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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAre you tired of hearing "But the real unemployment number is higher and you know it"
We hear very angry rightwingers on radio shows screaming this at the liberal hosts all the time.
The REAL unemployment number is ALWAYS higher than the one the government gives out for a variety of reasons having to do with how the data is compiled, so WHY IS IT this only matters NOW with a BLACK DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT?
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1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)
randys1
(16,286 posts)for Obama
Mass
(27,315 posts)doing that too. I suspect they still do it (at least those who care about reality).
randys1
(16,286 posts)unemployment
One_Life_To_Give
(6,036 posts)Coincidence is not always causality. The employment numbers are not great and the new jobs being created are not on average as good as those that were lost. For alot of working people just trying to get by it feels bad. They don;'t care who is in the Whitehouse or Congress. They just want it to stop hurting.
spanone
(135,816 posts)fuck them and their consistent bullshit.
One_Life_To_Give
(6,036 posts)Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)The problem is that the current official rate, along with the artificially pumped stock market, are constantly waved in front of people as evidence of a non-existent recovery. So when you tell people that the unemployment rate is under 6%, they are as incredulous about it as they would be of someone who asserted that the high stock market prices are evidence that the economy is doing great.
If you told me Obama had a successful economic record because of a 5.9% unemployment rate and constantly rising stock market, my main takeaway would be that you thought I was stupid, not that Obama has a successful economic record.
unrepentant progress
(611 posts)People are angry, and they have every right to be. We can disagree on how much responsibility Obama bears for the source of their anger, but you can't say their anger isn't legitimate.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)And all six have been available on the web for a long time.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
You suggest there is a problem when there is none. Each of the unemployment measurements has value. If you want to focus on U-6, as it seems you do, what you will notice is that U-6 was at over 17% during the height of the great recession and is now at 11.5 and it continues to fall.
At times when we have seen the best economic environments over the last 40 years or so, U-6 has been below 9%, so we are not that far.
When I see arguments like the one you just made, it makes me think that the person is deliberately doing everything they can to sabotage the person in office. Because the alternative is that the person couldn't do a simple google search to locate alternate measurements that are readily available.
Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)Even 11.5% is a ridiculously low figure compared to what the actual probably is. The whole U-series is bunk because there's way too much discretion in what is included and how the end figure is calculated.
I can in fact look up other economic figures, such as labor force participation rate and real wages (numbers that directly measure economic conditions, unlike the massaged and highly conditional U-series which calls itself an "unemployment rate" then proceeds to redefine the word unemployment by attaching all sorts of limitations on what counts as unemployed). Those numbers say that the number of people out of work is rising and wages are falling. How do we square that with the alleged drop in unemployment reflected in the U-series?
Ever wonder why Spain reports unemployment in the 25% range while all the other countries in similar economic conditions are reporting 10% or less? Because they are the only ones giving a remotely honest figure, while the rest have been constantly downsized with manipulations.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)its the result of the baby boomers retiring.
The labor situation is doing extremely well in most parts of the country now. All you have to do is to call a couple of employment agencies around the country. They will tell you it has started to become a job seekers environment.
You have allowed your agenda to override the facts instead of vice-versa. That's what is happening.
Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)Retirements from the labor force make the participation rate go up, not down. Maybe you don't fully understand these economists you are referring to?
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Fact Checker
How much is Obama to blame for the worst labor participation rate in 40 years?
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The Facts
As of November, the Labor Department reports, 63 percent of Americans had a job or were actively seeking work. That’s the lowest level since April, 1978—nearly 36 years ago.
Okay, Jenkins and Blackburn rounded up a bit. But as a stand-alone factoid, the statement is basically correct. The key issue is the context—how relevant is this fact when discussing the travails of the “Obama economy?”
When Obama took office in January, 2009, the workforce participation rate was 65.7 percent. So there has certainly been a decline. But the rate had already been on a steady downward track since it hit a high of 67.3 percent in the last year of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
A key reason? The composition of the labor force has been affected by the retirement of the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation. (Our colleague Brad Plumer has written extensively on this issue.)
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(more at above link)
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http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/09/research-much-of-recent-decline-in.html
Research: Much of Recent Decline in Labor Force Participation Rate due to "ongoing structural influences"
by Bill McBride on 9/07/2014 12:23:00 PM
For several years, I've been arguing that "most of the recent decline in the participation rate" was due to demographics and other long term structural trends (like more education). This is an important issue because if most of the decline had been due to cyclical weakness, then we'd expect a significant increase in participation as the economy improved. If the decline was due to demographics and other long term trends, then the participation rate might keep falling (or flatten out) as the economy improves.
Note: So far this year, the participation rate has moved sideways at 62.8% - probably because demographics and other long term factors are being offset by people returning to the labor force this year. However, looking forward, the participation rate should continue to decline for the next couple of decades.
From Federal Reserve researchers Stephanie Aaronson, Tomaz Cajner, Bruce Fallick, Felix Galbis-Reig, Christopher L. Smith, and William Wascher: Labor Force Participation: Recent Developments and Future Prospects
The evidence we present in this paper suggests that much of the steep decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 owes to ongoing structural influences that are pushing down the participation rate rather than a pronounced cyclical weakness related to potential jobseekers’ discouragement about the weak state of the labor market – in many ways a similar message as was conveyed in the 2006 Brookings Paper. Most prominently, the ongoing aging of the babyboom generation into ages with traditionally lower attachment to the labor force can, by itself, account for nearly half of the decline. In addition, estimates from our model, as well as the supplementary evidence on which we report, show persistent declines in participation rates for some specific age/sex categories that appear to have their roots in longer-run changes in the labor market that pre-date the financial crisis by a decade or more.
