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U6 unemployment is at near 10% and is double the U3 rate. In a healthy economy it should only be about 80% higher, now 100%.
Interestingly, the history of U-6 goes back only to 1994. This is because it is not an unemployment rate at all, but rather one of multiple "alternate measures of labor under-utilization" that were first produced and published at that time at the urging of labor scholars. The real unemployment rate (U-3) of course goes back much, much further.
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Originally Posted by Happiness-is-close
And that rate has been stagnant now for a whole year, despite corrupt Yellen's call for no interest rate increases and a "high-pressure" economy.
U-3 has been flat at about 5.0% for a year as well. Increases in interest rates would of course send things in quite the wrong direction.
Perhaps only because conditions had not previously been made right for it. It isn't difficult to find examples before or since those mid-century decades of what befalls the common man in the absence of a meaningful voice in things for labor.
I don't know what any of that would mean. To my mind, there is no real reason why a different division of the fruits of American energies could not be accomplished.
Jackson sent warships against South Carolina long before Lincoln did. And he walked out on his own Vice President over a toast that had seemed to put freedom ahead of union, and states ahead of the federal government.
As for the 50's, they are often remembered in terms far more rosy than warranted. They were actually a cold, dark, and depressingly gray decade. The coming of JFK was much like the lights suddenly popping back on after a power failure.
People who tout the 50s haven't looked at history I think. The 50s had recessions and expansions all over the place.
It was the 60s that our economy expanded huge for almost the whole decade. The 60s and the 90s were the glory decades for America. The 80s and our current decade are kind of similar with some states booming and others struggling hard.
Interestingly, the history of U-6 goes back only to 1994. This is because it is not an unemployment rate at all, but rather one of multiple "alternate measures of labor under-utilization" that were first produced and published at that time at the urging of labor scholars. The real unemployment rate (U-3) of course goes back much, much further.
U-3 has been flat at about 5.0% for a year as well. Increases in interest rates would of course send things in quite the wrong direction.
U6 is the real rate. The most comprehensive measure of our nations employment picture.
U-3 only goes back to the late 1940s. That's how we know the 1930s 25%!!!!! Unemployment rate is all Hogwash. Nothing was even calculated back then. All retrospective fabrication.
People who tout the 50s haven't looked at history I think. The 50s had recessions and expansions all over the place.
Well, I lived through them, which is why I posted as I did. Three recessions, the Korean War, the Red Scare, Jim Crow, and Russia beat us into space making us look and feel like a second-rate power.
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Originally Posted by Happiness-is-close
It was the 60s that our economy expanded huge for almost the whole decade.
And society was brutally divided by war and racism, assassinations, and rioting. You can't see it all in the GDP.
Well, I lived through them, which is why I posted as I did. Three recessions, the Korean War, the Red Scare, Jim Crow, and Russia beat us into space making us look and feel like a second-rate power.
And society was brutally divided by war and racism, assassinations, and rioting. You can't see it all in the GDP.
But unemployment in the 1960s was looooowww. We may never again see such rates of unemployment.
The dirty little secret is that we've been working our way through a depression since 2008. A recession is basically a price adjustment. A depression is a balance sheet adjustment. We've been slowly moving toxic debt out of the system which is why we are still not growing the way we did in the heady days of the 90s or the early part of the last decade.
The problem is that places such as EU and China are much more reluctant to do what even the United States has. To me, China is the biggest problem of all. They just keep piling bad debt onto bad debt.
U6 is the real rate. The most comprehensive measure of our nations employment picture.
No, U-3 is the unemployment rate. U-6 includes all sorts of people who (like me) may not be working, but are not unemployed.
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Originally Posted by Happiness-is-close
U-3 only goes back to the late 1940s.
To 1948 on the BLS website, but the survey-based series extends to 1940. Best estimates of the unemployment rate meanwhile go back to 1800. The earliest were based on decennial census data with proxies used to estimate intra-decade developments.
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Originally Posted by Happiness-is-close
That's how we know the 1930s 25%!!!!! Unemployment rate is all Hogwash. Nothing was even calculated back then. All retrospective fabrication.
Hmmm. Modern analyses of Depression era data applying corrections to more closely represent what we know as U-3 today reveal that the numbers of the time were at worst pretty darned close.
But unemployment in the 1960s was looooowww. We may never again see such rates of unemployment.
I take it you base the claim on U-3 data? And rates for the first half of the decade were actually higher than they are today. Then we began inducting 235,000 young people per year to "fight" the war in Vietnam.
A recession is basically a price adjustment. A depression is a balance sheet adjustment.
The standard (NBER) definition of a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. There is no standard definition for what a depression is, except for rather broad agreement that depressions are much more severe and likely longer-lasting than recessions.
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Originally Posted by cpg35223
We've been slowly moving toxic debt out of the system which is why we are still not growing the way we did in the heady days of the 90s or the early part of the last decade.
Most of that "toxic debt" was moved to the Fed which has been making big fact profits off it for a number of years now.
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Originally Posted by cpg35223
The problem is that places such as EU and China are much more reluctant to do what even the United States has. To me, China is the biggest problem of all. They just keep piling bad debt onto bad debt.
The EU had put itself out on a limb with its rapid eastward expansion. Then they tragically fell for austerity as an answer to the Great Recession. They will be paying for that mistake for a long time. China was able to grow at gang-buster rates for many years. More recently, reality has begun to catch up with them. For a country like the US that is heavily involved in international trade, having a damaged region to the east and another to the west is not good news.
...The EU had put itself out on a limb with its rapid eastward expansion. Then they tragically fell for austerity as an answer to the Great Recession. They will be paying for that mistake for a long time.
Good point. There's a time to get into debt, and a time to retire debt. The EU basically got it backwards. For US-based investors, the additional insult was the relentless decline of the Euro, with respect to the US Dollar. And atop of the EU's poor judgment, their demographic outlook is abysmal. Of course, ours can become nearly as parlous, if we fall into the "immigration is bad" mindset.
I don't believe that the US economy is presently "bad", but I agree with CPG, that indeed it's fragile. Sustained growth depends on vigorous public-private partnership. Businesses are allowed to thrive, and public policy ought to provide an environment in which such thriving is facilitated. Dumb policy decisions - fiscal or monetary - can easily knock us off course.
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