April Jobs Report: 211,000 Jobs Added, Unemployment At 4.4 Percent (npr.org) 198
An anonymous reader shares an NPR report: The U.S. economy added 211,000 jobs to nonfarm payrolls in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. Both the unemployment rate, at 4.4 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 7.1 million, saw only incremental changes in April. The new data follow disappointing results from March, when the Labor Department initially said less than 100,000 jobs were created. In April, some of the biggest job gains came in leisure and hospitality, health care and social assistance, financial activities, and mining, the agency says.
Not really news (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not really news (Score:4, Informative)
It's much worse than that. The unemployment rate is a jiggered number. What's significant is the labor force participation rate. (I'm not sure what it's currently called.) The way unemployment is figured you can have been out of work for a year and not be counted. And if you see the labor force participation rate, try to determine what population that the figure is based on. And who gets counted as participating. (E.g., if an H1B worker is counted as participating, is he also counted as a part of the population used in calculating the rate.)
Governments play all sorts of tricks with their economic numbers to make them look good. Even when the numbers are honest you can't trust them without looking at the details.
Re: (Score:2)
Funny that when people wrote this same thing during Obama's presidency they were flamed and trashed, modded down and ridiculed.
Thank you for stating the truth.
Re:Not really news (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a "trick"... it's exactly how Unemployment is calculated, always: 100 * (# people with jobs) / (# people in the workforce). This is not a number that requires you to look at the details at all, just the most basic understanding of what the hell it actually means.
To be in the "workforce" you have to be actively looking for a job (it's not just "after a year"). If you spend 3 years actively looking for a job but remain without one, you will still be counted as "in the workforce". If we didn't do this, then "Unemployment" would be calculated much higher than it really is, with all the children, people in school, stay-at-home parents, retirees, etc. who shouldn't be counted as part of the workforce.
The Labor Participation Rate is a different number, with a different meaning, and is not a "replacement" or "better version" of Unemployment. In the same way GNP is not meant to "replace" GDP, they represent different (albeit related) things.
Re: (Score:2)
To be in the "workforce" you have to be actively looking for a job (it's not just "after a year").
This is where the "trick" comes into play. How is this number determined and how reliable is that determination? You act as if determining this is as simple as determining the number of people who live in the country (which is still surprising difficult to actually pin down).
If you spend 3 years actively looking for a job but remain without one, you will still be counted as "in the workforce".
By what mechanism would this be accomplished? The last time I looked for a job, I didn't register that fact with the federal government. How would they reliably know how many people are looking for jobs?
Re: (Score:2)
How would they reliably know how many people are looking for jobs?
The same way all of these types of things are done, with surveys [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Unemployment percentage is a useless number by itself.
You can say the same thing about any number. GDP is useless by itself because if I tell you it's "1.3 trillion Shmeckles" then your next question will be what the fuck is the value of a "Shmeckle". Shit, I guess I need more numbers to make GDP not useless.
Re:Not really news (Score:5, Informative)
You're partially right (you can have been out of work for ten years but if you were actively looking, you're considered to be unemployed), but underemployment numbers have been declining, too. The U-6 number is down to 8.6%, the lowest it's been since November 2007. The lowest it's been on record (going back to 1994) is October 2000, when it reached 6.8%. The unemployment rate (U-3) was 3.9% at that time; most economists consider employment around the 4%-4.5% range to be full without overheating the economy, and the Fed had raised interest rates by about a percentage point since mid-1999.
Note: U-6 is defined as "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force." Basically, everyone willing to work full time but not getting it. (Full time doesn't mean a single full-time job. If you work two part-time jobs that add up to 35 or more hours per week, you're considered a full-time worker.)
The LFPR is pretty clear on who is involved, though you need to understand a few definitions.
I snipped the definitions slightly for space, but they're all at this BLS link [bls.gov] if you need more details.
So the H1B worker is counted as participating, as is the illegal immigrant construction worker. It's all persons, not all citizens or all permanent residents. If you're 93 and retired, but living on your own and not looking for and not wanting a job, you're part of the civilian noninstitutional population, so you factor into the LFPR, but not into the unemployment or underemployment rates. If you're 15 and working a part-time job, you're not counted in the LFPR or employment or unemployment status.
