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>Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that do

>Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes. So many discussions online about unemployment take a framing like this, implying not so subtly that the government is lying about what unemployment _actually_ is. But the feds are publishing all of this data and being transparent about it. Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric.

jeffbee 3y ago
Looking at the first graph, it doesn't seem like this is a "shadowstats" group of cranks trying to tell you that the economy is worse than it is. According to their "true rate", the unemployment situation (as they define it) is now better than it has ever been. The "true" stats look better than the real ones.
- voidwtf 3y ago
  Sometimes I wonder if we’re tracking the wrong thing and we’ve lost sight of why we even started tracking these type of stats to begin with. Are Americans prospering? Can they afford minimum needs like food and housing? Is the average American quality of life remaining consistent or increasing? I want to see America as a whole do better and sometimes I wonder if stats are being deliberately reported in a way that obscures the truth of the matter.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    I once got downvoted into oblivion on this very website for advocating for a society with 90% unemployment. The stats are just stats but they're not necessarily what we should be chasing.
    - fnordpiglet 3y ago
      I believe the goal of humanity should be that pushing a button for food pellets all day long is not a moral imperative or a necessity for survival. 100% unemployment should be the goal, and the end of scarcity that would require its feasibility.
      - nradov 3y ago
        Social status will always be scarce because it's a zero-sum game; in order for one person to rise another must fall. Even if basic necessities were free the majority of people would choose to work in order to have more than their peers. This is just human nature.
        fnordpiglet 3y ago
        There are other forms of social status. Under communism people could be nominally wealthy, but party status carried a lot more weight. However I would note many, many people are not motivated by status. I for one would rather be unknown and my relative status compared to anyone else is about the last thing I will ever concern myself with. I’m not alone, even if the status seekers stand out for all their attention seeking.
        jjk166 3y ago
        How is social status a zero-sum game? If someone dives into a lake to save a drowning child and people label them a hero, elevating their social standing, whose social standing has declined as a direct result? Likewise for a scientist making a discovery, or an artist creating a masterpiece, or a youtuber becoming a niche internet celebrity, or a neighbor getting a new pool. Social status can be created out of thin air and allotted arbitrarily. And in a post scarcity world, why would having more than your peers confer social status to any degree, nonetheless enough to justify the various drawbacks of laboring for such possessions?
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Because time will always be scarce, and social status is about deciding with whom to allocate your time.
  - xnx 3y ago
    GDP is definitely suffering from Goodhart's law. There's a whole zoo of alternatives, but I don't know if anyone takes them seriously. Human Development Index (HDI) Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) Better Life Index (BLI) Gross National Happiness (GNH)
riehwvfbk 3y ago
If you renamed it "applying some artistic license to motivate the populace" instead of "lying" could we then talk about it without being called cranks? Anything stated by the government about the economy has an effect on said economy, so it makes sense to massage the metrics. But what makes the government's chosen cutoff truer than another one?
strix_varius 3y ago
It's easy to use data to mislead; you see this all the time in organizations of any size, but especially in larger organizations - why would you expect the government to be the sole exception? For example, it's been demonstrated that workers on disability is inversely correlated with unemployment: https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ West Virginia, Mississippi, and Kentucky all have almost 20% of their adult populations on disability: https://www.statista.com/statistics/794278/disabled-population-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/794278/disabled-populati... Meanwhile, on kentucky.gov: > Today, Gov. Andy Beshear announced that Kentucky set the lowest annual unemployment rate in state history for 2022 at 3.9% https://www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=GovernorBeshear&prId=1692 https://www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=Govern... Would you say that the Kentucky government patting itself on the back for unemployment rates of 3.9%, while in fact real unemployment is at minimum 21.6%, is something other than the government lying about what unemployment actually is?
- williamcotton 3y ago
  A politician is not the government.
  - strix_varius 3y ago
