Really, how hard is it to find a job? Was June’s horrid numbers, in which 467,000 people lost their jobs compared to 345,000 in May, a one-time fluke? Or does it mean that all those Wall Street economists who believe the economic recovery is starting are dead wrong?
Not to scare you, but the situation is actually worse than it seems.
After reviewing the data, Williams believes that “the June jobs loss likely exceeded 700,000.” David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff notes that the fall in the number of hours worked in June (to a record low of 33 per week) is equivalent to a loss of more than 800,000 jobs.
Unemployment Measure rose to a jaw-dropping 20.6%. Separately, the Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston puts U.S. unemployment at 18.2%. Any way you cut the numbers, the situation is very bad. According to David Rosenberg, one-in-three among the unemployed have been looking for a job for more than six months and still can’t find one.
Unemployment rates are dropping because people are getting kicked off unemployment.
The Jobless rate (teenagers, college students, people with supplemental income, people with illegal income and senior citizens) is actually quite high. If we were to count our Unemployment rate like France counts theirs (Unemployed, Jobless, those employed less than 6 months and Disabled) the American "Unemployment" rate would be well over 26%. It might even topple 30%.
We specifically don't draw attention to that because if we did, the Jobless rate has been growing steadily for 20 years. Basically meaning that the US has had no real growth... that growth has come from cutting costs rather than spurring actual growth.
This is particularly evident in parts of the midwest with companies like Monsanto, Wrigley, Schwann Food and Cargill.
While parts of these companies are successful and "growing," they've mostly just kept slashing wages over the past thirty years. In relative terms of today's dollars, some of these companies use to pay between 14-25 an hour but now pay closer to 7-10 an hour for B.S. entry-level jobs.
Primarily, they feed on romantic American notions of "staying close to home." But this is kind of a fallacy since most of these people are only 2nd or 3rd generation families moved to these arbitrary and exotic locations by big government and corporate programs between the 1870s to 1930s.
"Unemployment rates are dropping because people are getting kicked off unemployment."
I don't believe the unemployment rate has anything to do with whether a person is receiving unemployment compensation or not.
The unemployment rate is designed only to report the percentage of the adult population who are seeking work but cannot find it.
Now, it may be true that the rate is dropping because some portion of the unemployed population have given up looking for work, or is working part-time ... but, that's not related to unemployment compensation.
Anti - your sources seem a bit shaky to begin with. The 18.2% figure that the article references (from the Center for Labor Market Studies) clearly states "UNDERutilized Labor Pool" in their documents, that includes underemployed and labor force reserve. It is not referencing the total percentage of able adults that are not employed that are trying to be employed. I'd be interested in hearing your own opinions on the numerous links that you provide, and please check the sources before posting it for all to see. Thanks.
Yes and once you're unable to find work for a designated period of time within your state... you're no longer considered unemployed!
Most people who are considered unemployed are also on unemployment! that's how they know if you're looking for work because in some states, a condition of unemployment is to prove that you're indeed looking for jobs!
80 grit is right. 50% of all architecture firms are one-man shops, who don't show up on unemployment roles. The only way they can be unemployed is to close shop and file bankruptcy, no matter how little work they have.
The intent of the Antithenes' link (and by proxy also Anti's intent), is to imply that the official 9.4% unemployment figure that has recently been posted by the Department of Labor (DOL) is actually more like 20%.
The % given by the DOL does INCLUDE those that are not receiving unemployment benefits, but does EXCLUDE those that are not looking for work (underutilized or discouraged). But please note that this has always been the case, even before the recession. So to compare the unemployed % before the recession with the figure adding on the underutilized is POOR LOGIC. Either compare the unemployed % before and after the recession (which is what everyone else does) or compare the underutilization % before and after the recession (which is what the article should have done and clarified)
Yes, the state of the economy is not good. But is there really a need to manipulate data and statistics for shock value?
or is their really a need for them to modify the way unemployment is reported to make it look lower than it is not in line with the way other countries around the world report them?
The purpose is that it is a point of reference. As long as that point of reference is transparent and consistent, it doesn't matter how other countries around the world reports them. I'm not even so sure other countries reports them differently.
Even if it "should" include the underutilized and those that are not looking for work in the first place, this doesn't change the fact that the article has a fundamental flaw in its logic. And frankly, if I can see that fundamental flaw with my limited knowledge on the economy, it makes me question the legitimacy of your resources.
I truly believe the 20% mark is another one of the rumors people are using to try to scare us. I overheard a paranoid senior use this number in a conversation behind me at a bank, right before he stated that the "stocks should be at 3000 and bread lines are going to start up again." As I am a positive person and I'm disinclined to believe anything that ignorant white seniors pass along on the basis of hearsay these days (i.e., death panels, socialism, etc), I'm going to agree with Slart, and I personally will stick with the official numbers.
but slarti..that's what anti does..quotes questionable sources to 'prove' his/her overall point that america is further down the toilet than the government is letting on.
...Which is not to say that all white seniors are ignorant - if my grandpa were still alive he'd be rolling his eyes and shaking his head at all the morons around him - but you'll notice in the news coverage that the majority of the loud and most egregious protesters at these rowdy town halls are white seniors.
thats cause white seniors remember when they ran this place... they see all these up and coming non whites and liberals multiplying, and it scares them... my dad is one of them though hed never admit it..
but im having a party tonight, youre negative conspiracy talk cant bring me down today Anti
it's not just old people. I saw a clip of a middle aged woman on TDS the other night stomping like a 2 year old throwing a tantrum and crying "I want my country back!"
unemployment only counts people who don't have a job and *are looking for work*, there are alot of people who don't but who are not looking for a job.
what does "jobless" really mean? because there may be people who are homemakers, or who are not currently working and who have other sources of income, retired, are students, or on a hiatus but not actively looking for work, etc.
unemployment also doesn't include the guy on the street corner begging for change
no unemployment is only the people whose employer took part of their check and payed into the unemployment fund and are receiving that money ~200$ a week for 6 months none else. there are allot more people looking for work who or who did not work jobs that give them unemployment.
there is no flaw you can't make such accusations with out evidence or well researched data, witch these studies have, to make their best guesses
i imagine unemployed people, not people ON unemployment the gov program counted as unemployed is much higher.
Morse code guy, that's probably one of my favorite movie quotes ever. It's definitely on a shelf in my brain for use in day-to-day conversations, just in case I need it.
