unemployment, jobs, labor force, etc.

[kanzeon_2040]

Last month the unemployment rate was 4.6%. This is lower than it was at any time during both of President Obama's terms in office. It's lower than at any time between 1971 and 1996An unemployment rate of 4.6% is great! So why is everybody gloomy about the economy? There's over 10 million job openings and only 7 million unemployed. It's

Comments

[legalmoose]

Social media is your Mule, Hari. ;)

[kanzeon_2040]

George Will used to make an argument against the historical inevitability of economic materialism aka socialism that I'll paraphrase:

"There's no accounting for religious and ethnic identities."

[matrixmann]

Got an idea what may let the gloom look like illogical: If the statistics aren't accurate with the practical reality.

You know, the numbers are just a calculation of the average - if you count the highest-earning people together with the lowest-earning, while the first has significantly increased its income in money, you'll probably get a nice-sounding average, but in the reality more people are poor than before, the few rich guys (which have gotten even richer) fuck up the average calculation.
Just like if talking about general price increases, counting the prices for the ever-getting-cheaper technological consumer products into the same calculation like everything else always pushes down the general price statistics - masking increases for a section like foods, for example. But the latter is way more important for people to have than technological play gadgets.

[kanzeon_2040]

I agree that the average isn't representative of those at either end of the income/wealth spectrum, but the average used to be a better predictor of people's moods than it is today. There has been an increase in inequality, so perhaps that's why the average is not a good predictor anymore

[matrixmann]

"go away when the pandemic goes away"

(*giggles*)
Like anyone could tell that for sure when that will be...
One could also be waiting for a couple of years, if you were waiting for that.

I get upon this possible error with statistics 'cause - if I look at how fake and whitewashed the statistics for unemployment here - who they all don't count as "unemployed", but who factually isn't employed either or has just been kicked out of the first degree job market -, imagining the same amount of whitewashing in other statistics, well, that could maybe explain why a few things are going on that actually don't make much sense, according to the statistics.