4 ms·

Ask HN: If 160M Americans are employed, what's the unemployment rate?

2 points by paganartifact 4mo ago

340 million total Americans. 160 million were employees last year. So, raw figures alone, doesn't that mean over 50% of Americans are unemployed?

mikgp 4mo ago
Including under-18s and retirees?
- paganartifact 4mo ago
  Ok remove the 50-75M of those, still like 30-35% unemployment.
  - mikgp 4mo ago
    50-75m sounds quite low. Where is that stat coming from? This seems to suggest 75 million are under 18. https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-by-age/ https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-...
    - paganartifact 4mo ago
      72.9 million - https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2... I also said "160M" instead of "168.3 million" for simplicity. 10/10 nitpick
latexr 4mo ago
> So, raw figures alone, doesn't that mean over 50% of Americans are unemployed? No, because “total population” is not the same as “total employable population”. There are children and retired people. Also it’s not clear how “employees” are counted, do self-employed and small business owners count? There could even be more people who don’t count for employment statistics, like those with severe disabilities.
- paganartifact 4mo ago
  My definition of "raw" is literally employed vs not employed. That's as raw as it gets. Minimum employment age varies. Even if you don't count all 50M who are under 16 it would still be like 35% or higher unemployment.
anovikov 4mo ago
Even out of adults, lots and lots of people don't look for jobs and happy not working. People have no moral obligation to work their asses off. I don't know how about Americans but i look at the people i know, they are 25-50 years old, and few are employed in a traditional sense. Only 7.3M people are unemployed, in addition there are 1.7M who are not unemployed in traditional sense, but would like to work in theory, just kinda gave up trying (marginally attached), and another 500K who completely gave up a long time ago, but would like a job if they could get one - just no longer believe they could. The rest just don't need a job and don't want one and these people are to be celebrated rather than being treated as a "problem" to solve.
- paganartifact 4mo ago
  That isn't what raw figures means though but yeah I agree mostly
Bender 4mo ago
4.3% in May. [1] [1] - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
- paganartifact 4mo ago
  According to a black box "bureau". I provided figures. Even if you say some % is not employable - what %? Let's talk facts
  - Bender 4mo ago
    Not employable would suggest to me not part of the work force employed or unemployed.
    - paganartifact 4mo ago
      Agree with you - what % is not employable? About 75M people. So it's still over 30% unemployment not a laughably absurd ~4%
      - Bender 4mo ago
        266 Million Americans are adults. 74 million are not yet adults. Some percentage of the adults are retired myself included, some are medically disabled, some are homeless. About 25% of adults (or 33% of all people) are on one or more welfare programs. Some people are career criminals and only the IRS count that employment and revenue. In terms of people capable of work, that are willing and able to work and want to work that number is indeed 4.3%. That is how unemployment is calculated, not the number of adults that are not currently in a job. Anything outside of that 4.3% are not employable either due to circumstances beyond their control or by choice and that is a much bigger topic that I will defer to someone else to comment on. Calculating a percentage that is not employable would be rather challenging I think. Whatever that number is I would expect it to climb as more jobs/careers are automated and deprecated, as increasing numbers of younger people are illiterate and probably quite a few other factors.

2 points by paganartifact 4mo ago

340 million total Americans. 160 million were employees last year. So, raw figures alone, doesn't that mean over 50% of Americans are unemployed?

mikgp 4mo ago

Including under-18s and retirees?

paganartifact 4mo ago
Ok remove the 50-75M of those, still like 30-35% unemployment.
- mikgp 4mo ago
  50-75m sounds quite low. Where is that stat coming from? This seems to suggest 75 million are under 18. https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-by-age/ https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-...
  - paganartifact 4mo ago
    72.9 million - https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2... I also said "160M" instead of "168.3 million" for simplicity. 10/10 nitpick

latexr 4mo ago

> So, raw figures alone, doesn't that mean over 50% of Americans are unemployed? No, because “total population” is not the same as “total employable population”. There are children and retired people. Also it’s not clear how “employees” are counted, do self-employed and small business owners count? There could even be more people who don’t count for employment statistics, like those with severe disabilities.

paganartifact 4mo ago
My definition of "raw" is literally employed vs not employed. That's as raw as it gets. Minimum employment age varies. Even if you don't count all 50M who are under 16 it would still be like 35% or higher unemployment.

anovikov 4mo ago

Even out of adults, lots and lots of people don't look for jobs and happy not working. People have no moral obligation to work their asses off. I don't know how about Americans but i look at the people i know, they are 25-50 years old, and few are employed in a traditional sense. Only 7.3M people are unemployed, in addition there are 1.7M who are not unemployed in traditional sense, but would like to work in theory, just kinda gave up trying (marginally attached), and another 500K who completely gave up a long time ago, but would like a job if they could get one - just no longer believe they could. The rest just don't need a job and don't want one and these people are to be celebrated rather than being treated as a "problem" to solve.

paganartifact 4mo ago
That isn't what raw figures means though but yeah I agree mostly

Bender 4mo ago

4.3% in May. [1] [1] - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

paganartifact 4mo ago
According to a black box "bureau". I provided figures. Even if you say some % is not employable - what %? Let's talk facts
- Bender 4mo ago
  Not employable would suggest to me not part of the work force employed or unemployed.
  - paganartifact 4mo ago
    Agree with you - what % is not employable? About 75M people. So it's still over 30% unemployment not a laughably absurd ~4%
    - Bender 4mo ago
      266 Million Americans are adults. 74 million are not yet adults. Some percentage of the adults are retired myself included, some are medically disabled, some are homeless. About 25% of adults (or 33% of all people) are on one or more welfare programs. Some people are career criminals and only the IRS count that employment and revenue. In terms of people capable of work, that are willing and able to work and want to work that number is indeed 4.3%. That is how unemployment is calculated, not the number of adults that are not currently in a job. Anything outside of that 4.3% are not employable either due to circumstances beyond their control or by choice and that is a much bigger topic that I will defer to someone else to comment on. Calculating a percentage that is not employable would be rather challenging I think. Whatever that number is I would expect it to climb as more jobs/careers are automated and deprecated, as increasing numbers of younger people are illiterate and probably quite a few other factors.