Anti - I think its been made pretty clear that the Government does COUNT those that are NOT receiving unemployment benefits. This is simply a fact that you are choosing to ignore. You don't have to imagine anything. I don't want to waste too much time here because you seem to be the type of person that only hear what they want to hear.
The US Department of Labor (DOL) and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are more transparent than you may think. The information is all there for you to see. You can even read an article published by the BLS in conjunction with US DOL questioning whether or not one should rely solely on the official unemployment rate. That is why they publish 6 different kinds of unemployment statistics, only one of which (U-3) you seem to be questioning (which you are not even accurate on)
There is no disagreement whether our economy is good or bad right now, but that doesn't mean you have to spread irrational fear. Jeez, if you're going to be fear-mongering, at least do it right.
The BLS might be transparent but their methods of sampling do have a margin of error and have been tweaked over the years to the liking of politicians.
Aqua - Are you proposing that statistics based on a representative sampling of a portion of the 300,000,000 population of the US should be free of margin of error? And are you implying that said statistical margin of error will have some sort of self-serving purpose?
I think we're all adult enough to know that politicians will have a hand in statistics published by the government, but politicians had a hand in the parameters that define those statistics in the first place, so whats new? I'm not so sure its possible to come up with some kind of unbiased, objective, neutral and universal definition of what being unemployed is that will not change over time. With the system we have in place, aren't we are choosing the people best suited (or least bad) to make such choices? And how are we so sure, there is no motivation to have what they think will be the most accurate statistics? If I were a proper villain, I'd want to have the most accurate information I can get my hands on before I do my evil deeds.
I'm not so sure its all manipulation by the politicians with some kind of ill-will or self serving purposes; some manipulation will be based on what THEY think is more accurate (or more repesentative of their constituents), or more feasible within the context. My guess is, sometimes you'll be part of those constituents and sometimes you won't be.
Slart, I am on your side but I would still like to point out... receiving benefits or not... once your "unemployment" expires, you're not part of the figure.
The difference here is that there are plenty of "non-working" individuals that are "actively" looking for work. There are lots of senior citizens and college students who "need or want" jobs but cannot get them.
The problem with this is that it really distorts the actuality of an area... ie, number of jobs vs. unemployed vs. non-working.
Other countries do calculate non-working individuals into their employment figures or they have longer windows for what is considered employed versus unemployed.
There's about a 150 million people in the US who are "able to work." At nearly 10% unemployment, that's 14.5 million people out of work. If we were to consider everyone they don't count who still wants or needs a job, that figure gets much starker.
I believe we have members on our board-- like strawbeary, tumbleweed and others-- who are about to fall out of unemployment figures. They will not be counted and their need for a job will be axed. Meaning the target for job creation will drop and everyone who turns this economy around will pat themselves on the back because they met figures that were wrong.
While there are plenty of people who are "non-working" and chose to be, efforts in job creation and economic development should aim to allow those people to work if they want too. Distorted figures just hide the fact that if people all the sudden desperately have to work, there will be no jobs for them to work because the economy hadn't anticipate them on working.
This is the issue with the job figures. We're not looking at the total amount of people who need or want jobs. We've stopped counting a lot of people. We've told people who have not worked for more than 6 months we don't care about you. We're not counting people under the age of 18. We're not counting various other people for other reasons.
We're also not counting a one-job-one-person figure since it is employers who are responsible for reporting employment figures. And thats the other issue is that unemployment counts jobs, not individuals. I cannot tell you how many people work 2 or 3 or 4 jobs. To the DOL, one person working four jobs is four people.
So, without being honest, we're not necessarily creating any data that can help us to rectify problems. We're just obscuring data to make ourselves feel better.
The unemployment (not jobless rate) for people 16-19 for this month was 23.8 percent.
They have data for men/women 20 and over (with no education statistics) and they have data for men/women 25 and over (with education breakdowns)... but I wished they had a graph for men/women 18-25 or 18-30 (with education breakdowns).
But a lesser point here is that young people are getting beyond screwed and if they don't have a smooth transition into the workforce soon... you can screw most government programs and the economy right now.
I tried to spend more time in other threads, but this thread is still getting to me.
Direct Quote:
"People are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following
criteria: They had no employment during the reference week; they were available for work at that time; and they made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons laid off from a job and expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed. The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits."
Orochi, I'm not sure what you mean by when "unemployment expires" if you're not referring to benefits. As long as they are looking, to the best of my knowledge they still count. And even when they stopped looking altogether, they go to a different category (underutilized / discouraged) that is also published for everyone to see - which by the way was the 18.2% figure that has been referenced earlier.
Again, no one is denying that it is bad out there for everyone, and that our field has been hit especially hard. I've seen it first hand and many other stories second-hand. I feel for all those that are struggling right now. But we don't need to think that these figures are distorted with ignorance or intentional malice. Its just as misleading and distorted to think as such, I believe. To give context, I'm a firm believer in being able to question authority/government, but only if I see a true flaw based on reasoning and my fullest understanding.
And lets also point out that people become "discouraged" once they believe there is no job available for them. Sort of like if they read too many articles with mis-leading titles such as "Panic: Unemployment rate already at 20%!!"
Yeah but the figures I pulled up for young generations come from the DOL themselves about total joblessness and non-working individuals.
An entire generation is facing this "It's 37.7 for ages 20-24 with and 27.3 for ages 25-30. That's total unemployment, not "consider part of the workforce" and so on."
37.7% is quite a chunk of people.
Six months is the expiration from when you for from "looking" to "not in the labor force."
I don't qualify for a lot of things because I have been continuously unemployed for a year and not working for an additional year. You're also not technically employed if you hold a job for less than 90 days... meaning you're perpetually considered unemployed or underemployed.
There are a lot of people out there who are looking for work but have crossed the six month line.
With so many young people out of work and out of the workforce, it's going to be a hard generational transition if your workforce has become to incapacitated by poverty to move, apply for credit, by things, acculimationg of civil lawsuits for failure to pay et cetera.
By not acknowledging that young people are especially suffering right now, we're running the risk of being unable to repay most of the governmental and private debts we've accumulated over the last 20 years.
<anecdotal evidence>I know about a dozen who are in my same exact shoes. There's no jobs locally. We don't have the money to work a dead end job because those jobs after everything is said and done are income neutral. We don't have money to move. People are not hiring us because our credit is terrible. We're not in ivy league debt but the bill collectors are moving towards litigation.
