3 ms·

Yep. U5 and U6 are always bigger than U3, pretty much by definition. You speak of historic perspective; let’s try getting some numbers! A quick Internet has le

Yep. U5 and U6 are always bigger than U3, pretty much by definition. You speak of historic perspective; let’s try getting some numbers! A quick Internet has led me to https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate (I’m on my phone so it’s harder to get the original sources linked but I assume that’s just the BLS numbers either way). They all track each other pretty well. A trend in one is a trend in all of them. If you want to expand your understanding then following the changes in something like labor force participation trends is probably more interesting than just switching among these U series. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

dragonwriter 6y ago
The problem with LFPP is you need to understand age demographic trends, institutionalization trends (both positive like higher-ed and negative like incarceration), and some other things to extract much meaning from it. A demographic bulge hitting retirement age and a wave of mass incarcerations and a massive surge in higher ed enrollments all can have the same manifestation in LFPP, and all the same as a massive wave of layoffs without replacement opportunities elsewhere in the economy, but I can't think of any purpose for which one would look at employment statistics, particularly as a policy guide, where you'd want to treat all those things as even approximately equivalent. The fact that U-seried generally track together is a good thing, it says that they are indeed different measures related to the same underlying concept. It also makes the points where they do diverge interesting and noteworthy.

3 ms·

Yep. U5 and U6 are always bigger than U3, pretty much by definition. You speak of historic perspective; let’s try getting some numbers! A quick Internet has le

by fennecfoxen 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago
The problem with LFPP is you need to understand age demographic trends, institutionalization trends (both positive like higher-ed and negative like incarceration), and some other things to extract much meaning from it. A demographic bulge hitting retirement age and a wave of mass incarcerations and a massive surge in higher ed enrollments all can have the same manifestation in LFPP, and all the same as a massive wave of layoffs without replacement opportunities elsewhere in the economy, but I can't think of any purpose for which one would look at employment statistics, particularly as a policy guide, where you'd want to treat all those things as even approximately equivalent. The fact that U-seried generally track together is a good thing, it says that they are indeed different measures related to the same underlying concept. It also makes the points where they do diverge interesting and noteworthy.