The LFPR, though, has a great deal of downward pressure on it from retiring Baby Boomers. That will level out eventually, and the LFPR may begin to climb as they die off, but the highest that it ever got was 67.3% in early 2000. Don't expect to see something above 70% unless there's a mass die-off of old people.
Re: (Score:2)
The official definitions sound good. Now, how do they determine those numbers? Population comes from census, and that is known to undercount certain groups. Sometimes drastically. But it's possible to estimate (without known error bars) by how much. Employed persons comes from withholding taxes, etc., and is probably the most accurate number in the batch...though even there there's double counting of some people and missing of others. So there are reasonable ways of estimating the Labor Force Particip
Re:Not really news (Score:4, Informative)
This is still mostly Obama economic territory, but that's shifting, and will be affected by the recent budget deal. By October, it will be pretty squarely in Trump's court, especially if a new budget can get passed before then. Presidents don't have a lot of ability to affect the economy upward, but they can do a lot to send it downward.
Best since 2008. (Score:5, Informative)
It's the lowest unemployment rate since before the Great Recession. That's pretty exceptional in my book.
That might be exceptional, but it isn't true. It is the lowest level in a decade [washingtonpost.com]. Here's a graph of the unemployment rate since the 1960s:
http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/560e8af3ecad046c04212250-1200-900/sept-2015-unemployment-rate.png [blogspot.com]
where you can see the rate dropped below 4.4% many times.
Here's a graph (from six months ago) looking just at the last 15 years:
http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/560e8af3ecad046c04212250-1200-900/sept-2015-unemployment-rate.png [businessinsider.com]
and you can see the rate was below 4.4% right until the 2008 economic crash hit. You can also see that 4.4% is nothing exceptional, simply the continuation of the trend.
I wasn't a big Trump supporter, but you have to admit the guy is coming thorough 'bigly.'
Since he's only been in office a hundred days, it's unlikely that any economic effects of his presidency have hit yet. From the graph, I'd say that this unemployment news is "more of the same, nothing exceptional."
Re:Best since 2008. (Score:5, Informative)
You do know that the lowest unemployment level in a decade is saying the same thing as 'the lowest unemployment rate since the Great Recession" right?
You literally said 'it isn't true' and then said the same thing while talking about the 1960s and things that were before the collapse, which is way out of scope for anything being talked about.
Great Recession not Great Depression.
Re: (Score:2)
Just a numbers game... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
oh - now you suddenly care about unemployment numbers?
I've always cared about the unemployment numbers, especially since I was out of work for two years (2009-2010), underemployed (working 20 hours per month) for six months, and filing for Chapter Seven bankruptcy.
I don't recall you pooh-poohing news like this when Obama was in office - in fact you trumpeted how good these numbers were and conservatives should shut up.
I don't recall telling anyone to shut up. As a moderate conservative, I'm a great believer in both the 1st and 2nd Amendments.
Re: (Score:2)
good look trying to find someone to vote for.
I vote for the best person for the job, not the letter next to their name.
Re: (Score:3)
To repeat, since you are a moderate conservative, good luck trying to find someone to vote for, regardless of letters next to names.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, he has plenty of choices.
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds like an attempt to change the subject. This thread is about the latest official unemployment figures.
Re:Just a numbers game... (Score:5, Informative)
But the same people who want them to lose their coal mining jobs also want to make sure there's no opportunity for them in these other industries
Hillary offered a job training program assistance. When George W. signed a similar law after 9/11, I used the $3,000 tax credit to go back to school, get out of my dead end video game testing job and into my career in IT Support.
The most common remedy the left seems to offer them is for them to hurry up and die.
That's the Republican healthcare bill.
I wonder why they listen to someone like Trump instead?
Trump promised to bring back coal mining jobs. Which he has no plans to do.
Re: (Score:2)
How many times have you copy/pasted that into a post in the past week?
Off the top of my head, once. I'll have to check my spreadsheet when I get home.
Come up with some new material already.
I have. You're too busy bitching about the old material.
Re: (Score:2)
got scored at kicking ~24M Americans off their insurance policies (translation: hurry and die)
Health coverage doesn't significantly affect health [thedailybeast.com].