If we don't get a job within the next six months, most of us will either be in a state of homelessness, forced into an abusive situation or forced into illegal income.</anecdotal evidence>
it is important to do objective research and to realize lots of people are about to run out of unemployment insurance(me included) and those people will be harder as time goes on to count
somebody in my state that works for employment offices for the gov me told me 1 in 10 people are working, of course that included total population
Orochi - Can you clarify your comment - "Six months is the expiration from when you for from "looking" to "not in the labor force."
Can you back that up? I'm not saying you're wrong, I would like to know if this is true, because everything I read says otherwise.
I think your numbers and line of reasoning are even more misleading. There is a reason why the "unemployed" is defined a certain way. You have to compare apples to apples. For example, please note that in July 2008 technically 33.93% of the entire civilian noninstitutional population were not in the labor force (technically jobless or "unemployed" by your definition of unemployed), and there were 5.8% unemployed.
In July 2009 34.49% of the total civilian noninstitutional population were not in the labor force, and 9.4% were unemployed. The government's definition of "unemployment" actually changed more drastically than your definition of "unemployment" or joblessness. As long as you're not comparing the 5.8% to 34.49%...
But again, we've been hit particularly hard and our numbers are probably more drastic, especially considering the fact that the % of those unemployed currently with at least a bachelor's degree is still much lower than the national average. But this doesn't change the fact that fear and spreading fear does nothing but hamper growth. Knowing what is really going on is beneficial to taking appropriate steps, but not distorted information and false logic.
There's different alternatives and methods to calculating unemployment, those marginally unattached to unemployment and those completely not employed.
Depending on how you look at it, there's several definitions 15-week, 6-month and 12-month definitions to those marginally attached to unemployment and those who are "discouraged workers."
Aside from people who visit labor offices, the DOL relies on surveys and employer statistics to derive employment figures. I don't know about you but I've never been asked to take a survey for the DOL.
So, I have no idea where, when or how they survey people to find their employment status.
This is a good paper that documents what is called "long-term unemployment."
Since these people can apparently live long enough bring unemployed for six months or longer and the department of labor does not ask them every week if they have applied for a job... they are deemed marginal workers and taken off the labor force figures or categorized as "discouraged workers."
So, yes, once you fall into long-term unemployment... you fall off the radar. There's a 15-week, 6-month, 27-week and 12-month cutoff point for different calculations in determining marginal workers.
I don't count as being unemployed in the Department of Labor statistics because they've never asked me.
I should really stop... I know better than to keep doing this...
Look. I cited that myself before. <http://www.bls.gov/opub/ils/pdf/opbils67.pdf> I've read it. Nowhere does it mention that once you are unemployed for too long, you fall off the map. Thats just not how this works from what I read.
As for "So, I have no idea where, when or how they survey people to find their employment status" and "I don't count as being unemployed in the Department of Labor statistics because they've never asked me"...
Until it becomes to feasible to RELIABLY survey everyone in the country and RELIABLY collect that data in a timely manner (which you would think would be possible these days), they're going to have to stick to sampling. And then there is always the question of whether or not that would really be desirable to have that kind of database and if we'll be able to afford such a system.
The BLS and DOL are transparent about the margin of error and mention the confidence level and margin of sampling and non-sampling error (which is + or - meaning the statistical anomaly won't somehow always be plotting some conspiracy against us)
You see, what I'm trying to say is that - Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I don't think any one of us need the kind of uncertainty that is brought on by false information, doom & gloom op-eds, or shock value articles (with not one but two excalamation marks and the word PANIC in the heading). Don't panic. Maybe if they had a good point and they could predict the future with 100% certainty...
But see my point is their sampling is flawed and their sampling methodology is whicky-whicky-whack.
The only generally come into contact with people who are on unemployment or working with unemployment offices.
I'd like to see the construction of their surveys, who they survey and where. I know from a legal standpoint, it is hard to survey apartment complexes that sort their own mail because there isn't a USPS to USPS approved mail transaction. What about illegal housing situations when there is multiple people living within the same dwelling? Or what about private controlled phone systems (cellphones) that don't allow for surveying and sampling?
Once unemployment ends and or a person stops using an employment office, the DOL doesn't particularly have any way of verifying whether you are working, looking for work, long-term unemployed or have "fallen out of the workforce." This is especially problematic in states that have privatized employment offices.
So, unless an unemployed person uses a government or government-like service... it is hard to count or find them.
I'm not necessarily trying to be an a-hole here but for key segments of the population, the labor market has not looked good at all. In fact, many of the things I'm bringing up have been issues with these segments for a while. If we look towards Italy or France, we have the problem with "mammoni."
A combination of stagnation, high rents and well... wealthy parents... are not causing people to get jobs, move out or grow up on their own. Something that architects and planners should care about since it seriously hampers the housing cycle.
The only thing that's I'm really saying is that the market has been awful for a while for people of certain ages and now it's becoming worse because the flow of money is starting to dry up to America's children and grandparents.
when i read what you 2 have last said what i think is well, maybe don't they know your SS number and have your tax records?
of course there all kinds of pitfalls and every situation for each individual is unique.
Orochi - Actually, that wasn't your point at all. To summarise, your point was that you believed once someone is on unemployment for 6 months (or other arbitrary figure) they don't count as being unemployed. And that the 9.4% unemployment was optimistic because of it. I've been saying that, that doesn't seem to be the way it works from all the resources that I've seen or even the ones you post. And your response to that is convoluted and hazy.
Now you're arguing the process of sampling in statistics and saying that methodology is "whicky whicky whack." Sampling is done quite often, not only by the government. The process for finding out the % of unemployed has been going on since 1940, and that formula and methodology has been refined over the past ~70 years by people much smarter than you and me.
This doesn't automatically mean its a perfect system, but as I've said before, as long as it remains relatively transparent and consistent, it is a good indicator as a point of reference. I don't see how it will be inherently optimistic just for this recession, as some of you make it sound. The unemployed indicator has been through many recessions, although not all bad as this one. Even if its skewed optimistic, again, as long as it is consistent it really doesn't mean anything because percentages by themselves don't mean anything unless compared to other indicators. It might be "optimistic" compared to our specific field, but again, we're looking at the big picture - apples to apples.
No offence but honestly, I feel like I'm feeding trolls here.
