because there's some disingenuous political purpose. There are a ton of different metrics to get a broad picture of the labour market, as defined, and they put them out there, free to use. The idea that the army of economists at the BLS don't understand things like people being retired is just wrong. We spend a lot of time criticizing journalists and politicians, but how many people bother to look at the data themselves if interested?

em500 6y ago
Yup, the occasional hedonistic adjustments and product substitutions that they do for CPI is already prime fodder for perpetual inflation conspiracy stories. It will be a disaster when they do even more subjective "degrees-of-unemployment weights".
michaelt 6y ago
> Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? Because we're actually trying to count "people who would be employed, were there more jobs available" But as we can't read people's minds, we can't tell the person who's happily retired at 58 from someone the same age who'd rather be in work but can't find it, and has started drawing their pension out of necessity.
- refurb 6y ago
  But that’s exactly how the survey works. They ask people if they are available to work and if they are actively seeking work, regardless of age. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed
  - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
    You can want a job, but not be looking for a job because your prior attempts to secure one have been unsuccessful. This is called discouraged unemployment and figures into the overall category of marginally-attached workers.
- nradov 6y ago
  Well it's a spectrum. Many of those who are happily retired would be willing to go back to work if someone offered them enough money. As wages rise the labor force participation rate also goes up.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > As wages rise the labor force participation rate also goes up. Wouldn't any such effect be temporary though? As wages rise, doesn't inflation rise as well, negating the benefit of a rising wage. Wouldn't it also be true that as certain goods deflate in price, labor force participation should go up as well since the same wage allows you to buy more stuff? This goes back to wealth isn't the money you have, it's what you can buy. Today most people, even those at the bottom, have access to many things today than even John D. Rockefeller didn't have access to when he was alive. Anyways, not asserting anything in particular here, but just raising that it seems far more complicated than just wages rising lead to greater labor force participating.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I thought I'd bother after reading your comment. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm and the numbers: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm It's actually kinda straightforward, and very clear about what measures they're using. The numbers are bit scary - "The employment-population ratio, at 56.6 percent, changed little over the month but is 4.5 percentage points lower than in February." "The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job, at 7.2 million, changed little in September; this measure is 2.3 million higher than in February. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the last 4 weeks or were unavailable to take a job." So that's 12m officially unemployed, plus 7m "not in the labor force" but who want a job. So yeah, the article is kinda on point; that the numbers don't mean what they think we mean. But I have to agree: that's not because the numbers aren't available for anyone to look at and understand.
- hajile 6y ago
  74.1 million children 54.0 million over 65 48.9 million on disability 328.2 million total population 185.8 million people employed at 56.6% employment 128.1 million people not employed (including children) 54 million people not employed, but marginally employable (max income is $1,260 per month if on disability and $18,240/yr when retired) In any case, under-employment is still a bigger issue than unemployment.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    Am I reading this right: almost 1 in 5 American adults is on disability?
    - darawk 6y ago
      Yes. Disability numbers are shockingly high. It's an issue that is really not talked about enough.
    - bostonvaulter2 6y ago
pessimizer 6y ago
> people in the real world need to use it There is absolutely no purpose other than propagandistic for the percentage commonly referred to as "unemployment" with no other qualifiers. That number's only purpose is to start dropping a short time after an unemployment shock whether or not any jobs were actually added to the economy. The other numbers aren't to give a "broad picture" of the labor market, they're to give the entire picture of the labor market. "Unemployment" contributes nothing. At the time of a shock it echos other metrics, and after a pause of a few months it announces that whatever the administration announced its reaction to the shock would be is starting to work, no matter what the other numbers say.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  But the article's graph shows exactly the opposite. According to the "true unemployment rate", the job market has fully recovered from the COVID shock and is sitting at where it was in 2017-18, whereas the official unemployment rate indicates that there's still a problem. I assume we can agree that there is indeed still a problem, so it seems like the official statistics have it right here.
coldtea 6y ago
>Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? Because they still need to find work to live, pay heath expenses, and so on, and can barely make it in third-world style conditions without it...
- bluGill 6y ago
