Comments | uberdionysus: Unemployment

uberdionysus

Unemployment

Apr 02, 2009 14:20

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 ( Read more... )

ecnomics

Comments 27

autokrater April 3 2009, 18:09:40 UTC

Ahaha yep. Got to love the government toying with the numbers like that. Glad you posted this as a lot of people haven't the faintest idea.

uberdionysus April 3 2009, 18:14:52 UTC

It's one of the reasons why we always have a lower unemployment rate then most European countries - we lie more than they do about our unemployment numbers.

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uberdionysus April 3 2009, 18:32:50 UTC

Then you have to explain why ALL of the European countries effectively release our U-6 stats as their official unemployment rate. And go look/read the link, students, prisoners, and housewives aren't included. In many European countries, they are.

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uberdionysus April 3 2009, 18:48:08 UTC

They're not included.

Again: they're not included.

Thread 23

wring April 3 2009, 18:43:32 UTC

does this mean i should be prepared for 16 months of unemployment in case i get laid off?

uberdionysus April 3 2009, 18:45:47 UTC

Nope. That's impossible to predict.

wring April 16 2009, 03:25:53 UTC

saw this and thought of you.

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uberdionysus April 3 2009, 19:32:44 UTC

I love you.

never_the_less April 3 2009, 19:25:43 UTC

Out of curiosity, do you know why it actually matters which statistic is given?

That is to say, it seems like what makes news/has any kind of effect, is the change in the unemployment rate, no matter how it is reported/what it reflects (provided that the counting mechanism stays the same). Though certainly one problem is that (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) the US stops counting people as unemployed after X time period of being unemployed, effectively curbing the growth/change in the unemployment rate -- which seems to be the real problem, no? (I.e. if change in official unemployment rate over a period of time < change in real unemployment rate, then we have a problem ( ... )

uberdionysus April 3 2009, 19:43:17 UTC

It matters because U-3 simply isn't an honest reflection of our unemployment rate. As you say, once you're unemployed for X amount of time, you are no longer counted. Out of work freelancers and forced part time workers are also not reflected in U-3, along with people entering or re-entering the job market. It's simply dishonest.

I'm not sure how they're used as indexes, but I imagine that resources are allocated based on them.

In 1994 we changed the rates in order to decrease the unemployment numbers. Of course, we claimed it was to get a more accurate number, but that's obviously not true.

Here's our old criteria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_Population_Survey#1994_CPS_Revisions

One last thing: "depression" is pretty vague. It's roughly a long and deep recession, which is where we're at.

never_the_less April 3 2009, 20:05:20 UTC

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 ( ... )