Many states treat active job search as one indication of availability for work, and all states require registration at local employment offices as one indication of such activity. In some cases, people must provide evidence of contact with potential employers to show they have been looking for work. States also vary in whether they require workers in training or education programs to seek work actively (Anderson, 1997).
Under federal law, states cannot deny benefits to someone enrolled in an “approved” training course, but state-level rules often distinguish between “training” and “education” courses. As a consequence, many students cannot collect benefits, although their courses may be job-related. Similarly, some states require that workers who are pursuing self-employment opportunities search for jobs, even though doing so might impair their success at self-employment. Workers seeking part-time work do not necessarily meet states’ availability tests.
Some states consider the refusal of a full-time job as disqualifying in all cases; others allow a refusal if the worker had usually worked part-time.
Finally, the connection between continuing eligibility requirements and the unemployment insurance “profiling system” should be mentioned. Every state is required to set up a Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services System, under which workers who are predicted (usually through a statistical model) to be likely to exhaust their benefits must participate in enhanced reemployment services as a condition of continuing eligibility."
Unemployment Insurance: Strengthening the Relationship between Theory and Policy. Walter Nicholson and Karen Needels. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 2006), pp. 47-70
To calculate this, we added "discouraged workers," "marginally attached" workers, and part-timers for "economic reasons" (three official government categories), plus estimates of "early retirement" and the disabled population in the United States that could work following McKinsey's methodology, plus a reasonable estimate of the share of the U.S. workforce that are in moderately subsidized jobs (through the Earned Income Tax Credit)."
The resulting "de-facto" unemployment rate in the United States is 13.8 percent, compared to a 5.5 percent official U.S. unemployment rate, and an estimated 15.5 percent "de-facto" Swedish unemployment rate.
...
If the McKinsey numbers are evidence that the Swedish economy needs significant reform and restructuring, then these figures for the United States also suggest an urgent need for reform and restructuring here.
Is the unemployment rate in Sweden really 17 percent?. J Schmitt. International Journal of Health Services, 2008 - Baywood
The labor force participation rate is also important for assessing the extent of slack in the labor market. The unemployment rate alone, without understanding participation behavior, has become a less reliable indicator of labor market conditions.
For example, the labor force participation rate fell nearly a percentage point from the end of the 2001 recession to 2005. This decline in the labor force participation rate may help to explain why the unemployment rate remained relatively low—5.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005—despite lackluster job creation during the years after the 2001 recession.
...
The labor force participation rate is estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the responses in the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS collects information from respondents each month, and in March additional information is collected on employment and earnings during the previous year. In 2005, the CPS included about 60,000 households. The estimation of the labor force participation rate from the sample is made more precise by using population information on the size of different groups (including information on six age and gender groups and on racial and ethnic groups by state) in combination with information from the previous month.
...
The combination of slow employment growth and a low unemployment rate has led researchers and policymakers to consider changes in labor market participation as a possible explanation.
Changes in Labor Force Participation in the United States. Chinhui Juhn and Simon Potter. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 2006, pp. 27–46.
The concept of unemployment is something everyone seems to understand. Yet its measurement is not straightforward and rests on a number of arbitrary choices. The labour force statistics divide the adult population into three, mutually exclusive groups: the employed, the unemployed and the inactive, i.e. people out of the labour force. The employed comprise all persons who during a reference period were in paid employment (including family workers). The unemployed comprise those persons who were without work and immediately available to start work during the same period and who had actively looked for a job at some time during the preceding four weeks. People neither employed nor unemployed are considered inactive and are excluded from the labour force.
...
We calculate that, on average, in European countries about a fifth of all people who declared they were seeking work in the 1990s were left out of the labour force on the basis of the four-week requirement. The sheer size of this group–henceforth labelled “potential labour force”, or simply “potentials”–calls for a scrutiny of the four-week criterion. Interestingly, while it is recognised that this requirement may significantly affect the level of measured unemployment, there are no cogent reasons to choose four weeks as opposed to any other period.
...
Letting the boundary between unemployment and potential labour force be determined by the data, rather than by the arbitrary four-week criterion, would raise the Italian unemployment rate in 2000 from 11 to 13 per cent.
...
But the U.S. unemployment insurance system is beginning to show its age, and new thinking may be warranted. To us, perhaps the most productive area for this thinking is in reevaluating certain “one size fits all” aspects of the system. Today, essentially the same unemployment insurance benefits are available to all workers who lose a job in a state, and during recessions, almost all workers within a state qualify for the same extended benefits package. Such universality can conflict both with theoretical considerations of optimal wage loss insurance and with emerging empirical evidence about worker and firm heterogeneity.
Does The Ilo Definition Capture All Unemployment?. Andrea Brandolini. Journal of the European Economic Association. Piero Cipollone, Eliana Viviano. March 2006, Vol. 4, No. 1, Pages 153-179
Hur Dur.
I was "wrong" about the six months but partially right as that was the timeframe for unemployment benefits compensation causes a relationship with labor offices to measure your progress.
In fact, the 6 months I was giving was generous
.
There is no definition for what it means to "be looking for work" that's testable and quantifiable.
A drop in workforce participation can be a drop in unemployment.
Using unemployment is a bad economic indicator if you're not talking about total unemployment.
Many people (who are smarter than us) point out that our calculating methodology is heavily flawed.
The employment statistic sampling is rather small for what it aims to achieve outside of an employment office / unemployment recipient relationship.
And figures are heavily smudged in reporting employment performance statistics?
So, how many more journals do I have to read to prove my point?
US Unemployment rate already at 20%
Really, how hard is it to find a job? Was June’s horrid numbers, in which 467,000 people lost their jobs compared to 345,000 in May, a one-time fluke? Or does it mean that all those Wall Street economists who believe the economic recovery is starting are dead wrong?
Not to scare you, but the situation is actually worse than it seems.
After reviewing the data, Williams believes that “the June jobs loss likely exceeded 700,000.” David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff notes that the fall in the number of hours worked in June (to a record low of 33 per week) is equivalent to a loss of more than 800,000 jobs.
Unemployment Measure rose to a jaw-dropping 20.6%. Separately, the Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston puts U.S. unemployment at 18.2%. Any way you cut the numbers, the situation is very bad. According to David Rosenberg, one-in-three among the unemployed have been looking for a job for more than six months and still can’t find one.
link1
source (DOSSed)
Unemployment rates are dropping because people are getting kicked off unemployment.
