The Real Unemployment Numbers?
[Guest post by DRJ]
American unemployed and underemployed may be larger than official announcements indicate [charts omitted, but see them at the “fixed” link]:
“Durden believes that the BLS has biased the data to skew the unemployment numbers — and using the real population data, unemployment (U-3) is actually 12.7% (nearly 30% higher than the “official” 9.9%).
The underemployment (or U-6) rate is even more dire. It represent the “real” unemployment rate that many other countries use in their calculations. Durden states that our true unemployment measure is 22%; 34 million people who are “unemployed, marginally attached, plus total employed part time for economic reasons.
The average duration of unemployment is now a record high of 33 weeks (nearly eight months). Nearly half of the unemployed have been out of work for more than six months.
And the chart shows that this average out-of-work duration continues to skyrocket.”
Remember November, or as Doug Ross says: “It really is November or never to throw these bums out of office.”
— DRJ
“Mob never remember” is a palindrome for “Remember November”. Just thought you might like to know.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 5/16/2010 @ 11:19 pmThe link in the post goes to “Memorable quotes from Caddyshack”.
Ironically fitting, given the utter mess this administration is making, but I suspect a typo.
🙂
Arizona CJ (b016d7) — 5/16/2010 @ 11:30 pmJohn Hitchcock – a palindrome is something that looks the same going both directions (like Al Gore or Janet Napolitano) … (or an elephant) … textually, it’s like “Able were I ere I saw Elba” … or “A man, a Plan, a canal – Panama !”
“Mob never remember” is an anagram of “Remember November” …
Alasdair (205079) — 5/16/2010 @ 11:50 pmBeing a math major back in college, I get my english terms cross-matched. My mistake.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 5/17/2010 @ 12:29 amhere is the post what she is talking about
happyfeet (c8caab) — 5/17/2010 @ 12:53 amAbsolutely the most dishonest administration ever.
krusher (0846f8) — 5/17/2010 @ 3:16 amSo, what your saying is that I should expect to be out of work for six months starting Friday? I HOPE that will CHANGE. But by November I’ll have no problem remembering why I am at the ballot box.
PatriotRider (103218) — 5/17/2010 @ 9:15 amHey, I can collect unemployment for 99 weeks now. Why would I want to look for a job when I’ve only been unemployed for 6 months (24 weeks). I’ve got more than a year left until my benefits run out! /sarc
Unfortunately, I am self-employed and even though my income has been greatly reduced I am unable to fire myself and collect MY FAIR share of these government funds that are lessening the impact of the economic down turn that was substantially thwarted by the Economic Stimulas Package. (Geez, I shouldn’t have turned the sarcasm off earlier!)
cstmbuild (be02cc) — 5/17/2010 @ 10:00 amUnemployment is not high enough as long as Obama and his cronys and followers are employed by the government.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 5/17/2010 @ 10:28 amAbsolutely the most dishonest administration ever.
To be fair, at least regarding unemployment, these numbers have likely been manipulated for a while. Most of the “job gains” last month were from the birth/death model additions.
The ADP report is probably a more accurate indicator of job gains.
Another Chris (2d8013) — 5/17/2010 @ 11:26 amI’m willing to buy that U6 is the correct unemployment figure to be using. But the US has never used that figure as the primary figure in its official reports.
It’s no more dishonest for this administration to focus on U3 than it was for the last half-dozen administrations.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 5/17/2010 @ 11:47 amaphrael – I think the point was that the BLS is skewing the U3 data.
JD (6d1ee3) — 5/17/2010 @ 12:26 pmThe point seemed to be both that U3 data is being skewed and that U3 is the wrong figure to be using.
To the extent that U6 is the right figure – and I think it probably is – criticism is fair, but the current administration is at least following in the footsteps of its predecessors.
It’s not clear what the basis for the claim of skewing of the U3 data is, but if it’s the same data used to generate the charts at Director Blue, then the skewing seems to have been ongoing since at least 2000. (It looks like his figures assume a base year of 2000, meaning that while the chart can show that the skew has been ongoing since then, it can’t say anything about what happened before then).
Again: criticism is fair, but the current administration is following in the footsteps of its predecessor.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 5/17/2010 @ 1:57 pmThey’ve been making up some of these numbers for a long time, I’m sure. There’s just too many alterations after publication, and too few error bars, for me to think that the numbers are anything but GIGO.
htom (412a17) — 5/17/2010 @ 2:06 pmThanks for your patience with my messed up link, and thanks also to everyone who pointed it out and to Stashiu for fixing it.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/17/2010 @ 3:00 pmUh, the bumbs have been thrown out of office already. Just how instantaneous do you expect a miracle to be?
Larry Reilly (fadcab) — 5/17/2010 @ 4:06 pmOh, sorry. You have no sense of economic history.
So just push for full de-regulation. The oil drilling industry might be a good place to start, eh?
Larry – They let you out of the drunk tank early tonight. What’s up with that?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/17/2010 @ 4:29 pmWow. It’s Bush’s fault. Go figure.
PatriotRider (8d9a6f) — 5/17/2010 @ 5:38 pmPatriotRider – I don’t think I said that.
The charts at the linked website show a divergence between reported unemployment and unemployment normalized for population growth. That divergence begins in 2000, but that’s entirely an artefact of the graph; who knows when it really began. It certainly didn’t begin in 2009.
ISTM that what the chart shows is that the Obama administration is just continuing to treat the numbers the same way the US government has treated the numbers for years.
I don’t know if the chart is right. I don’t know if the chart is meaningful (in that I don’t understand the data well enough to know if the divergence it shows is relevant to anything). But the chart clearly does not show non-divergence before 2009 and divergence after 2009.
aphrael (73ebe9) — 5/17/2010 @ 5:44 pmLarry Reilly, your comment is incoherent and has absolutely no relation to the topic … or reality.
Ie., the usual from you.
SPQR (26be8b) — 5/17/2010 @ 6:20 pmaphrael,
The revised numbers come from Tyler Durden. As he explains here and as you state, he reindexed the unemployment numbers using 2000 levels as a baseline. This chart in particular shows the problem — that population and unemployment tracked consistently until 18 months ago. Was there a divergence in 2000? Yes, but population and unemployment still tracked upward at similar angles. However, starting 18 months ago, unemployment flat-lined while population continued to grow. That’s the problem.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/17/2010 @ 6:45 pmThese numbers are right, I do not share the suspicion of some that they are ‘manipulated’ or ‘dishonest’.
In January 1994, the calculation was changed to exclude those who had been unemployed more than 52 weeks. The reasoning was that, if one did not obtain a job in their chosen field within a year, they should take any job. My own reasoning is that is one needs a job at 52 weeks, they will need a job at 53 weeks of unemployment.
In any event, the unemployment rate is not going to change much at this point for awhile, despite overall population growth. The snake will continue to eat its tail, and those with more than 52 weeks of unemployment will no longer be counted while the overall population is counted now and forevermore.
TimesDisliker (b1f580) — 5/17/2010 @ 7:13 pmLastly, my point is that the numbers are right, so the unemployment calculation is right. It just isn’t meaningful.
TimesDisliker (b1f580) — 5/17/2010 @ 7:14 pm