In particular, participation rates among youths have been declining since the mid-1990s, in part reflecting the higher returns to education documented extensively by other researchers, but also, we believe, some crowding out of job opportunities for young workers associated with the decline in middle-skill jobs and thus greater competition for the low-skilled jobs traditionally held by teenagers and young adults. Such “polarization” effects also appear to have weighed on the participation of less-educated prime-age men and, more recently, prime-age women. In contrast, increasing longevity and better health status, coupled with changes in social security rules and increased educational attainment, have contributed to an ongoing rise in the participation rates of older individuals, but these increases have not been large enough to provide much offset to the various downward influences on the aggregate participation rate.
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Looking ahead, demographics will likely continue to play a prominent role in determining the future path of the aggregate labor force participation rate. The youngest members of the baby-boom generation are still in their early fifties, and thus the effects of population aging will continue to put downward pressure on the participation rate for some time. Indeed, on our estimates, the continued aging of the population alone will subtract 2½ percentage points from the aggregate participation rate over the next ten years. And the overall downtrend could be even larger if some of the negative trends evident for particular age-sex groups persist.
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And of course Nobel Economics Laureate Paul Krugman
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/slackers-at-the-fed/?_r=0
Paul Krugman - New York Times Blog
Slackers at the Fed
SEPTEMBER 15, 2013 9:31 AMSeptember 15, 2013 9:31 am 118 Comments
On the other hand, you can make a case that there has been a secular downward trend in labor force participation, even age-adjusted; Gavyn Davies makes this case, and suggests that the unemployment rate may be a better guide than the employment ratio after all.
and the Gavyn Davies article to which Krugman refers???...
http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2013/09/12/lies-damned-lies-and-the-us-unemployment-statistics/?
For several important demographic groups, there appears to have been a long term downtrend in participation rates for structural reasons which may not be at all connected to the economic cycle. For example, teenagers are spending longer in education, and male participation rates for most age groups have been declining continuously for several decades (possibly because child caring responsibilities are being shared slightly more equally between males and females). These downtrends do seem to accelerate during recessions, but they do not necessarily then reverse during subsequent recoveries.
Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)Did you even read the paper which is being referenced?
Why don't you look up the definition of labor force participation, then explain the mechanism by which people retiring can have a downward impact on that number. The beauty of this number is that it is straight-up math, no funny business involved, and you cannot reduce the denominator (which is what boomer retirements do) and end up with a lower ratio.
The 'tentative' (as marked) paper to which you are referring by proxy gives no such mechanism and I don't think you are able to explain it.
For you, this is all about whether things are good or bad for Obama, facts be damned. Well, the electorate doesn't work that way and that thinking will lead to additional losses on top of the historical disaster experienced two weeks ago.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Man from Pickens
(1,713 posts)They didn't spell it out plainly or you would be able to explain the mechanism by which you are claiming retirements lower labor force participation. I read the reference paper and it describes no such mechanism.
Until you can do that, your argument is an article of faith, not economics or science.
Autumn
(45,049 posts)but the same thing was said then. You are 100% right
"The REAL unemployment number is ALWAYS higher than the one the government gives out for a variety of reasons having to do with how the data is compiled"
There is no reason to look for things to be upset about.
randys1
(16,286 posts)Autumn
(45,049 posts)them to understand reality.
underpants
(182,762 posts)You are right about it always being higher and yes we were saying that here during the Bush misadministration BUT ....
Unemployment benefits have always been capped at 52 weeks. People not drawing are not officially unemployed (this is why DofL came up with their household survey in addition to the normal measuring system) but unemployment benefits were extended to 99 weeks under Obama so historically more people are counted now than usually are.
Yes real unemployment is always higher than the stated number but the extension of benefits makes the official number now greater than it normally would be.
DemocraticWing
(1,290 posts)There are several numbers to choose from, and I notice lots of people want to cite the U-6 number despite the fact it means something that is not what we generally consider unemployment. The U-3 unemployment number is the best definition and that's the consistent definition that BLS has used for a long time. U-6 includes unemployed people, some people who aren't happy with their jobs, and anybody supposedly in the work force even if they aren't looking for a job.
Using the U-6 number to argue that unemployment is actually 11% is just as ridiculous as somebody claiming the economy is doing wonderful and citing the U-1 or U-2 number as part of a claim that unemployment is really under 3%.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)All of the unemployment figures have value assuming you are being consistent and know with what you are dealing.
And I agree, taking the U-6 number and saying that is the unemployment rate is ridiculous. If you cannot be bothered to send in one application or make one phone call to an employment agency, or do anything else in pursuit of a job for an entire year, you aren't really interested in finding a job. It's that simple. And for those who will show up to criticize that statement, yes, I have been unemployed or underemployed for over two years as recently as 12 years ago. I do know what it is like.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)They are not. There are about 38 million retired Americans. That's more than 10% of all Americans.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)if you are talking about the labor participation rate that some people like to quote as one of the big issues, then yes, the retired baby boomers are shown as adults not participating in the labor force, and if you look at U-6, they show up if they have retired in the last twelve months.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Oddly enough, there's no metric to tell the difference between those who are retired and those who stopped looking for work. They all get lumped in together.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)randys1
(16,286 posts)stevenleser
(32,886 posts)For the last four to five years, we have had a rapidly falling unemployment rate as measured by each of the varied measurements, U-1 through U-6 after the previous administration completely screwed up the economy and sent unemployment and the deficit skyrocketing.
Shrub inherited a strong economy with a balanced budget and screwed it up. So no, you would not have had the same complaint. The conditions were different.