The Jobless rate (teenagers, college students, people with supplemental income, people with illegal income and senior citizens) is actually quite high. If we were to count our Unemployment rate like France counts theirs (Unemployed, Jobless, those employed less than 6 months and Disabled) the American "Unemployment" rate would be well over 26%. It might even topple 30%.
We specifically don't draw attention to that because if we did, the Jobless rate has been growing steadily for 20 years. Basically meaning that the US has had no real growth... that growth has come from cutting costs rather than spurring actual growth.
This is particularly evident in parts of the midwest with companies like Monsanto, Wrigley, Schwann Food and Cargill.
While parts of these companies are successful and "growing," they've mostly just kept slashing wages over the past thirty years. In relative terms of today's dollars, some of these companies use to pay between 14-25 an hour but now pay closer to 7-10 an hour for B.S. entry-level jobs.
Primarily, they feed on romantic American notions of "staying close to home." But this is kind of a fallacy since most of these people are only 2nd or 3rd generation families moved to these arbitrary and exotic locations by big government and corporate programs between the 1870s to 1930s.
Well, at least I'm not alone.
I don't believe the unemployment rate has anything to do with whether a person is receiving unemployment compensation or not.
The unemployment rate is designed only to report the percentage of the adult population who are seeking work but cannot find it.
Now, it may be true that the rate is dropping because some portion of the unemployed population have given up looking for work, or is working part-time ... but, that's not related to unemployment compensation.
Anti - your sources seem a bit shaky to begin with. The 18.2% figure that the article references (from the Center for Labor Market Studies) clearly states "UNDERutilized Labor Pool" in their documents, that includes underemployed and labor force reserve. It is not referencing the total percentage of able adults that are not employed that are trying to be employed. I'd be interested in hearing your own opinions on the numerous links that you provide, and please check the sources before posting it for all to see. Thanks.
Yes and once you're unable to find work for a designated period of time within your state... you're no longer considered unemployed!
Most people who are considered unemployed are also on unemployment! that's how they know if you're looking for work because in some states, a condition of unemployment is to prove that you're indeed looking for jobs!
there is work in Houston
There may be some work in Houston but very few people are hiring.
i don't think the rate includes self-employed people either....
80 grit is right. 50% of all architecture firms are one-man shops, who don't show up on unemployment roles. The only way they can be unemployed is to close shop and file bankruptcy, no matter how little work they have.
OK, I hope I can clear this up.
The intent of the Antithenes' link (and by proxy also Anti's intent), is to imply that the official 9.4% unemployment figure that has recently been posted by the Department of Labor (DOL) is actually more like 20%.
The % given by the DOL does INCLUDE those that are not receiving unemployment benefits, but does EXCLUDE those that are not looking for work (underutilized or discouraged). But please note that this has always been the case, even before the recession. So to compare the unemployed % before the recession with the figure adding on the underutilized is POOR LOGIC. Either compare the unemployed % before and after the recession (which is what everyone else does) or compare the underutilization % before and after the recession (which is what the article should have done and clarified)
Yes, the state of the economy is not good. But is there really a need to manipulate data and statistics for shock value?
Exactly
or is their really a need for them to modify the way unemployment is reported to make it look lower than it is not in line with the way other countries around the world report them?
The purpose is that it is a point of reference. As long as that point of reference is transparent and consistent, it doesn't matter how other countries around the world reports them. I'm not even so sure other countries reports them differently.
Even if it "should" include the underutilized and those that are not looking for work in the first place, this doesn't change the fact that the article has a fundamental flaw in its logic. And frankly, if I can see that fundamental flaw with my limited knowledge on the economy, it makes me question the legitimacy of your resources.
I truly believe the 20% mark is another one of the rumors people are using to try to scare us. I overheard a paranoid senior use this number in a conversation behind me at a bank, right before he stated that the "stocks should be at 3000 and bread lines are going to start up again." As I am a positive person and I'm disinclined to believe anything that ignorant white seniors pass along on the basis of hearsay these days (i.e., death panels, socialism, etc), I'm going to agree with Slart, and I personally will stick with the official numbers.
but slarti..that's what anti does..quotes questionable sources to 'prove' his/her overall point that america is further down the toilet than the government is letting on.
...Which is not to say that all white seniors are ignorant - if my grandpa were still alive he'd be rolling his eyes and shaking his head at all the morons around him - but you'll notice in the news coverage that the majority of the loud and most egregious protesters at these rowdy town halls are white seniors.
lars also makes a good point.
thats cause white seniors remember when they ran this place... they see all these up and coming non whites and liberals multiplying, and it scares them... my dad is one of them though hed never admit it..
but im having a party tonight, youre negative conspiracy talk cant bring me down today Anti
it's not just old people. I saw a clip of a middle aged woman on TDS the other night stomping like a 2 year old throwing a tantrum and crying "I want my country back!"
heck i just want my job back the one guy left said he would throw any bone at me he got but there have been none :(
i wish i could get any job anywhere.
not because "i'm desperate or whatever"
but because this mattress sucks.
this mattress is pure torture. ive only slept 12 hours this week.
Until thursday night, i had been up for 3 days straight.
all i do is lay here wishing it would stop paining me.
i'm on my 4th bottle of wine tonight, 2 bottles of cough syrup, 2 mystery pills and 3 sleeping pills.
all i can feel is the springs grating against my skeleton.
i'm a racehorse with a broken leg... someone please put me down.
I'm voting for 100%........think of the street party then!!
unemployment only counts people who don't have a job and *are looking for work*, there are alot of people who don't but who are not looking for a job.
what does "jobless" really mean? because there may be people who are homemakers, or who are not currently working and who have other sources of income, retired, are students, or on a hiatus but not actively looking for work, etc.
unemployment also doesn't include the guy on the street corner begging for change
in other words, only people who are actively seeking work and have yet to find a job are relevant to the unemployment figure
That's not to say that things aren't bad...
watch crazy "i want my country back!" woman here!
which totally seems like it could have been a deleted scene from donnie darko
"Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!"
no unemployment is only the people whose employer took part of their check and payed into the unemployment fund and are receiving that money ~200$ a week for 6 months none else. there are allot more people looking for work who or who did not work jobs that give them unemployment.
there is no flaw you can't make such accusations with out evidence or well researched data, witch these studies have, to make their best guesses
i imagine unemployed people, not people ON unemployment the gov program counted as unemployed is much higher.
dude please...can you post something design related for once?
