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Say Hello to Full Employment

theatlantic.com

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Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#11

Post by wgerard »

ProAm wrote: post #2

The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.

> those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.

The article discusses this briefly:

> The trucking industry is instructive here: Trade groups have argued that it is facing a shortfall of 51,000 workers, yet businesses have not yet shown much willingness to cut hours, boost pay, and improve conditions to lure workers in. Indeed, across the economy, companies have shown a remarkable unwillingness to boost wages, with growth barely keeping pace with inflation even as the unemployment rate has dropped to 4 percent.

It'll be interesting to see what happens if those industries start to get really desperate for employees. My guess in some of them is a hard push for automation (esp. in trucking), but we'll see.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#12

Post by aero142 »

ProAm wrote: post #2

The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.

Stop getting your economics reports from political news sources. "They don't count people who've stopped looking" is not a meaningful statement. There are many statistics that report this. Labor force participation rate is the one I always look at next to unemployment rate and gives a better overall picture.

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

In this case, I think you make a valid point. Why is the labor force participation rate not climbing back to 2008 levels?

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#13

Post by mgkimsal »

exclusiv wrote: post #3
ProAm wrote: post #2

The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.

Agreed. Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time. Every administration is basically like "hey we're doing great - look at these unemployment numbers" and then you talk to people and they're saying the opposite. Savings is atrocious too. Some of that is people being bad with money but a lot is that the lack of wage growth and rising expenses on things like healthcare, education and home ownership makes it har…

this comes up a lot, and I can never find the actual questions that get asked on these surveys. do they mean an actual savings account at a bank? the kind that pay 0.02% interest? few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account'. But... "Only 41% of adults reported having enough in their savings account".

Do they just mean 'savings'? Or liquid cash? I can never find the actual text of the questions asked, and any clarifications on this point, although I see pop media references to these sorts of surveys regularly

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#14

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

mgkimsal wrote: post #13
exclusiv wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time. Every administration is basically like "hey we're doing great - look at these unemployment numbers" and then you talk to people and they're saying the opposite. Savings is atrocious too. Some of that is people being bad with money but a lot is that the lack of wage growth and rising expenses on things like healthcare, education and home ownership makes it har…

this comes up a lot, and I can never find the actual questions that get asked on these surveys. do they mean an actual savings account at a bank? the kind that pay 0.02% interest? few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account'. But... "Only 41% of adults reported having enough in their savings account". Do they just mean 'savings'? Or liquid cash? I can never f…

They go on to mention that they'd have to put it on credit card, or ask friends, so while the article says savings account I don't think they are that literal. But you're right, it's a flaw in the language.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#15

Post by ProAm »

saudioger wrote: post #7

We're also 9 years away from the end of the last recession. The longest we've gone without a recession in the past 100 years is 10 years.

It helps that we've been at war for ~17 years straight and are still largely quantitatively easing things.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#16

Post by wgerard »

mgkimsal wrote: post #13
exclusiv wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Wage growth has been non-existant for a long time. Every administration is basically like "hey we're doing great - look at these unemployment numbers" and then you talk to people and they're saying the opposite. Savings is atrocious too. Some of that is people being bad with money but a lot is that the lack of wage growth and rising expenses on things like healthcare, education and home ownership makes it har…

this comes up a lot, and I can never find the actual questions that get asked on these surveys. do they mean an actual savings account at a bank? the kind that pay 0.02% interest? few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account'. But... "Only 41% of adults reported having enough in their savings account". Do they just mean 'savings'? Or liquid cash? I can never f…

> few people I know, even with high net worth and liquidity, have much of anything in a 'savings account'

Really? It's fairly common advice to store an emergency fund in something akin to a savings account (or at least something with FDIC backing). Either way, it seems bizarre for a high net worth individual not to have at least $500 in something extremely liquid like a checking/savings account.

Either way, it's fair to assume it means liquid cash, since the question is basically "could you afford an unexpected $500 expense?".

If you want to take that study to task, I think the far more interesting statistic is the 20% who would put it on their credit card: While those could be people who are just going into debt to afford the bill, it could also be people who just pay their card off in full every month and want whatever rewards they might be entitled to from using the credit card.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#17

Post by ChrisLomont »

saudioger wrote: post #7

We're also 9 years away from the end of the last recession. The longest we've gone without a recession in the past 100 years is 10 years.

Conversely, over the last hundred years, the length between recessions has been increasing, especially compared to the previous century.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit...

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#18

Post by ChrisLomont »

ProAm wrote: post #15
saudioger wrote: post #7

We're also 9 years away from the end of the last recession. The longest we've gone without a recession in the past 100 years is 10 years.

It helps that we've been at war for ~17 years straight and are still largely quantitatively easing things.

Wars don't tend to grow economies, and QE stopped in 2014.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#19

Post by [deleted] »

aero142 wrote: post #12
ProAm wrote: post #2

The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.

Stop getting your economics reports from political news sources. "They don't count people who've stopped looking" is not a meaningful statement. There are many statistics that report this. Labor force participation rate is the one I always look at next to unemployment rate and gives a better overall picture. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 In this case, I think you make a valid point. Why is the labor for…

[deleted]

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#20

Post by Ensorceled »

aero142 wrote: post #12
ProAm wrote: post #2

The national unemployment rate has always been political fodder and not a good indicator to the heath of people employed. Statistical smoke and mirrors considering they do not count people who've stopped looking for work because they cannot find it, those who are under-employed, or those who are earning less this year compared to last due to inflation and wage stagnation.

Stop getting your economics reports from political news sources. "They don't count people who've stopped looking" is not a meaningful statement. There are many statistics that report this. Labor force participation rate is the one I always look at next to unemployment rate and gives a better overall picture. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 In this case, I think you make a valid point. Why is the labor for…

> Why is the labor force participation rate not climbing back to 2008 levels?

Probably because the boomers are 10 years older than in 2008?

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