Many of you know how butthurt I get over the use of the U3 unemployment statistic. I think it is not only misleading, it is dishonest and it should be discontinued as "good measure."
We have Trump claiming he is reducing unemployment, Obama taking credit for the drop in employment, and people blaming Bush Jr. for unemployment. All using the U3 stat.
Some economists were reporting that the economy did not recover fully and there there is a poisonous left over bunch that do not show up in the U3 but some show up in the U6. And people, such as the gent who runs Shadow Stats, say that not even the U6 is picking up the unemployed.
Shadow Stats has been criticized. However, I think unemployment is much higher than 4.3%.
I'm not terribly well versed when it comes to employment numbers so excuse me if I'm incorrect, but don't the official numbers not really take into account under employment? Meaning if someone has a job working 2 hours a week for minimum wage they are considered employed to the same degree as someone working full time with benefits? If so that's obviously a silly statistic to base much on and shouldn't really have much worth.
From what I understand about the recession, we lost a lot of good paying jobs, and the ones that came in and replaced those jobs were low wage jobs. So a lot of people who lost their good jobs had to take shittier jobs. So while those people are still "employed" it's not really at the numbers we should be aiming for.
So anyways, yeah the official employment numbers from what I understand do seem to be fairly misleading if the things I said are true.
You're correct. That's the problem with the U3 statistic. The U6 is much better but is still critcized by some economists. Which is why that guy created the Shadow Statistic.
I would like to know what comprises that number but I assume he is counting every single able bodied, not working, and not working as much as they'd like, adult.
I was working for the United Way for a time. It's an unpaid job, and got over 400 applications a day.
Many were hoping it would lead to something.
It totally would not surprise me if the unemployment and underemployment rate was much, much higher then anyone wants to admit.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Unemployment may not be at the 5-6%, it's certainly possible that number is skewed because it's not factoring in everything. But nearly half the country unemployed? No way, it would be beyond noticeable.
Look at it this way, let's say you shared a house with someone, say someone close to you like a brother and that lazy ass didn't work, he just sat on his ass all day on the computer, playing video games and smoking weed while scamming the government where he could to eek by. Now you'd certainly notice when it came time to pay the bills and 50% or so was a no-show. You'd notice.
I did some digging the the Shadow Stat for unemployment does control for some things:
People in school do not count.
Retired do not count.
Too young do not count.
But I cannot find other figures.
Does he count stay at home moms and dads?
I definitely think unemployment is far higher than 6% and definitely even more than the U6 stat. But perhaps not as high as 22% such as the Shadow Stat.
My sister's actually unemployed and living her boyfriend.
But that's kind of her fault, because he told her he could support them both and persue her ambitions. And then they discoverer they both suck at budgeting, and family had to step in with various bailouts..
However, there are about a half dozen people I went to school with who live at home, so there's that.
Might not be 50%, or anywhere close, but I bet it's pretty high.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Without even checking, I see I screwed up "pursue", among other things.
I hate mini phones. Even children have fingers way too fat for these things.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
It's okay, just look at my posts with the wrong words, missing words, etc. Makes me frustrated to read them.
This is why I think it's dumb as hell to be a grammar or spelling Nazi on the internet. As long as you can understand someone's point, there's no need to criticize someone's posts for grammar and spelling mistakes.
Yea, no main-stream economist finds shadowstats reputable. I happen to find their inflation numbers interesting, however. Here is a blog which carefully debunks Shadowstats's unemployment ratings: https://www.themaven.net/economonit...biiKzS4Q?full=1
__________________ "I killed them, of course. Just as I killed the Guardian. Just as I now kill you."
I think the unemployment number is much closer to 22% than 4.6%, of course. But how close Shadow Stats is to being correct, I don't know. Their numbers are behind a paywall. I am not paying for it.
And with the Kaiser Survey, as he's using it, he purposefully omits all disabled people and 20% of the working population (older than 52 but younger than 64) that may also be long-term discouraged workers, too. So, to him, to fulfill his critique, he had to eliminate well over 20 million people so his critique of Shadow Stats numbers would work. Seems quite dishonest and his bias is showing. However, what also seems dishonest is that Williams, from Shadow stats, still won't release his method/and numbers breakdown for proper critique, according to that writer. Which would explain why I am not able to find anything to breakdown his numbers. And getting through his paywall wouldn't work, either, it seems. And I would rather buy pizza than $125 worth of unexplained data from Shadow Stats.
The "missing gap" in Williams' numbers is 26,114,100. Or about 26 million people to get to his 22-23% unemployment rate he reports for his unemployment Shadow Stat.
He concedes a major point:
Let's skip to the end. Based on his concessions, that's 4.6 million + 9 million = 13.6 million. That's gets us much closer to the 26 million figure Williams has and is clearly far more than the U6 statistic. Hence why I am critical of the Ux stat series for informing labor policy.
Can the remaining math be explained by the missing gap in disabled - who are being summarily dismissed by the critic - and the elderly who are over 52 to 64? Seems quite readily, in fact. Seems there is more than a comfortable enough margin of people left to get 13 more million. Again, Williams will not reveal the details on his modeling and surveying methods which is always a red flag. Regardless, even the critic is finding explanations that fill more than have the the 26 million people gap.
Regardless of this particular argument, the critic summarizes his position as follows:
Based on the 13.6 million additional people he found, that's gets him more than halfway. If we consider how he dismissed 20% of the population and the disabled, we have more than the missing 12.4 million needed to bridge that gap even if we assume most of those people just simply cannot work.
If I had access to data related to retirement rates by age, because there are some that retire in their 50s and early 60s, I could better estimate that remaining 12 million person gap to get us to the 26 million the critic outlines.
In conclusion, the Shadow Stat figure needs to be consumed with caution. However, it is much closer to reality when it comes to summarizing true unemployment in the US. The reason why many people, when considering unemployment, thinks 4.6% seems woefully low, is because their personal experiences are much closer to 1/4 people being unemployed, not 1 in 20 as the U3 statistic would have us believe.
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Feb 1st, 2018 12:01 AM