Morse code guy, that's probably one of my favorite movie quotes ever. It's definitely on a shelf in my brain for use in day-to-day conversations, just in case I need it.
Patrick Swayze, LOL.
Anti - I think its been made pretty clear that the Government does COUNT those that are NOT receiving unemployment benefits. This is simply a fact that you are choosing to ignore. You don't have to imagine anything. I don't want to waste too much time here because you seem to be the type of person that only hear what they want to hear.
The US Department of Labor (DOL) and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are more transparent than you may think. The information is all there for you to see. You can even read an article published by the BLS in conjunction with US DOL questioning whether or not one should rely solely on the official unemployment rate. That is why they publish 6 different kinds of unemployment statistics, only one of which (U-3) you seem to be questioning (which you are not even accurate on)
Link
There is no disagreement whether our economy is good or bad right now, but that doesn't mean you have to spread irrational fear. Jeez, if you're going to be fear-mongering, at least do it right.
The BLS might be transparent but their methods of sampling do have a margin of error and have been tweaked over the years to the liking of politicians.
Aqua - Are you proposing that statistics based on a representative sampling of a portion of the 300,000,000 population of the US should be free of margin of error? And are you implying that said statistical margin of error will have some sort of self-serving purpose?
I think we're all adult enough to know that politicians will have a hand in statistics published by the government, but politicians had a hand in the parameters that define those statistics in the first place, so whats new? I'm not so sure its possible to come up with some kind of unbiased, objective, neutral and universal definition of what being unemployed is that will not change over time. With the system we have in place, aren't we are choosing the people best suited (or least bad) to make such choices? And how are we so sure, there is no motivation to have what they think will be the most accurate statistics? If I were a proper villain, I'd want to have the most accurate information I can get my hands on before I do my evil deeds.
I'm not so sure its all manipulation by the politicians with some kind of ill-will or self serving purposes; some manipulation will be based on what THEY think is more accurate (or more repesentative of their constituents), or more feasible within the context. My guess is, sometimes you'll be part of those constituents and sometimes you won't be.
Slart, your efforts here are above and beyond and very much appreciated!
Slart, I am on your side but I would still like to point out... receiving benefits or not... once your "unemployment" expires, you're not part of the figure.
The difference here is that there are plenty of "non-working" individuals that are "actively" looking for work. There are lots of senior citizens and college students who "need or want" jobs but cannot get them.
The problem with this is that it really distorts the actuality of an area... ie, number of jobs vs. unemployed vs. non-working.
Other countries do calculate non-working individuals into their employment figures or they have longer windows for what is considered employed versus unemployed.
There's about a 150 million people in the US who are "able to work." At nearly 10% unemployment, that's 14.5 million people out of work. If we were to consider everyone they don't count who still wants or needs a job, that figure gets much starker.
I believe we have members on our board-- like strawbeary, tumbleweed and others-- who are about to fall out of unemployment figures. They will not be counted and their need for a job will be axed. Meaning the target for job creation will drop and everyone who turns this economy around will pat themselves on the back because they met figures that were wrong.
While there are plenty of people who are "non-working" and chose to be, efforts in job creation and economic development should aim to allow those people to work if they want too. Distorted figures just hide the fact that if people all the sudden desperately have to work, there will be no jobs for them to work because the economy hadn't anticipate them on working.
This is the issue with the job figures. We're not looking at the total amount of people who need or want jobs. We've stopped counting a lot of people. We've told people who have not worked for more than 6 months we don't care about you. We're not counting people under the age of 18. We're not counting various other people for other reasons.
We're also not counting a one-job-one-person figure since it is employers who are responsible for reporting employment figures. And thats the other issue is that unemployment counts jobs, not individuals. I cannot tell you how many people work 2 or 3 or 4 jobs. To the DOL, one person working four jobs is four people.
So, without being honest, we're not necessarily creating any data that can help us to rectify problems. We're just obscuring data to make ourselves feel better.
The unemployment (not jobless rate) for people 16-19 for this month was 23.8 percent.
They have data for men/women 20 and over (with no education statistics) and they have data for men/women 25 and over (with education breakdowns)... but I wished they had a graph for men/women 18-25 or 18-30 (with education breakdowns).
But a lesser point here is that young people are getting beyond screwed and if they don't have a smooth transition into the workforce soon... you can screw most government programs and the economy right now.
Wait, the unemployment rate for people 20-24 is 15.4 percent.
With another 4,776,000 million considered not in the labor force or roughly 3 percent.
So, 18.5% of people 20-24 are not currently working. One-in-five. That's pretty startling.
Wait, I did those last figures wrong... it's even higher!
It's 37.7 for ages 20-24 with and 27.3 for ages 25-30. That's total unemployment, not "consider part of the workforce" and so on.
This is "civilian" figures... so we must exclude all those in prison, in institutions, in the military and disabled.
Overall, we have 8,448,000 people 20-30 who are not counted as "part of the workforce."
I tried to spend more time in other threads, but this thread is still getting to me.
Direct Quote:
"People are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following
criteria: They had no employment during the reference week; they were available for work at that time; and they made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons laid off from a job and expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed. The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits."
Orochi, I'm not sure what you mean by when "unemployment expires" if you're not referring to benefits. As long as they are looking, to the best of my knowledge they still count. And even when they stopped looking altogether, they go to a different category (underutilized / discouraged) that is also published for everyone to see - which by the way was the 18.2% figure that has been referenced earlier.
Again, no one is denying that it is bad out there for everyone, and that our field has been hit especially hard. I've seen it first hand and many other stories second-hand. I feel for all those that are struggling right now. But we don't need to think that these figures are distorted with ignorance or intentional malice. Its just as misleading and distorted to think as such, I believe. To give context, I'm a firm believer in being able to question authority/government, but only if I see a true flaw based on reasoning and my fullest understanding.
And lets also point out that people become "discouraged" once they believe there is no job available for them. Sort of like if they read too many articles with mis-leading titles such as "Panic: Unemployment rate already at 20%!!"
Yeah but the figures I pulled up for young generations come from the DOL themselves about total joblessness and non-working individuals.
An entire generation is facing this "It's 37.7 for ages 20-24 with and 27.3 for ages 25-30. That's total unemployment, not "consider part of the workforce" and so on."
37.7% is quite a chunk of people.
Six months is the expiration from when you for from "looking" to "not in the labor force."
