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Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

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11–20 of 149 posts

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#12
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

No. They are designed to reflect the job market. People not actively seeking work don't affect the supply of workers. There are separate statistics about participation.

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#13
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

From the article, "Only 78.6 percent of people age 25-54 are employed" yet we say unemployment is at 4.4. It very much smells like unemployment, as we count it, is a bad metric and that explains what looks like a paradox in economic principles.

Well the issue is that there isn't one metric.

There's unemployed and seeking work, unemployed and not seeking work, under-employed, and so on

Not to mention the composite figures derived from these.

Employment Reports list all of these, it's just people want to consume short sound bites, not complex social and statistical topics.

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#14
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

Note: the government publishes several unemployment numbers, U3 is the commonly reported one (which is dumb) but there are wider metrics, for example you may prefer U5 or U6.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#15
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

The statistic is not meant to be a trick and the BLS discloses exactly how the number is computed:

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

It's still a useful number for comparing unemployment over time as long as the rules for how it's computed don't change.

Also:

Some have argued, however, that these unemployment measures are too restricted, and that they do not adequately capture the breadth of labor market problems. For this reason, economists at BLS developed a set of alternative measures of labor underutilization. These measures, expressed as percentages, are published every month in The Employment Situation news release.

https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#def

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#16
post #2

Does this factor in total compensation? Labor has been getting more expensive over time due to mandates and regulations. Additional benefits must be paid regardless of the employee's wishes, and some would probably prefer extra cash to that additional mandated perk.

Of course, what people prefer in the short term and what is actually good for society as a whole are sometimes different things.

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#17
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

Yeah, I hate how the unemployment number is always so lazily used by media outlets. In contrast the employment rate (60.2%) is currently lower than it was from 1986 until 2008.

Let me see if I can spice this up -

"Look, here in America, there are plenty of people that have jobs, some people even have two or even three jobs! Now that's some great employment."

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#18
post #15
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

The statistic is not meant to be a trick and the BLS discloses exactly how the number is computed: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm It's still a useful number for comparing unemployment over time as long as the rules for how it's computed don't change. Also: Some have argued, however, that these unemployment measures are too restricted, and that they do not adequately capture the breadth of labor market problems.…

Not really because you can have constant unemployment as the situation becomes worse. Or a rise in unemployment while the situation improves.

At best it allows you to compare snapshots in identical situations over very short time periods assuming nothing significant is going on.

Re: Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

#20
post #5

The rules regarding unemployment statistics are entirely designed to be favorable. Citizens who are unemployed for greater than X months (where X is a figure I don't currently recall) stop being considered unemployed for the sake of this stat. Likewise, homeless populations are not counted. Not everyone who is homeless is necessarily unemployed, I guess, but it's patently ridiculous not to include any homeless in une…

Yeah, I hate how the unemployment number is always so lazily used by media outlets. In contrast the employment rate (60.2%) is currently lower than it was from 1986 until 2008.

But you need to control for factors such as the age distribution of the population. Now that baby boomer's (a much higher percent of total population than one would expect) are retired, you wouldn't expect them to have a job, so why count them as unemployed?
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