    To be clear, your stance is that https://www.kentucky.gov/ https://www.kentucky.gov/ does not represent the government?
    - williamcotton 3y ago
      My stance is that whoever the governor of KY is is not “the government” and will cherry pick stats for his own personal gain. The actual government is reporting the real rates of unemployment. Partisans are the issue.
      - strix_varius 3y ago
        That's an astounding amount of hair splitting to claim that the people in charge of governing - literally with the title "govern-or" - are not "the government." No true Scotsman indeed!
CydeWeys 3y ago
Yeah, it's just downright misleading to qualify someone working a full time job making $24k/yr as unemployed. The US national minimum wage, believe it or not, only amounts to $15k/yr for full time employment (40 hrs/wk!). I think you could certainly call these people "poor", but not unemployed. That word means something different.
- Spivak 3y ago
  The word is underemployed and for the author's purposes are still job-seekers who quality for government benefits. The practical difference between them and actual unemployed people isn't much when it comes to policy.
  - CydeWeys 3y ago
    Then why are saying they're measuring "unemployment" when they're actually measuring underemployment? Words mean things and they're choosing the wrong words specifically in order to mislead. Also, tracking poverty is more meaningful than tracking underemployment. There are millions of stay at home parents in this country who would qualify as underemployed, but who aren't in poverty because their spouse or possibly other family member supports them.
    - deprecative 3y ago
      It's sort of like how if you do not have a job and stop looking suddenly according to the data you're employed again.
      - CydeWeys 3y ago
        No you're not. It means you're removed from both the numerator and the denominator. By no means does it mean you count as employed; that would be silly.
- rpgwaiter 3y ago
  That's why they use the qualifier "functionally". Sure the term might not be ideal but it serves a purpose. Living in the current US with 24k a year is miserable (more or less depending on location). When people bring up unemployment in terms of public policy, they generally are discussing actionable problems. Like "the unemployment rate is 6% so the gov should make incentives to hire more people". These discussions could (ought to) include people that can't afford a car in the non-walkable US, or who have to live with relatives or roommates because affordable housing is a fantasy. "Maybe someone working full time should be able to afford their own place and eat more than rice and ramen" Someone making 15k a year working 40 hours is functionlly unemployed, in every sense of the phrase imo
whats_a_quasar 3y ago
The Bureau of Labor Statistics literally publishes six different unemployment rates, each of which includes different combinations of unemployed, discouraged people who are not job searching, "marginally attached workers", and people working part time who want to be full time. Here is the table of 2023 averages by state for each of these six rates: https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm The "True unemployment rate" from the link is basically U-6, except they use $25k as a cutoff to define marginally attached workers. It isn't immediately obvious how BLS defines marginally attached workers, so that might be different. It's not some government secret!
4death4 3y ago
Another way of phrasing this is 23% want a job earning more than 25K per year and are incapable of finding one. I can’t imagine living on 25K per year. While I would technically be “employed” I wouldn’t be happy about it. What is the purpose of measuring employment? I think satisfaction with one’s living circumstances is certainly part of the reason. From that perspective, the measure proposed in TFA makes some sense.
- comte7092 3y ago
  I have no problem with the measure, I have a problem with the claim that it’s the “true” number. I’d even be fine with “better”.
  - 4death4 3y ago
    There’s no “true” Scotsman after all.
- phonon 3y ago
  I know people who earn that much... 1. Rent is a few hundred dollars a month 2. No car, use mass transit 3. Single 4. Work less than 40 hours a week in a job they enjoy.... At that income level, taxes are pretty close to zero (including FICA) because of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
coldtea 3y ago
>But the feds are publishing all of this data and being transparent about it. So? If you're happy that the feds are "publishing all of this data and being transparent about it", then you should be happy for what the TFA does too (even if you disagree with their conclusion): they use this published data in a way that they think is more insightful. Should the feds conclusions and choice of criteria be unchallenged just because they publish their data? >Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also has all manner of "arbitrary cutoff points". The number they use is not meant to be magical constant of the universe, it's just supposed to be a more insightful cutoff to understand the real impact of unemployment. Besides, the main job of government agencies is to make the government and their managers look good.