You should still grow up.
Re: (Score:2)
Health coverage doesn't significantly affect health.
What does this have to do with Republican healthcare bill?
You should still grow up.
I'm not the one trying to change the subject.
Re: (Score:2)
You changed the subject to health care.
Re: (Score:2)
You changed the subject to health care.
No. You used the term "hurry and up die," which is associated with the healthcare debate. On a related note, Congress extended healthcare for retired coal miners and their relatives in the recently approved budget bill.
https://www.change.org/l/us/congress-extends-healthcare-for-retired-coal-miners-and-their-families [change.org]
Re: (Score:2)
People with expensive insurance who choose not to buy insurance are not "kicked off their insurance policies".
Re: (Score:2)
Oh you mean the same way House AND SENATE Democrats violated their own procedure and long stated congressional traditions to ram rod Obamacare down the throats of the US (We have to pass it to see what's in it) and passing it in the congress with only a simple majority and nationalized the healh care system in the US?
Did you forget the Republicans vowed not to do the same thing as the Democrats did? Are you aware that the Senate Republicans are planning to use the same budget reconciliation procedure that the Democrats used to pass ObamaCare? Can we say hypocrites?
Now put that in your stupid spreadsheet and see if you've commented on that!
My Python scraper script only works with named accounts and not asshat accounts.
Re: (Score:2)
I know how the ACA affected my premiums. They have almost tripled since 2012.
Re: (Score:3)
Sooo, Trump is bringing something back.
The only thing that Trump did in his first 100 days was get a Supreme Court confirmation. Everything else is bluster.
Yeah, I know it hurts.
I haven't noticed.
Don't worry - there's a good chance you have only 7 3/4 years of real economic successes to suffer through before you get to cheer on 8 years of "recovery to nowhere" again.
After eight years of slow growth under Obama, we're overdue for a recession. There's nothing that Trump can do to stop it.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I had insurance before and after ObamaCare, My premiums have gone up every years, not down. ObamaCare was supposed to save money, but my deductable has doubled, my out of pocket / copays have gone up, my monthly contribution is doubled.
Anecdotal evidence is best!
Re: (Score:2)
Obamacare was never intended to lower everyone's insurance prices and Id be willing to bet a shit ton of money that your insurance rates were going up before Obama Care.
Re: (Score:2)
Now is time for you to start threatening to shoot people because they point out your crap, and from what I am seeing that is pretty much everyone else.
You're aware that because of this nonsense I wrote a Python script to scrape my 8,000+ comment history from Slashdot? I can prove that I never threaten to shoot anyone and I can prove that an asshat falsely accused me for six weeks.
I should send your posting log to your government office. You post more during the day, and only during weekday working hours, than you probably do your job. California is being ripped off by you, illegally I would like to add.
Be my guest. Here's the governor's contact info.
https://govnews.gov.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php [ca.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
> My Python scraper script only works with named accounts and not asshat accounts
That's correct. With the link to my comment, I can trace back to the root of thread. Here's an example of such a thread.
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10391247&cid=54083637 [slashdot.org]
Read more about this in my blog post and thanks for the ad revenue!
https://www.kickingthebitbucket.com/2017/03/21/have-i-threatened-to-shoot-you-today/ [kickingthebitbucket.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Bad phrasing taken way out of context. I despise Nancy Pelosi and think she should have left office long ago, but she was talking about the legislative process. You can't know what's going to be in a bill until the amendments are voted on and the final bill is passed, at which point all the claims about it could be laid to rest one way or the other. The votes took place after dozens of hearings and included many Republican amendments that were accepted. Anyon
Re: (Score:2)
Right, so Democrats are bad because even though they talk about helping people they MUST be only doing it to create more dependants. And the reason this has to be their motive is...? Because you say so?
And let me guess, modern conservatives keep it real by straight up telling us they dont think social programs should exist and whose only plans seem to all revolve around shoveling money at rich folks to the benefit of no one else and are thus the good guys?
Re: (Score:2)
Cremier, why have you given up the Christian practice?
