You're right; that is an excellent and sadly accurate way to present the facts. All we need now is an honest government . . .
- Jameson
but......is the current method like the old method? isn't that the real question? If the days of 3.0% or 6.3% unemployment or whatever it was was based on the total population of the US including people in the old folks homes then it should be now so what was it before?
- c
C, excellent question. My economics teacher told us about this and stated that the first formal estimates were determined back in the 40s, and a "standard" was created in the late 60s.
I know that during Ford's term, the standard was CHANGED to include everyone who was basically unemployed. (The guy working at Home Depot obviously still wouldn't be counted).
In 1994, the estimation again changed, but to revert back to what it was BEFORE Ford's update (to not include several groups). So... unless I'm missing another change, the unemployement rate "standard" has been the same since late 1994.
- Todd
helpful answer, Todd. Doesn't that then mean that criticizing the way 10% was calculated is a bit disengenuous? But, I do agree, what we really want to know is perhaps what percentage of the population that made a living wage before this current financial crisis are now not making a living wage.
- c
Disengenuous in what way? That by citing 17.2% is a play for Republicans to prepare for the next election? Or to show that the trillions in bailout money hasn't done anything and that we should stop printing and spending money?
I think both of those answers are correct.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it. However, there is a reason WHY the government "re-works" statistics. When you show lower unemployment, it tells people the economy is doing well. Now, whether they think that's going to help continue to improve the economy, or whether that's just to make the current term president LOOK good is another story.
During Bush's term, we used the same standard, as we did through most of Clinton's term. We didn't really experience very much unemployment during Bush's term though... not like this. The unemployment rate continued to go up more so because many companies simply were on hiring freeze. I read an article a while back that showed most of the unemployment were new college students who couldn't get jobs.
The REAL number is actually quite a bit worse now than it was before. Although you would never believe this without actually doing the research, every year, we have LESS and LESS "organized labor". I'm going to pull these stats out of my head, but I seem to recall reading that in the 50s and 60s... nearly 37% of our labor force was unionized (in part because we had more manufacturing jobs too). Now, that figure is less than 12%. It continues to go down for THREE reasons:
We have less manufacturing in the US
Companies are trying to eliminate organized labor because it hurts business.
Fewer new companies are unionizing becuase most people don't want it (since they know where it eventually will lead them)
These are statistics that organized labor don't want the general public to know. It goes well beyond just the increased lack of manufacturing jobs... it has more to do with people just getting fed up with unions.
Anyway, the point... a lot of this 17.2% unemployment that you're not seeing is unionized labor that's unemployed (which isn't getting counted). Just take a look at Detroit. No one is producing cars in detroit anymore... a lot of manufacturing that did exist has moved to Mexico. Toyota has eliminated all factories in unionized states, and Ford is in the process of moving every manufacturing line it has to Northern Mexico except the F-150 pickup.
- Todd
gotta admit; you kinda lost me; I think we shoud cmpare apples to apples and 10% is pretty bad
- c
Basically these two points:
Showing the larger number or the shorter number can be used depending on the intent. Larger number looks worse for president, better for Republicans (IE: policies aren't working). Smaller number looks better for president, worse for Republicans (IE: Policies are working).
Second point, members of a union are typically NOT included in unemployment figures. By percentage, there are significantly more "unemployed" union workers under this administration than there were under Bush's administration. That makes the "real" number look worse than it would have under Bush's term.
See below:
Year
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Annual
1999
4.3
4.4
4.2
4.3
4.2
4.3
4.3
4.2
4.2
4.1
4.1
4.0
2000
4.0
4.1
4.0
3.8
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.1
3.9
3.9
3.9
3.9
2001
4.2
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.3
4.5
4.6
4.9
5.0
5.3
5.5
5.7
2002
5.7
5.7
5.7
5.9
5.8
5.8
5.8
5.7
5.7
5.7
5.9
6.0
2003
5.8
5.9
5.9
6.0
6.1
6.3
6.2
6.1
6.1
6.0
5.8
5.7
2004
5.7
5.6
5.8
5.6
5.6
5.6
5.5
5.4
5.4
5.5
5.4
5.4
2005
5.2
5.4
5.2
5.2
5.1
5.1
5.0
4.9
5.0
5.0
5.0
4.8
2006
4.7
4.8
4.7
4.7
4.7
4.6
4.7
4.7
4.5
4.4
4.5
4.4
2007
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.5
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.7
4.7
4.8
4.7
4.9
2008
4.9
4.8
5.1
5.0
5.5
5.6
5.8
6.2
6.2
6.6
6.8
7.2
2009
7.6
8.1
8.5
8.9
9.4
9.5
9.4
9.7
9.8
10.2
10.0
- Todd
Note, these statistics are from the Department of Labor:
that means you'd have to due an exhaustive study of the history of joblessness in the US assuming there have been other vagaries through the decades; apples to apples and 10% is bad; but I do appreciate the esoterics of it all
I think the only way to get to an apples to apples comparison is to compare it like this:
total pop. - total non workers
______________________
total population (subscript before)
TO:
total pop. - total non workers
______________________
total population (subscript after)
- c
Well, you could, but what would it be that you were trying to prove? Most of us realize that the job losses are NOT exclusively the fault of Obama. And, most of us realize that we are in a much worse situation today than we were in the 9/11 recession, the Tech Boom recession, and the lesser recession near the end of Bush Sr.'s term.
What Republicans hope to gain from this of course it to show the seriousness and magnitude of the actual jobs lost. They hope (presumably) to show the public that it's much worse and that:
Obama's anti-corporate tax policies are not working.
Obama's massive bailout ideology are also not working.
*Note I added the charts to the actual post since they certainly apply.
- Todd
I typo'd those two ratios btw
I agree that that's what the GOP wants. The charts do show a valid comparison and don't bring in the 17%. My point about the GOP is that they aren't adjusting the entering datapoint like they want to adjust the present datapoint which unadjusted is 10.
Another point is that if the trend is down as it is now though precariously, then Dems are in good shape.
- c
Well, no, I think you would find that it would still show somewhat worse. As I said there are more lost union jobs this time around than before.
Bacus doesn't really count, unless he's lying. His relationship was after they had already divorced, so we have to take him at his word. That said, it still could be a scandal. I had thought about creating the scandal list, but it would have been soo massive, I decided to just narrow it down to sexual misconduct.
- Todd
good call I guess. I got a headache when I tried to decipher it
- c
Foxnews 1/8 wording makes sense. They name it and put it in perspective:
When discouraged workers and part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs are included, the so-called "underemployment" rate in December rose to 17.3 percent, from 17.2 percent in October. That's just below a revised figure of 17.4 percent in October, the highest on records dating from 1994.
- c
Todd, Rush says they cooked the numbers to get this January's 9.7 unemployment rate. Can you verify? What is it really?
- c
I'm not sure I understand it completely... but I'm happy with WHATEVER needs to be done to keep the rate below double digits. It sounds to me like the White House is saying that while unemployement did continue to increase, the work force also increased and more jobs were technically created. Basically, the difference between the numbers lost and the numbers gained vs the total number of workers. (or something to that effect). I'll look into it...
- Todd
That might me the best post ever. Thanks.
- c
Update 3/6/2010: Unemployment rate (adjusted percentage) is now at 9.7% according to the US Department of Labor:
