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Did you know that if you can't find a job for a year the government can count you as part of the "discouraged" labor force and not count you as unemployed any m

Did you know that if you can't find a job for a year the government can count you as part of the "discouraged" labor force and not count you as unemployed any more? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discouraged_worker#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discouraged_worker#United_Stat...

21echoes 12y ago
False -- the BLS reports 6 different metrics of Unemployment with every jobs report, more than half of which include "discouraged workers" Here's a graph of a few of them over time: http://www.macrotrends.net/chart/1377/u6-unemployment-rate http://www.macrotrends.net/chart/1377/u6-unemployment-rate
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  Even your link lists the 6% as "official". 6% against 12% is pretty huge. It's the old "large print for the rubes, small print so we say we're aren't lying" trick.
  - 21echoes 12y ago
    alright, let's look at the U-6 over time then: http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/u3-and-u6-unemployment-during-great-depression http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/u3-and-u6-unemployme... http://www.scribd.com/doc/82908801/Unemployment-and-Underemployment-1970-2012#scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/82908801/Unemployment-and-Underemp... http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp?fromYear=1994&toYear=2015 http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp?f... As is now hopefully obvious: 11% is a pretty normal number for U-6 (especially given the current U-3), and the only reason you think that's high is because you're used to hearing U-3. Which, of course, is why economists chose to focus on one number over time in the first place. Keep your conspiracy theories out of this, please.
    - tsotha 12y ago
      How do you explain the discrepancy between U-6 and the labor force participation rate?
rayiner 12y ago
Discouraged workers are those not currently looking. Look at the definition of U4 in the "United States" section.
- TTPrograms 12y ago
  The fact that the number that are "not looking" perfectly tracks the number that are and can't find jobs suggests that either there are many individuals who have given up after not finding work or the method for measuring "not looking" is flawed. If it were simply people who were not looking by choice you wouldn't expect it to track the official number so closely.

21echoes 12y ago

False -- the BLS reports 6 different metrics of Unemployment with every jobs report, more than half of which include "discouraged workers" Here's a graph of a few of them over time: http://www.macrotrends.net/chart/1377/u6-unemployment-rate http://www.macrotrends.net/chart/1377/u6-unemployment-rate

joe_the_user 12y ago
Even your link lists the 6% as "official". 6% against 12% is pretty huge. It's the old "large print for the rubes, small print so we say we're aren't lying" trick.
- 21echoes 12y ago
  alright, let's look at the U-6 over time then: http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/u3-and-u6-unemployment-during-great-depression http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/u3-and-u6-unemployme... http://www.scribd.com/doc/82908801/Unemployment-and-Underemployment-1970-2012#scribd http://www.scribd.com/doc/82908801/Unemployment-and-Underemp... http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp?fromYear=1994&toYear=2015 http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp?f... As is now hopefully obvious: 11% is a pretty normal number for U-6 (especially given the current U-3), and the only reason you think that's high is because you're used to hearing U-3. Which, of course, is why economists chose to focus on one number over time in the first place. Keep your conspiracy theories out of this, please.
  - tsotha 12y ago
    How do you explain the discrepancy between U-6 and the labor force participation rate?

rayiner 12y ago

Discouraged workers are those not currently looking. Look at the definition of U4 in the "United States" section.

TTPrograms 12y ago
The fact that the number that are "not looking" perfectly tracks the number that are and can't find jobs suggests that either there are many individuals who have given up after not finding work or the method for measuring "not looking" is flawed. If it were simply people who were not looking by choice you wouldn't expect it to track the official number so closely.