I went to a non-denominational Christian Church in the San Francisco Bay Area for 13 years. I got kicked out because I accused the leadership of being morally corrupt. The way they put me out of the fellowship proved that they were morally corrupt (i.e., more about them and less about God). That was 12 years ago. I'm no a longer a believer in organized religions.
Re: (Score:2)
We mine salt, metal, and other stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Just a numbers game... (Score:5, Informative)
The we don't give a shit about unemployed miners attitude isn't really working out as a political strategy.
Speaking hard truths is "giving a shit". The people that really don't give a shit are the politicians exploiting these people for votes by promising to bring back coal mining.
"Job training" isn't the answer either. Appalachia is a terrible place to locate any business other than resource extraction. The infrastructure is terrible, the schools are substandard, the people are close minded and uneducated.
By far the best solution is to give these people some financial assistance to pack up and move somewhere else.
I grew up in a coal mining county in eastern Tennessee. My grandfather died of black lung disease. I have plenty of relatives back there collecting welfare and living in trailer parks. My ticket out was a bus ride to Parris Island after enlisting in the Marines on my 18th birthday. I have other friends and relatives that left, and they are ALL doing far better than those who stayed.
Re: (Score:2)
"Why didn't [whoever] say [whatever] [whenever]?" Is always a stupid argument, and usually also a strawman.
Re: (Score:2)
They should stop doing that and use better arguments. Also "the other guy did it too" is also a stupid argument.
Re: (Score:2)
I think they like his promises which have yet to be proven false more than they liked Democrats promises which have proven to be false.
Re: (Score:2)
That's their call, but claiming other people don't care is unfair. Some do.
No, it seems fair. A group of people who show open contempt for you almost all the time, but then try to make nice for a week or two prior to an election, doesn't care about you. Hillary wasn't fooling anyone.
If you want people to start believing you care, then stop the "deplorable" talk start rebuking leftist haters. Rather than telling a coal miner to go to school to get a job as a nurse, help him get a job drilling for oil in Texas or mining copper in Arizona. Then maybe he will start believing you c
Re: (Score:2)
It may be just me, but trusting someone who has silent contempt for me doesn't seem all that appealing either.
Exactly how often did Clinton use the word "deplorable"? Exactly how often did Trump insult people? Methinks there's a double standard here.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly how often did Clinton use the word "deplorable"? Exactly how often did Trump insult people? Methinks there's a double standard here.
Nope. Trump should also clean up his act.
The original post was about coal miners. If it was about Mexicans and whether they should trust Trump, I'd suggest he might want to take a similar approach. But it's not. And no one is trying to deliberately end an industry that primarily employs Mexicans, whereas the same can't be said for American coal miners.
Re:Just a numbers game... (Score:4, Interesting)
You already made that joke.
Not for today. And this is a variation of one I've done before.
How fucking lazy are you?
I wrote a Python script to scrape my 8,000+ comment history from Slashdot so I can copy and paste the same comment over and over again. Since some asshat complained about my using a CSV file to store comments, I added SQLite database as a save option. Still need to write the HTML, JSON, Markdown and XML save functions.
Obligatory BLS table of U1-U6 numbers (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.bls.gov/news.relea... [bls.gov]
Yes, unemployment is open to interpretation and yes, there are different ways of presenting the data. The "usual" figure is U4, but for others U6 might be more meaningful. I think U6 is probably a better estimate, but that's just my opinion. What ISN'T my opinion is that no matter what number you use, unemployment is creeping downwards.
Re: (Score:3)
Oops, I meant U3 is the usual or official unemployment rate, not U4.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's what's stupid. Business owners have to report detailed payroll data at least every three months (small business) or more (monthly or weekly, depending on size and state). We could have explicit, accurate data with a simple SQL query. But instead we have a building full of people playing guessing games and sticking their thumbs (or worse) on the scale and producing what are basically flat-out fairy tales.
Please, please, please stop quoting U3 numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
U3 numbers are complete bullshit. Everybody who is paying even the slightest attention knows they are complete bullshit. They are so full of bullshit that they're not even useful for comparative / trending purposes. They have literally only two forms of utility: political propaganda, and targets of mockery. It doesn't matter if it's a Democratic administration or a Republican administration. Even U6 is extremely sketchy: surveys multiplied by guesswork.
