Unemployment

[uberdionysus]

The Unemployment Rate
So everyone is making a big deal about the 8.5% unemployment rate, which is a big deal, but it's also a bit of a lie. Our real unemployment rate is 15.6%, and is what the government terms "U-6." As the government says, U-6 includes the "total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for

Comments

[never_the_less]

I guess I asked because (allow me here that this is informed by a minor interest in the history of statistics -- check out Ted Porter and Ian Hacking if you are interested...) I would say that "unemployment rate" is merely a statistical concept. I.e. it exists only as a statistic -- there is no actual "unemployment rate" out that can actually, as an entity be counted.

As your extended discussion above makes clear, it could potentially be counted in any number of ways, using any number of criteria, which are essentially arbitrary. Not unlike the statistic of IQ, which does not actually measure any thing/property/characteristic that exists on its own. Perhaps the binary of working/not working makes it seem like it would be easy to fit someone into the categories employed or unemployed, but the reality, as everyone is pointing out, is that there is a lot of grey room. So for me, the question of "accurate representation" doesn't mean anything/is a tautology.

But I have a feeling that these numbers ARE used to gain leverage, which is where to me it becomes significant. And I agree with you that it is important to maintain the SAME arbitrary criteria however, otherwise the change in the figure will cease to have significance. It (how we count) also of course has significance if we are comparing figures internationally....

Also, huh, I didn't realize that there wasn't a statistical definition of a depression, the way there is for recession. Weird.