Personally I’m sick of the bullcrap and fake numbers that have come out of Washington for decades. With this latest group it began immediately with the notion of “created or saved” jobs. Then came the trickle-down stimulus bill that trickled into yacht payments and bonuses. So look at these charts.
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.
And if you don’t like this, then read another depressing article here.
Everything is definitional. I can give you any number you wish.
I’m glad to see someone still talking about the fact that the economy is still on a massive downward slide. People seem to have gotten bored with the topic.
The chart shows we are in a recession, yes. I remember getting the email back in late 2008.
The chart also shows we are no longer in a downward slide.
#1. Sounds a lot like “I got mine, fuck you”.
#3. Dallas, never wake up son, sleep like a baby. So adorable.
You can’t look at his methodology and underlying numbers unless you subscribe, so I can’t form any opinion on them being more correct than the government’s. They might as well be from fox news.
I can believe these numbers but I prefer to go back to the calculations we used back in the 1930s to measure unemployment. Or, you could keep it simple: 1/2 an employed person for every part time job, 0 for an unemployed person of employable age and never, ever drop them off the calculation until retirement age: 65. If they have a job they count, if they don’t they count as zero. Pretty simple. Too bad you have to subscribe to see their supposed calculations. Still, this makes sense. You’ll likely come up with the number as is listed here, 20-some percent unemployment.
I’ve said for a while we’ve gone through or are in a depression, not a recession. I doubt any politician in power will claim we are ever in a depression again, even if we are.
Jim at #5, Williams says “The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994.”
His method is basically to calculate U-6 the way it would have been calculated prior to 1994 when the method was adjusted in order to get a number that was more pleasing…er…more accurate.
Williams claims that his alternate numbers reflect the previous models accurately, and to date I haven’t seen anyone dispute that they do.
I don’t agree with Williams on a lot of his economic ideas, like his insistence that we are about to tip into hyperinflation…even though we have double digit unemployment and may be about to drop into another recession (as if we ever actually made it out of the first.) But his numbers on unemployment? Yeah, I believe those.
Anyway, as far as his methods go, see here:
http://shadowstats.com/primers-and-reports
I see people that are counted in anyone of those numbers charted above that have no desire to get a job much less keep one.
We’d have less than 1% unemployment if the stimulus money had been spent on bringing back the WPA and CCC.
We could use some new infrastructure.
Cursor_
#4–handle==no, totally different concepts. The fact they can both be expressed as simple declarative sentences equates them in no other way. BTW, use of the anglo-saxon is very harsh sounding. Screw will also get you by net censores.
Always appropriate though to “understand” what is actually being measured as opposed to what it is called. Lots of games played by hanging labels on issues.
#8–Gig==a very stupid post. How many people have you seen and do you think your personal experience should form another Unemployment Index or are you affirming your total lack of relevancy?
Its a slow day. Always good to note that the employment level is set by society as much as anything else. There was a time when everyone in America could have been employed as a switchboard operator ((still true today?)) but society went on to electric then computer switches which removed those jobs from the market. Same thing today. Not a big point, simply that letting the market rule is still a society choice and we all get what we get. What is more “beneficial?” A society filled with switchboard operators, government workers, conservation corps, a general plan of welfare, or increasing class separation?
Pro’s and Con’s to every decision made.
Personally, I’m sick of our sad, lying, and corrupt fucking Government. They don’t know their ass from a hot rock but they are the rulers and we are the slaves.
Bring back the Constitution, and till then, Just Say No To Government!
recession with inflation..
#4 Was there a particular point made (I made two) that you saw was erroneous from looking at the chart?
What I don’t like about all these graphs and charts of the employed, unemployed, underemployed is that they don’t take into account all the self employed. They don’t consider the house painter waiting for the phone to ring, the builder taking a $200 job instead of the $20,000 job, The lawn service/snow plow guy getting only 1/2 the business cuz people are worried about eating. That makes a large impact on our economy that NO ONE talks about.
This is a little off topic so indulge me…
I’ve seen before the comment about the government could pay for people to dig holes and fill them in again. (Sort of like the bobbos comment about telephone operators).
Intuitively whilst we understand it provides ‘jobs’ but probably isn’t a great idea because we have ‘wasted’ resource – in this case human effort. Its waste because presumably that effort could have been put to something useful.
If the government built a 250 million dollar pleasure boat used for a few weeks a year to ferry ferry some people around. Most would agree that is waste.
If a private individual does exactly the same thing it can (and has been) described as a good thing – often when ‘trickle down’ is mentioned.
If ‘trickle down’ is such a great thing for an individual, then the effect of such ‘waste’ must surely be just as great from the government.
I guess my point is the idea of ‘waste’ as often argued is linked to whose spending it.
Admittedly in the governments case it is arguably more egregious because it’s ‘the peoples money’. And that’s a fair point. I’m just highlighting the selectiveness of the use ‘waste’.
Disclaimer: I claim trickle down largely doesn’t work precisely because of ‘waste’. Ie it does matter how the government or individuals spend money – precisely because ‘waste’ can be a significant factor.
The great myth, the unemployed are generally lazy. Why does the Right keep trumpeting that lame canard?
#14–AC==good point and what you are calling for is a whole different measurement such as “Average Family Income” or “Standard of Living” all of which are as relevant to the question as the elements that are included and excluded.
I still say this is NOT a normal business cycle, aka, a recession or double dip recession. It is somewhat unique: a societal “reset” as our post WW2 dominance gets hammered by competition from abroad that our International Corp Masters are dead set at taking advantage of to our own (USA) detriment. Too bad. We could be doing a much better job of keeping our people employed.
Choices and consequences. “I got mine, but its proportionately less in comparison to the rest of the world. Screw Me.”
#15–freddy==you’ve got your teeth into waste, but I think you need to think it thru a little bit more?
Would this help? You say: “I guess my point is the idea of ‘waste’ as often argued is linked to whose spending it.”/// I think it is more accurate to note the issue highlighted is “who’s” money is being spent? I don’t think it is accurate at all to call individuals buying yachts wasteful. When the gov does the same thing they aren’t spending “their” money, they are spending poor/middle class/and rich peoples money ((as opposed to the money of the Super Rich who avoid paying their legislated share)) on an activity that has a very low multiple effect.
Choices only “make sense” not by labels applied (eg-waste) but rather by what the other choices are. Tax and Spend. Deficit and Spend. High unemployment/low taxes. Make work/higher taxes. Homogenizing the income continuum/social harmony.
Who are these unemployed people? According to this, 1 in 4 people don’t have a job. That means that we should all know lots of people who are looking. But, while I know lots of folks who are underemployed, I don’t know anyone without a job.
@ bobbo
“I don’t think it is accurate at all to call individuals buying yachts wasteful.”
It’s not. But some purchases of yachts could be. Or at least more wasteful than others.
Surely all it depends on the utility and the cost? And that is all. Unless you are claiming the purchaser somehow changes that?
I’m using ‘waste’ as in it’s commonly interpreted dictionary meaning. So it’s no more a ‘label’ than any word in common usage.