Re: (Score:2)
U-3 tells you what kind of job-seeking competition is out there. As the available employment increases, U-4 discouraged workers would become U-3 active workers, slowing the fall of U-3. That mean U-3 tells you how competitive the job market is.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it does matter what party the administration is. The BLS employs almost exclusively Democrats. There was not a single donation from a BLS employee to Donald Trump. This fact does not change depending on what party is in the White House.
Thank you President Trump! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thank you President Trump! (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty sure you're joking here, but since commenters are already taking you seriously I will just add that you can't put any job figures, good or bad, down to this administration yet. They have currently achieved nothing, no legislation, no budget, nothiiing. Any changes now are leftover from whatever was already happening.
Re: (Score:3)
Obama was in office for 2922 days (if my calculations are right), Trump for about 100. If Syria used chemical weapons 29 times while Obama was in office, and once when Trump was, they're on almost exactly the same schedule. You suspect that Syria won't use them again, but that's not actually evidence of anything other than your mental state. The difference is that Trump launched an expensive and ineffectual strike against a Syrian airfield, which is almost certainly the wrong thing to do. There was som
Re:Thank you President Trump! (Score:5, Funny)
So happy to see these numbers. President Trump is a truly worthy successor to Lincoln...
How dare you compare Trump to a loser who couldn't even stop the Civil War! Sad! You need to compare him to a real winner like Andrew Jackson, a man so great that he was able to motivate people and get them moving all across the country!
Re: (Score:3)
President Trump is a truly worthy successor to Lincoln and Reagan. Keep up the good work, sir!
Be careful, saying anything positive about the Trumpster around here is a good way to lose a lot of karma around here.
I think it was more likely a reference to the fact that both Lincoln and Reagan were shot.
U3 Unemployment is a Complete and Utter Lie (Score:2, Informative)
We really need to stop with this U3 garbage. It is a meaningless number. It was contrived for the sole purpose of LYING to the American People about the health of the economy. Here are some economical chickens that Trump is going to bring home to roost:
#1 It is being projected that there will be more than 8,000 retail store closings in the United States in 2017, and that will far surpass the former peak of 6,163 store closings that we witnessed in 2008.
#2 The number of retailers that have filed for bankrupt
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
1) Retail is dead. Probably has more to do with Amazon than anything else. I can go to Amazon, pay less, have it delivered than get it locally at the neighborhood store. Hell, I'm buying more and more stuff via Amazon simply to save money.
2) is a repeat of #1
3) is a repeat of #1
4) Atlanta FED is only one, and may be "regional". Since you didn't post a source, I don't know.
5) In my area, restaurants are booming business. I suspect that will change when Min Wage get raised and Robots take over. Any job that c
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I have no doubt there is a bubble in the market, similar to 2007, for essentially the same reason. However, rather than blaming everyone but the people responsible (Republicans and Democrats in congress), we're blaming the people trying to make a buck doing whatever they can (often shady) to avoid or comply with stupid regulations in creative ways.
I am not familiar with REITs except in a very general sense, but Real Estate has been fucked up since Frank-Dodd social engineering via legislation was enacte
Re: (Score:2)
I was there in 2010-11. The only people who thought it was rolling were the delusional democrats who just had a couple full years of owning Senate, House and White House. That's why the Republicans won the house, then the senate, and now the White House. They will likely lose the house in 2 years, the Senate and possibly the White House in 4, because they are that stupid.
What bugs me about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Nah - as a Trump voter these numbers suck just as they did under the Obama administration.
It's just funny watching the Obama voters on here suddenly agree.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah - as a Trump voter these numbers suck just as they did under the Obama administration.
It's just funny watching the Obama voters on here suddenly agree.
As an Obama voter (and someone who voted for Secretary Clinton), I think these numbers aren't so bad.
An unemployment rate of 4.4 percent isn't too bad, and recent data shows people that are re-entering the workforce was steady.
Unemployment rates that drop too much from where we are may cause inflation. I think the current rate could survive an increase of the minimum wage. But what do I know. I'm not an economist. I bow to the likes of Krugman ( https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.... [nytimes.com] https://twitter.com/paul [twitter.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Obama legitimately was in charge all through the turn-around of the economy. That wasn't residual Bush-administration policy causing the Great Recession to clean itself up; it was either the economy fixing itself or the Obama administration fixing it.