I don't qualify for a lot of things because I have been continuously unemployed for a year and not working for an additional year. You're also not technically employed if you hold a job for less than 90 days... meaning you're perpetually considered unemployed or underemployed.
There are a lot of people out there who are looking for work but have crossed the six month line.
With so many young people out of work and out of the workforce, it's going to be a hard generational transition if your workforce has become to incapacitated by poverty to move, apply for credit, by things, acculimationg of civil lawsuits for failure to pay et cetera.
By not acknowledging that young people are especially suffering right now, we're running the risk of being unable to repay most of the governmental and private debts we've accumulated over the last 20 years.
<anecdotal evidence>I know about a dozen who are in my same exact shoes. There's no jobs locally. We don't have the money to work a dead end job because those jobs after everything is said and done are income neutral. We don't have money to move. People are not hiring us because our credit is terrible. We're not in ivy league debt but the bill collectors are moving towards litigation.
If we don't get a job within the next six months, most of us will either be in a state of homelessness, forced into an abusive situation or forced into illegal income.</anecdotal evidence>
it is important to do objective research and to realize lots of people are about to run out of unemployment insurance(me included) and those people will be harder as time goes on to count
somebody in my state that works for employment offices for the gov me told me 1 in 10 people are working, of course that included total population
One more round...
Orochi - Can you clarify your comment - "Six months is the expiration from when you for from "looking" to "not in the labor force."
Can you back that up? I'm not saying you're wrong, I would like to know if this is true, because everything I read says otherwise.
I think your numbers and line of reasoning are even more misleading. There is a reason why the "unemployed" is defined a certain way. You have to compare apples to apples. For example, please note that in July 2008 technically 33.93% of the entire civilian noninstitutional population were not in the labor force (technically jobless or "unemployed" by your definition of unemployed), and there were 5.8% unemployed.
In July 2009 34.49% of the total civilian noninstitutional population were not in the labor force, and 9.4% were unemployed. The government's definition of "unemployment" actually changed more drastically than your definition of "unemployment" or joblessness. As long as you're not comparing the 5.8% to 34.49%...
But again, we've been hit particularly hard and our numbers are probably more drastic, especially considering the fact that the % of those unemployed currently with at least a bachelor's degree is still much lower than the national average. But this doesn't change the fact that fear and spreading fear does nothing but hamper growth. Knowing what is really going on is beneficial to taking appropriate steps, but not distorted information and false logic.
There's different alternatives and methods to calculating unemployment, those marginally unattached to unemployment and those completely not employed.
Depending on how you look at it, there's several definitions 15-week, 6-month and 12-month definitions to those marginally attached to unemployment and those who are "discouraged workers."
Aside from people who visit labor offices, the DOL relies on surveys and employer statistics to derive employment figures. I don't know about you but I've never been asked to take a survey for the DOL.
So, I have no idea where, when or how they survey people to find their employment status.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=8770
This is a good paper that documents what is called "long-term unemployment."
Since these people can apparently live long enough bring unemployed for six months or longer and the department of labor does not ask them every week if they have applied for a job... they are deemed marginal workers and taken off the labor force figures or categorized as "discouraged workers."
So, yes, once you fall into long-term unemployment... you fall off the radar. There's a 15-week, 6-month, 27-week and 12-month cutoff point for different calculations in determining marginal workers.
I don't count as being unemployed in the Department of Labor statistics because they've never asked me.
I should really stop... I know better than to keep doing this...
Look. I cited that myself before. <http://www.bls.gov/opub/ils/pdf/opbils67.pdf> I've read it. Nowhere does it mention that once you are unemployed for too long, you fall off the map. Thats just not how this works from what I read.
As for "So, I have no idea where, when or how they survey people to find their employment status" and "I don't count as being unemployed in the Department of Labor statistics because they've never asked me"...
Until it becomes to feasible to RELIABLY survey everyone in the country and RELIABLY collect that data in a timely manner (which you would think would be possible these days), they're going to have to stick to sampling. And then there is always the question of whether or not that would really be desirable to have that kind of database and if we'll be able to afford such a system.
The BLS and DOL are transparent about the margin of error and mention the confidence level and margin of sampling and non-sampling error (which is + or - meaning the statistical anomaly won't somehow always be plotting some conspiracy against us)
You see, what I'm trying to say is that - Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I don't think any one of us need the kind of uncertainty that is brought on by false information, doom & gloom op-eds, or shock value articles (with not one but two excalamation marks and the word PANIC in the heading). Don't panic. Maybe if they had a good point and they could predict the future with 100% certainty...
But see my point is their sampling is flawed and their sampling methodology is whicky-whicky-whack.
The only generally come into contact with people who are on unemployment or working with unemployment offices.
I'd like to see the construction of their surveys, who they survey and where. I know from a legal standpoint, it is hard to survey apartment complexes that sort their own mail because there isn't a USPS to USPS approved mail transaction. What about illegal housing situations when there is multiple people living within the same dwelling? Or what about private controlled phone systems (cellphones) that don't allow for surveying and sampling?
Once unemployment ends and or a person stops using an employment office, the DOL doesn't particularly have any way of verifying whether you are working, looking for work, long-term unemployed or have "fallen out of the workforce." This is especially problematic in states that have privatized employment offices.
So, unless an unemployed person uses a government or government-like service... it is hard to count or find them.
I'm not necessarily trying to be an a-hole here but for key segments of the population, the labor market has not looked good at all. In fact, many of the things I'm bringing up have been issues with these segments for a while. If we look towards Italy or France, we have the problem with "mammoni."
A combination of stagnation, high rents and well... wealthy parents... are not causing people to get jobs, move out or grow up on their own. Something that architects and planners should care about since it seriously hampers the housing cycle.
The only thing that's I'm really saying is that the market has been awful for a while for people of certain ages and now it's becoming worse because the flow of money is starting to dry up to America's children and grandparents.
when i read what you 2 have last said what i think is well, maybe don't they know your SS number and have your tax records?
of course there all kinds of pitfalls and every situation for each individual is unique.
Orochi - Actually, that wasn't your point at all. To summarise, your point was that you believed once someone is on unemployment for 6 months (or other arbitrary figure) they don't count as being unemployed. And that the 9.4% unemployment was optimistic because of it. I've been saying that, that doesn't seem to be the way it works from all the resources that I've seen or even the ones you post. And your response to that is convoluted and hazy.