  Most people retire with an income stream that is enough to live one. Now I'll grant that enough to live on is low standard of living, but it will pay for food, health care (most get some form of medicare), your apartment, and you can afford a basic car. Of course if you live in a high cost of living area like San Francisco it isn't enough, but for most of the US you will live an nice enough life. You can always want more, but your needs are met. Third world conditions are much worse than that. I've seen families sleeping on sidewalks. No car, no health care. Sure everybody wants more. There are a lot of retired people who would like a job, but that is as much about the social connection as money. There are also those who lost their money (scams target retired people) and need a job, but that isn't most of them.
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    I think the bit you're missing is that there is a cohort of people who haven't retired, precisely because they lack an income stream that is enough to live on, but they are counted as retired by most measures of unemployment. My father turns 70 in three days, and he has struggled to find long-term work for the last ten years. He'll work for a year, search for work for 15 months, work for another 18 months, etc. He would like to be working now, but COVID-19 probably marks the end of his working days forever. He's been counted as retired a few times during the last decade, though he never was until this year.
    - refurb 6y ago
      How do you know he was counted as retired? BLS shares their survey and how they determine if someone is unemployed - they basically ask if they are available to work and actively seeking work. I didn’t see any cutoff for age. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed
acruns 6y ago
Wouldn't it be great if HBO provided us a link to their "important new data" but since they don't we can't look at it for ourselves.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dalbasal 6y ago
>> Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? There is no abstract reason, unless we're just talking about what the word unemployed "really" means. Pointless semantics. The reason they should be considered unemployed is contextual. "Unemployment" is the measure used by journalists & politicians to gauge the labour market. In that context, it is very important to consider these people who have stopped expecting to work unemployed. They are part of the "slack." Their experience experience of the labour market is "i can't get a job." If unemployment is lower than it was in year X because people stop applying or qualifying for some unemployment benefit... that doesn't mean the labour market is better. Everything is contextual. People arguing for alternative unemployment measures aren't (generally) arguing semantics. Their arguing that the metric is misleading us.
clairity 6y ago
> "Why should any of these people be considered 'unemployed'?" if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy, it's important to get a full picture of how many capable people are un-/under-employed. when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use, not arbitrarily just those who have recently become un-/under-employed (nominal unemployment).
- pdonis 6y ago
  > if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy There is no single "we" who allocates those resources. That is a fundamental fallacy in this whole way of looking at things. We seem to have this belief that, if only our government experts could find the right aggregate measure and micromanage the economy based on it, everything would work just fine. That belief is false. > when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use That's not something the government should even be trying to do, because no central planning entity can do it. What the government should be doing is guaranteeing a level playing field, and letting freedom work. Historically, times when the government has done that have been the times when the US economy has created the most wealth.
  - bushin 6y ago
    you sound like a religious fanatic
  - clairity 6y ago
    that "we" is the whole of the citizens and residents of the country, not a central planning committee. the government is the power apparatus that is meant to express and realize our common good. as a power apparatus, it cuts both ways, and we must remain vigilant as citizens on keeping it aligned with our goals and desires. wealth by itself, especially as we measure it, is hollow and a poor collective goal, and its singular pursuit expressly undermines the level playing field and much of our humanity. prosperity is a more holistic expression of our collective goal, with wealth creation not being the principal ingredient of prosperity. industry, purpose, solidarity, community, well-being, welfare, success, esteem, respect, free expression, etc. are all (much) higher on that list. it behooves us to look beyond simplistic ideologies (which only benefit the political, by collapsing our horizons insidiously) to perform our duties and responsibilities to each other as a society.
crpatino 6y ago
> Why should any of these people be considered "unemployed"? In general, because governments around the World use doctored Unemployment Rates to claim their economic policies are more effective than those really are. It is practically the same as Principal Skinner taking Bart Simpson and all the other School's idiots to a field trip the very day the Standardized Test is due. How do we know the measure is doctored, you say? Because they changed it, and they have been comparing old figures to new figures. Sure, they put a tiny note in illegible print at the bottom of their charts. You know what an engineer does? We give the damned new thing a new damned name. Then in the damned chart you clearly see one line stops one year and then another line of a different color starts that very year. If anyone gets fooled by that, it's because they are willfully ignorant. > We spend a lot of time criticizing journalists and politicians, but how many people bother to look at the data themselves if interested? Journalists are paid to report, and if they cannot report accurate figures, why should we pay them? Politicians compete to get into, what in theory is called, Public Service. Servers are expected to provide accurate reports regarding the service they are providing. If their reports are self serving, why should we trust them with anything more important than window dressing?