Trump's administration is setting themselves up, though. These UE numbers are too low. There's a bubble somewhere here, and Trump's policies don't work toward market stability; the bubble's going to pop, and pop hard, and he's claiming responsibility now f
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see anyone warning Obama or Trump about what's happening right now.
We're overdue for a recession by traditional economic measures. Since Hillary lost the election, it won't be called the Hillary and/or Obama Recession.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Politically, reality doesn't matter. Your accountability relies on being able to convince people you were or were not responsible. Trump's administration wants to be responsible for this end of the bubble, and will realize they really don't when it pops.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes no, sometimes yes.
Re: (Score:2)
The president alone can have an impact by the appointments they make (like the federal reserve). Congress has an impact. Whether you can blame the economy on the president alone I agree is complicated. I wouldn't call the president's part a small part though; I believe the president has a significant impact on the economy. Sometimes, you can point to specific actions causing recessions or growth.
The previous recession was almost certainly caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999; this can be direc
Re: (Score:3)
Most likely, you have internal bias, which was compounded by mainly reading things you agree with. Seek out things you disagree with and read them. Your cognitive biases will disappear.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just politics. By the 3rd year people realise the new boss isn't bringing shit to the table.
Except that Trump has a negative approval rating. ... Only president ever, and he's only 100 days in. Let's give Trump all the credit for everything. He needs every last bit of it.
He'll just start a war (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bush had high approval ratings before the war and they dropped after it started.
Trump is starting from negative. War won't get him anything.
Re: (Score:2)
211000 new Jobs? (Score:3)
I didn't realize cloning has become so effective....
Now the only question is can we make enough black turtlenecks to keep up with demand?
Jobs? Or something more substancial? (Score:3)
Creating 200k jobs is easy. Destroy 100k jobs that can actually sustain a family and create two separate jobs that can't. Presto job creation. Now pit the people who need those pittance jobs to make ends meet against each other and watch the race to the bottom unfold.
Re: (Score:2)
two separate jobs for each job you destroyed... you get the idea.
Is the unemployment number still relevant? (Score:2)
From what I know about the unemployment number's survey process and recent trends in employment, I wonder how relevant it actually is. The government only surveys 6,000 people out of 300+ million, and defines employment as any job.
These days, there are a lot of underemployed people, people stringing together gig economy jobs, etc. Also, in the past it was pretty much assumed that unemployment was a temporary thing -- the factory laid people off during slow times and hired them back, or there were a ton of p
Re: (Score:2)
Statistically, you need a sample of fixed size to get results of the desired reliability. It doesn't scale with the size of the population. It has to be a representative sample, but if the sample isn't representative the size doesn't matter until it gets close to the population size.
There are various statistics showing unemployment and underemployment rates. They all have their uses.
No word on the composition. (Score:2)
Those numbers means nothing without knowing how many displaced were able to re-enter versus how many went to new entrants.
Still unemployed since mid December 2016. (Score:2)
I know a lot of people getting laid off from my previous employers too. Some of us are still unemployed. I am almost on my fifth month. It's difficult/hard to find local and remote jobs with my disabilities and experiences. :(
Nothing new, except perhaps "yours" (Score:2)
Is this real numbers? Can these numbers be trusted? Is the administration inflating the numbers? Ask your self this before sharing. last month they where weaker lots of data pointing to even weaker numbers ahead. Now suddenly its great numbers?
No (see "Statistics" 101), No, and Yes. This is not something new or unique either. The Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, etc.. numbers were all bullshit too. The only difference is in how much bullshit goes into the published statistics, and of course who's party holds power when the numbers get published.
One thing for sure though, is that there is more market optimism today than we have seen since the Reagan era. Optimism does not always translate to mass scale positive results, but my stocks sure are doing
Re: (Score:2)
Is this real numbers? Can these numbers be trusted?
Is the administration inflating the numbers?
You mean like every administration ever? The unemployment rate is meaningless, the number that matter is The labor force participation rate.