Now you're arguing the process of sampling in statistics and saying that methodology is "whicky whicky whack." Sampling is done quite often, not only by the government. The process for finding out the % of unemployed has been going on since 1940, and that formula and methodology has been refined over the past ~70 years by people much smarter than you and me.
This doesn't automatically mean its a perfect system, but as I've said before, as long as it remains relatively transparent and consistent, it is a good indicator as a point of reference. I don't see how it will be inherently optimistic just for this recession, as some of you make it sound. The unemployed indicator has been through many recessions, although not all bad as this one. Even if its skewed optimistic, again, as long as it is consistent it really doesn't mean anything because percentages by themselves don't mean anything unless compared to other indicators. It might be "optimistic" compared to our specific field, but again, we're looking at the big picture - apples to apples.
No offence but honestly, I feel like I'm feeding trolls here.
amen ! let's move on.
Many states treat active job search as one indication of availability for work, and all states require registration at local employment offices as one indication of such activity. In some cases, people must provide evidence of contact with potential employers to show they have been looking for work. States also vary in whether they require workers in training or education programs to seek work actively (Anderson, 1997).
Under federal law, states cannot deny benefits to someone enrolled in an “approved” training course, but state-level rules often distinguish between “training” and “education” courses. As a consequence, many students cannot collect benefits, although their courses may be job-related. Similarly, some states require that workers who are pursuing self-employment opportunities search for jobs, even though doing so might impair their success at self-employment. Workers seeking part-time work do not necessarily meet states’ availability tests.
Some states consider the refusal of a full-time job as disqualifying in all cases; others allow a refusal if the worker had usually worked part-time.
Finally, the connection between continuing eligibility requirements and the unemployment insurance “profiling system” should be mentioned. Every state is required to set up a Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services System, under which workers who are predicted (usually through a statistical model) to be likely to exhaust their benefits must participate in enhanced reemployment services as a condition of continuing eligibility."
Unemployment Insurance: Strengthening the Relationship between Theory and Policy. Walter Nicholson and Karen Needels. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 2006), pp. 47-70
To calculate this, we added "discouraged workers," "marginally attached" workers, and part-timers for "economic reasons" (three official government categories), plus estimates of "early retirement" and the disabled population in the United States that could work following McKinsey's methodology, plus a reasonable estimate of the share of the U.S. workforce that are in moderately subsidized jobs (through the Earned Income Tax Credit)."
The resulting "de-facto" unemployment rate in the United States is 13.8 percent, compared to a 5.5 percent official U.S. unemployment rate, and an estimated 15.5 percent "de-facto" Swedish unemployment rate.
...
If the McKinsey numbers are evidence that the Swedish economy needs significant reform and restructuring, then these figures for the United States also suggest an urgent need for reform and restructuring here.
Is the unemployment rate in Sweden really 17 percent?. J Schmitt. International Journal of Health Services, 2008 - Baywood
The labor force participation rate is also important for assessing the extent of slack in the labor market. The unemployment rate alone, without understanding participation behavior, has become a less reliable indicator of labor market conditions.
For example, the labor force participation rate fell nearly a percentage point from the end of the 2001 recession to 2005. This decline in the labor force participation rate may help to explain why the unemployment rate remained relatively low—5.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005—despite lackluster job creation during the years after the 2001 recession.
...
The labor force participation rate is estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the responses in the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS collects information from respondents each month, and in March additional information is collected on employment and earnings during the previous year. In 2005, the CPS included about 60,000 households. The estimation of the labor force participation rate from the sample is made more precise by using population information on the size of different groups (including information on six age and gender groups and on racial and ethnic groups by state) in combination with information from the previous month.
...
The combination of slow employment growth and a low unemployment rate has led researchers and policymakers to consider changes in labor market participation as a possible explanation.
Changes in Labor Force Participation in the United States. Chinhui Juhn and Simon Potter. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 2006, pp. 27–46.
The concept of unemployment is something everyone seems to understand. Yet its measurement is not straightforward and rests on a number of arbitrary choices. The labour force statistics divide the adult population into three, mutually exclusive groups: the employed, the unemployed and the inactive, i.e. people out of the labour force. The employed comprise all persons who during a reference period were in paid employment (including family workers). The unemployed comprise those persons who were without work and immediately available to start work during the same period and who had actively looked for a job at some time during the preceding four weeks. People neither employed nor unemployed are considered inactive and are excluded from the labour force.
...
We calculate that, on average, in European countries about a fifth of all people who declared they were seeking work in the 1990s were left out of the labour force on the basis of the four-week requirement. The sheer size of this group–henceforth labelled “potential labour force”, or simply “potentials”–calls for a scrutiny of the four-week criterion. Interestingly, while it is recognised that this requirement may significantly affect the level of measured unemployment, there are no cogent reasons to choose four weeks as opposed to any other period.
...
Letting the boundary between unemployment and potential labour force be determined by the data, rather than by the arbitrary four-week criterion, would raise the Italian unemployment rate in 2000 from 11 to 13 per cent.
...
But the U.S. unemployment insurance system is beginning to show its age, and new thinking may be warranted. To us, perhaps the most productive area for this thinking is in reevaluating certain “one size fits all” aspects of the system. Today, essentially the same unemployment insurance benefits are available to all workers who lose a job in a state, and during recessions, almost all workers within a state qualify for the same extended benefits package. Such universality can conflict both with theoretical considerations of optimal wage loss insurance and with emerging empirical evidence about worker and firm heterogeneity.
Does The Ilo Definition Capture All Unemployment?. Andrea Brandolini. Journal of the European Economic Association. Piero Cipollone, Eliana Viviano. March 2006, Vol. 4, No. 1, Pages 153-179
Hur Dur.
I was "wrong" about the six months but partially right as that was the timeframe for unemployment benefits compensation causes a relationship with labor offices to measure your progress.
In fact, the 6 months I was giving was generous .
There is no definition for what it means to "be looking for work" that's testable and quantifiable.
A drop in workforce participation can be a drop in unemployment.
Using unemployment is a bad economic indicator if you're not talking about total unemployment.
Many people (who are smarter than us) point out that our calculating methodology is heavily flawed.
The employment statistic sampling is rather small for what it aims to achieve outside of an employment office / unemployment recipient relationship.
And figures are heavily smudged in reporting employment performance statistics?
So, how many more journals do I have to read to prove my point?
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