sk5t 6y ago

> People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. They don't consider that most unemployed 58 year olds are not counted Would not "high stakes" non-dilettante observers know about, and review trends in, the labor participation rate and other metrics?

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

While this may be true, the article's premise that the BLS was somehow cooked up to hide the "true" unemployment rate rings hollow, mainly because the BLS also tracks and reports tons of other labor-related statistics, including for example "discouraged" workers, those working part-time but want to work full-time, overall labor force participation rate, etc. These days I even see mainstream media outlets report lots of different numbers beyond the "baseline" unemployment rate, so I just feel like this whole article is written from the "you're not considering my preferred statistic as the 'true' one so you're wrong" angle.

II2II 6y ago
Question: which figures are reported more prominently by the BLS? I am asking because my country's equivalent tends to report unemployment figures, based upon a similar definition to the US, more prominently. This is especially true if a casual seeker is unfamiliar with the terminology used while reporting these figures. Incidentally, it is also worth noting that one does not have to believe that the numbers are cooked up to believe that they are misleading. Having a consistent definition is important when comparing figures, unfortunately having a consistent definition also means that the reported numbers may not reflect societal expectations over time (e.g. regarding retirement or multiple income households).
- m000 6y ago
  The BLS statistics are pretty much like the food labels: They'll slap a huge "0% fat" sticker on the front of the package to appease the public conscience. But you need to carefully read the fine-print on the back to find out what's that you're consuming.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >They'll slap a huge "0% fat" sticker on the front of the package to appease the public conscience. But you need to carefully read the fine-print on the back to find out what's that you're consuming. ...as opposed to what? being "honest" by slapping a "contains scary sounding chemicals" sticker on the front of the package? how can a manufacturer possibly know what people would hate, considering that people can hate literally any ingredient?

deleted 6y ago

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pessimizer 6y ago

> People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. No, this is intentional deception. The party out of power talks about "real" inflation rates and "real" unemployment rates, and the party in power touts the official numbers. The best number to go by for unemployment has always been the prime age employment (not unemployment) rate, and all honest discussions of the current state of employment start with it. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060

airza 6y ago
This rate seems like it would hide the extremely real phenomenon of people being forced to work after 55.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  > people being forced to work after 55. Did you mean 65? Only teachers and a few other public union members regularly retire at 55 in the US, and even for them many choose to continue working to earn a fatter pension. Except, of course, for the rare people disciplined enough to be frugal and invested a lot of every pay check, and became self made multi millionaires.
makomk 6y ago
Yeah. I remember back in 2016, all the self-proclaimed fact checkers insisted that the official headline unemployment rate was the real unemployment rate, and that any claims about employment that didn't match up with it were lies by Trump. Now that he's the incumbent...
warvair 6y ago
Thanks for posting this site. I was a bit confused by the recent dip in this chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTLL2564 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TOTLL2564 Until I realized it's likely due to COVID-19 deaths.
- 6y ago

duxup 6y ago

I feel like it is on the reader to understand that to some extent everything about measuring is about HOW you measure. This article is one of MANY that recognize this, and it's by a journalist, and I've seen politicians note it as well....

zdragnar 6y ago
Sean Hannity talked about it non-stop during Obama's second term, then mysteriously dropped it when Trump took office. Basically, there are no surprises here. Everyone uses the numbers that favor them and hurt their opponents. Everyone.
- duxup 6y ago
  I think there is a varying level of folks intent and awareness of their biases to the extent that 'everyone' isn't accurate.

goldenManatee 6y ago

The “true” is a little sensationalist though I doubt they were expecting anyone to care about their investigations. They were still going for “a more true”. They’re not accounting for retired 65+ year olds. That’s a little suggestive of just wanting to quickly look away. They looked at people that are structurally unemployed or stopped looking because they were disillusioned after some time; they also tried averaging a national rent gauge (yeah, regional would’ve been better - so that means approving them grant funding) to better understand the cost of living and who can afford to survive off their wage/salary. So they drew a line across the chart saying people below $X can’t even afford surviving in America right now. There’s some PBS specials on rural American single moms unable to feed their kids mid COVID - enter school lunch funding issues - and Twitter also has its share of people posting their anecdotes of plight.

rubyfan 6y ago

The statistic they are describing as the “True Rate of Unemployment” isn’t that. It’s the rate of which society is earning a poverty level wage or less. It’s a useful statistic and one that deserves discussion but it’s not the “True Rate of Unemployment”. They are just different.

smsm42 6y ago

There's labor force participation and it is measured. It's just much more complex and can not really be understood as a single number - people can be out of workforce because they are retired, because they are sick, because they are wealthy, because they can't find work, because they are in prison, because they rely on somebody else to supply their income, etc. etc. Probably too complex for an average newspaper headline.

Mvandenbergh 6y ago

>People (including journalists, politicians... high stakes stuff) assume that unemployment captures most unemployment. Is that the case? A journalist covering an economic story will know and be familiar with U3 and U6. Maybe a local politician like a city council person, mayor, or potentially a freshman state rep in some American state might not know, since some of them are really just used car salesmen or local lawyers who've convinced their local party to put them in as their candidate but even then I suspect that they learn the conceptual if not the technical difference very quickly. I am not familiar with the political systems of all countries of course but I think you would struggle to find, say, a Dutch of British MP who would not know this.