jeffbee 3y ago

Looking at the first graph, it doesn't seem like this is a "shadowstats" group of cranks trying to tell you that the economy is worse than it is. According to their "true rate", the unemployment situation (as they define it) is now better than it has ever been. The "true" stats look better than the real ones.

voidwtf 3y ago
Sometimes I wonder if we’re tracking the wrong thing and we’ve lost sight of why we even started tracking these type of stats to begin with. Are Americans prospering? Can they afford minimum needs like food and housing? Is the average American quality of life remaining consistent or increasing? I want to see America as a whole do better and sometimes I wonder if stats are being deliberately reported in a way that obscures the truth of the matter.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  I once got downvoted into oblivion on this very website for advocating for a society with 90% unemployment. The stats are just stats but they're not necessarily what we should be chasing.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    I believe the goal of humanity should be that pushing a button for food pellets all day long is not a moral imperative or a necessity for survival. 100% unemployment should be the goal, and the end of scarcity that would require its feasibility.
    - nradov 3y ago
      Social status will always be scarce because it's a zero-sum game; in order for one person to rise another must fall. Even if basic necessities were free the majority of people would choose to work in order to have more than their peers. This is just human nature.
      - fnordpiglet 3y ago
        There are other forms of social status. Under communism people could be nominally wealthy, but party status carried a lot more weight. However I would note many, many people are not motivated by status. I for one would rather be unknown and my relative status compared to anyone else is about the last thing I will ever concern myself with. I’m not alone, even if the status seekers stand out for all their attention seeking.
      - jjk166 3y ago
        How is social status a zero-sum game? If someone dives into a lake to save a drowning child and people label them a hero, elevating their social standing, whose social standing has declined as a direct result? Likewise for a scientist making a discovery, or an artist creating a masterpiece, or a youtuber becoming a niche internet celebrity, or a neighbor getting a new pool. Social status can be created out of thin air and allotted arbitrarily. And in a post scarcity world, why would having more than your peers confer social status to any degree, nonetheless enough to justify the various drawbacks of laboring for such possessions?
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Because time will always be scarce, and social status is about deciding with whom to allocate your time.
- xnx 3y ago
  GDP is definitely suffering from Goodhart's law. There's a whole zoo of alternatives, but I don't know if anyone takes them seriously. Human Development Index (HDI) Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) Better Life Index (BLI) Gross National Happiness (GNH)

riehwvfbk 3y ago

If you renamed it "applying some artistic license to motivate the populace" instead of "lying" could we then talk about it without being called cranks? Anything stated by the government about the economy has an effect on said economy, so it makes sense to massage the metrics. But what makes the government's chosen cutoff truer than another one?

strix_varius 3y ago

It's easy to use data to mislead; you see this all the time in organizations of any size, but especially in larger organizations - why would you expect the government to be the sole exception? For example, it's been demonstrated that workers on disability is inversely correlated with unemployment: https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ West Virginia, Mississippi, and Kentucky all have almost 20% of their adult populations on disability: https://www.statista.com/statistics/794278/disabled-population-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/794278/disabled-populati... Meanwhile, on kentucky.gov: > Today, Gov. Andy Beshear announced that Kentucky set the lowest annual unemployment rate in state history for 2022 at 3.9% https://www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=GovernorBeshear&prId=1692 https://www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=Govern... Would you say that the Kentucky government patting itself on the back for unemployment rates of 3.9%, while in fact real unemployment is at minimum 21.6%, is something other than the government lying about what unemployment actually is?

williamcotton 3y ago
A politician is not the government.
- strix_varius 3y ago
  To be clear, your stance is that https://www.kentucky.gov/ https://www.kentucky.gov/ does not represent the government?
  - williamcotton 3y ago
    My stance is that whoever the governor of KY is is not “the government” and will cherry pick stats for his own personal gain. The actual government is reporting the real rates of unemployment. Partisans are the issue.
    - strix_varius 3y ago
      That's an astounding amount of hair splitting to claim that the people in charge of governing - literally with the title "govern-or" - are not "the government." No true Scotsman indeed!