Unemployment rate is just how many people the Government has to pay unemployment benefits to, labor force participation rate is how many people are working. Some would argue that GDP PCap, Gross Domestic Produc
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that some people retire early, go to school, or become stay-at-home parents because they can't find a job, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Odd that this comment, and my reply to it, have been moderated "Flamebait" and "Troll" respectively.
Apparently anyone who questions the official number can expect to be ruled out of order. And this isn't even Congress or the White House - it's Slashdot, where I thought people were capable of independent thought and (where warranted) scepticism.
Maybe the US government is scrupulously truthful, after all. Who knew?
Re:Real numbers? (Score:5, Interesting)
U-6 is not "the true unemployment"; it's a measure including people who are underemployed, who are unable to get jobs because of their economic situation (e.g. single mothers who couldn't take a job if you begged them, because they can't afford daycare and you're not willing to pay enough), and so forth.
Each unemployment measure has its uses. We're used to U-3 largely because it tells us how much competition is out there for a job of any sort; U-4 tells you how many people are out there actually unemployed, though. Underemployment (included in U-6) is another important statistic nobody looks at. The U-5 addition (people who can't take a job even if offered one, but wish they could) is fairly-unimportant in terms of unemployment measures.
U-6 still doesn't tell you about a few interesting things, like how much employment is actually available versus your participating labor force. Unemployment includes the people in U-5 because those people are interested in working, thus are part of the participating labor force. Because of that, U-6 plus employed persons equates to all participating labor force. Thing is, U-6 includes underemployment; that doesn't tell you about whole jobs.
If you have three underemployed working 20, 15, and 23 hours per week, you have 58 hours or 1.45 whole jobs between three people. A measure of whole jobs is useful; also useful is a measure of whole jobs counting part-time employment of people who want to be part-time employed as "whole jobs" (that is: if a working spouse has a 12-hour weekend job, that's a whole job because said person neither needs nor desires 40 hours of employment).
So that gives you three whole-employment indicators we don't track: WE-1 (number of whole jobs, including all full-time workers plus the fraction of full-time hours worked by hourly-paid part-time workers); WE-2 (WE-1, plus part-time workers not seeking full-time jobs are counted as whole jobs instead of partial jobs); and WE-3 (WE-2, plus full-time workers and workers with multiple jobs exceeding full-time hours have their total hours counted and fractioned, such that a person working 60 hours per week counts as 1.5 whole jobs).
Re: (Score:3)
'As new discouraged workers move regularly from U.3 into U.6 unemployment accounting, those who have been “discouraged” for one year also are dropped from the U.6 measure'.
http://www.shadowstats.com/art... [shadowstats.com]
So there are many people out there who are not counted, even in U.6.
Re: (Score:2)
So, discouraged workers count mothers who quit their jobs and then become stay-at-home mothers because their husband raises enough money, even though these people are no longer interested in work; but stops counting them after one year, and appropriately tallies them as not in the labor force?
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is, you can't tell the difference between a woman who has no interest in being employed because she wants to be a stay-at-home mother and a woman who can't get a decent job and so is a stay-at-home mother. Someone who can't get a good job might go to some sort of school instead, and hope to be better prepared when the economy picks up. If I were to lose my job today, I'd just call myself retired, although I currently intend to keep working for a while.
If we had a count of people who'd be workin
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But remember, if this was Obama, the answer would be exactly the opposite ... yes, yes and no.
You see, Obama would NEVER do such a thing ... ever.
Re: (Score:2)
Right. No Democrat straw man would say anything bad about Obama. Protoplasmic Democrats are a bit more varied.
Re: (Score:2)
By lowering the corporate tax rate the US becomes a tax haven where companies will put their global corporate offices, employ locals, and ultimately pay their corporate taxes.
This is the theory. It remains to be seen what actually will happen.
Re:As unemployment gets lower, so will job growth. (Score:4, Informative)
Too many people work without paying taxes, therefore count as unemployed or they are too comfortable living with mommy, daddy or sugar daddy.
You got too many alternative facts mixed up in that statement. Just focus on one. No need to do three at a time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, predicting that people will forget is pretty much an accurate prediction, unless it's about sex.
Re: (Score:2)
In light of the fact that employees at the BLS are overwhelmingly Democrats, that makes total sense.