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Real unemployment is masked by erroneous data many people on non livible income at a few hours a week. I believe unemployment is 30%. Or higher part time employees are living in their parents basement. Ma! how about pizza!!!! Burp!
As I am not a saucer-person, I believe that unemployment was unchanged in July at 5.3% and the LFPR (as if that mattered) at 62.6%. 215,000 new payroll jobs reported in the month.
Real unemployment is masked by erroneous data many people on non livible income at a few hours a week. I believe unemployment is 30%. Or higher part time employees are living in their parents basement. Ma! how about pizza!!!! Burp!
The U-6 unemployment rate is about 10%. This includes people are underemployed and have dropped out of the job market but may be open to looking again and those working part time and want a full time job. While this is higher than the typical 8% of the late 1990s and the 2005-2007 economic boom, it is still lower than the 17% U-6 rate of the 2009-2011 recession
The U-6 unemployment rate is about 10%. This includes people are underemployed and have dropped out of the job market but may be open to looking again and those working part time and want a full time job. While this is higher than the typical 8% of the late 1990s and the 2005-2007 economic boom, it is still lower than the 17% U-6 rate of the 2009-2011 recession
Damn facts and figures ruining somebodies gut feeling.
Jk/
The 10% is accurate, but one also must realize there are numerous tabs to unemployment and geographic variation. Those who have a bachelors or higher are enjoying close to full employment 2.5%, and a high participation rate, while those with less than a high school education have both a low participation rate and high unemployment.
The point being is the economy is not the same for everybody, in every area of the country. If you are in a place like Seattle where 60% has a college education, the unemployment rate is low, but largely because of the high concentration of high skilled workers.
The problem with the press is it does not do this type of granular analysis that those who are professional economists and policy analysts do. They basically take top line numbers. The problem is not the BLS numbers, it is how they are communicated to the masses through the press. I will be honest, the press themselves really lacks an understanding of this to properly communicate it, and most people would be left a little confused.
So how is the labor market? The answer should always be, it depends on who you are, where you are, and what your skill and education level is.
Damn facts and figures ruining somebodies gut feeling.
Jk/
The 10% is accurate, but one also must realize there are numerous tabs to unemployment and geographic variation. Those who have a bachelors or higher are enjoying close to full employment 2.5%, and a high participation rate, while those with less than a high school education have both a low participation rate and high unemployment.
The point being is the economy is not the same for everybody, in every area of the country. If you are in a place like Seattle where 60% has a college education, the unemployment rate is low, but largely because of the high concentration of high skilled workers.
The problem with the press is it does not do this type of granular analysis that those who are professional economists and policy analysts do. They basically take top line numbers. The problem is not the BLS numbers, it is how they are communicated to the masses through the press. I will be honest, the press themselves really lacks an understanding of this to properly communicate it, and most people would be left a little confused.
So how is the labor market? The answer should always be, it depends on who you are, where you are, and what your skill and education level is.
People with 21st century job skills are doing fine. As we see ever-increasing global competition and automation, the gap between those people and everybody else will continue to grow. To get trained in those skills, you need to have lucked out in the genetic lottery and been born with above-average intelligence. You also probably needed to luck out and have engaged parents and been brought up somewhere that didn't have a failed school system. Maybe 1/3 of the US population is in that bucket. Some other less bright and less educated people can work hard and make some sound life decisions and do fine. That might round it up to 50% of the population. The other half now has a huge problem and it's only going to get worse. I don't see any fix to the problem. Flinging money at education can't make stupid people smart. It can't make lazy people work harder. It has never helped people living in places with failed school systems very much. It creates an enormous social policy problem in a society that is increasingly stratified between those with the skills and those without.
If the powers that be wanted to fix it, it would be super easy to fix. After all the problem is that productivity and automation will soon make a large portion of society functionally unemployable. But that also means higher aggregate wealth. There is just a distribution problem.
Something like a UBI would work nicely. Get people out of the habit of being dependent on a job.
If the powers that be wanted to fix it, it would be super easy to fix. After all the problem is that productivity and automation will soon make a large portion of society functionally unemployable. But that also means higher aggregate wealth. There is just a distribution problem.
Something like a UBI would work nicely. Get people out of the habit of being dependent on a job.
As soon as you pay people to not work, you create a permanent underclass. There is no reason to value an education or work ethic so people brought up in that environment don't impart a value system for success to their children. That is what LBJ's "Great Society" program has achieved over the last 50 years. If you expand the program, you increase the diameter of the problem.
I think that as automation and global competition continue to fuel wealth & income stratification, the US will drift towards more of a European-style Social Democracy. The programs will aid the working class, not the non-working class. Single payer health care. Childcare. A lengthened school year and lengthened school day. Public transportation infrastructure. Programs to create inexpensive housing units. Boosting the minimum wage. Job skills-oriented free or very cheap continuing education. I don't ever foresee a time where people get handed the equivalent of a median household income lifestyle for not working. It would create an enormous social problem of an enormous permanent underclass. There will always be poverty-induced incentives to get a job.
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