CydeWeys 3y ago

Yeah, it's just downright misleading to qualify someone working a full time job making $24k/yr as unemployed. The US national minimum wage, believe it or not, only amounts to $15k/yr for full time employment (40 hrs/wk!). I think you could certainly call these people "poor", but not unemployed. That word means something different.

Spivak 3y ago
The word is underemployed and for the author's purposes are still job-seekers who quality for government benefits. The practical difference between them and actual unemployed people isn't much when it comes to policy.
- CydeWeys 3y ago
  Then why are saying they're measuring "unemployment" when they're actually measuring underemployment? Words mean things and they're choosing the wrong words specifically in order to mislead. Also, tracking poverty is more meaningful than tracking underemployment. There are millions of stay at home parents in this country who would qualify as underemployed, but who aren't in poverty because their spouse or possibly other family member supports them.
  - deprecative 3y ago
    It's sort of like how if you do not have a job and stop looking suddenly according to the data you're employed again.
    - CydeWeys 3y ago
      No you're not. It means you're removed from both the numerator and the denominator. By no means does it mean you count as employed; that would be silly.
rpgwaiter 3y ago
That's why they use the qualifier "functionally". Sure the term might not be ideal but it serves a purpose. Living in the current US with 24k a year is miserable (more or less depending on location). When people bring up unemployment in terms of public policy, they generally are discussing actionable problems. Like "the unemployment rate is 6% so the gov should make incentives to hire more people". These discussions could (ought to) include people that can't afford a car in the non-walkable US, or who have to live with relatives or roommates because affordable housing is a fantasy. "Maybe someone working full time should be able to afford their own place and eat more than rice and ramen" Someone making 15k a year working 40 hours is functionlly unemployed, in every sense of the phrase imo

whats_a_quasar 3y ago

The Bureau of Labor Statistics literally publishes six different unemployment rates, each of which includes different combinations of unemployed, discouraged people who are not job searching, "marginally attached workers", and people working part time who want to be full time. Here is the table of 2023 averages by state for each of these six rates: https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm The "True unemployment rate" from the link is basically U-6, except they use $25k as a cutoff to define marginally attached workers. It isn't immediately obvious how BLS defines marginally attached workers, so that might be different. It's not some government secret!

4death4 3y ago

Another way of phrasing this is 23% want a job earning more than 25K per year and are incapable of finding one. I can’t imagine living on 25K per year. While I would technically be “employed” I wouldn’t be happy about it. What is the purpose of measuring employment? I think satisfaction with one’s living circumstances is certainly part of the reason. From that perspective, the measure proposed in TFA makes some sense.

comte7092 3y ago
I have no problem with the measure, I have a problem with the claim that it’s the “true” number. I’d even be fine with “better”.
- 4death4 3y ago
  There’s no “true” Scotsman after all.
phonon 3y ago
I know people who earn that much... 1. Rent is a few hundred dollars a month 2. No car, use mass transit 3. Single 4. Work less than 40 hours a week in a job they enjoy.... At that income level, taxes are pretty close to zero (including FICA) because of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

coldtea 3y ago

>But the feds are publishing all of this data and being transparent about it. So? If you're happy that the feds are "publishing all of this data and being transparent about it", then you should be happy for what the TFA does too (even if you disagree with their conclusion): they use this published data in a way that they think is more insightful. Should the feds conclusions and choice of criteria be unchallenged just because they publish their data? >Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also has all manner of "arbitrary cutoff points". The number they use is not meant to be magical constant of the universe, it's just supposed to be a more insightful cutoff to understand the real impact of unemployment. Besides, the main job of government agencies is to make the government and their managers look good.