Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase • Hacker News Board

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#91

Post by ajmurmann » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

silisili wrote: post #67

ajmurmann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to come off as too cynical but I've increasingly come to the conclusion that the public discourse stays generally at a very shallow level that basic research for 30 minutes quickly moves you beyond. On one hand I find that appalling and poisonous for a democracy. On the other hand, imagine everyone having to spend 30+ minutes on every important topic. It quickly gets out of hand. One could argue that the media sh…

I agree with the premise here completely, but not what it's in response to necessarily. Most people keep very shallow knowledge of most subjects, but this doesn't mean things shouldn't be reported. It just means they(media) shouldn't spend a ton of time explaining how said numbers are calculated. Most people read, hear, or otherwise know the current inflation rate, but not exactly how it's calculated. All that to say…

Are the metrics not reported? Everything I mentioned can be found and it's discussed. Just with more niche audiences or piecemeal

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#92

Post by ipogrjegiorejkf » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

This is like looking at your revenue numbers and choosing to focus on the number of units sold and disregarding price per unit. The government releases TONS of analysis on wages and wage growth (e.g. the "price per unit"). The St. Louis FRED is a great resource.

I don't blame you. I blame the media for bad reporting. If you dig deeper, I can think of a few reasons why the media would choose to focus on some metrics and not others but I'll leave my conspiracy theories for another discussion.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#93

Post by jjk166 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

thayne wrote: post #76

blitzar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same Of course it would, the percentage of people unemployed would be the same. > six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage Average wages section of the jobs report would reflect this change. > doesn't include those not actively looking for work Participation rate section of the jobs report. > Either way ... Savings rate, hour…

> Average wages section of the jobs report would reflect this change. Not if someone else at the top got paid more.

If the same amount of wages are getting paid out and its merely getting reallocated as to whom, that's a very different scenario from people getting laid off to reduce labor costs.

Unemployment is meant to track how many people are working, not income equality.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#94

Post by ipogrjegiorejkf » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #13

kasey_junk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You of course know that we have a diverse set of metrics for unemployment that capture all of what you are talking about right? And that is before we talk about alternative signals like the ADP number this like references. Anytime someone says “we need better ways” you should just read it as “I should do more reading”, because this is a very well studied, understood and measured set of data.

Which metric(s) capture what he is talking about?

Take a look at the St. Louis FRED website and search for wages and wage growth.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#95

Post by frontfor » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

hx8 wrote: post #70

darth_avocado wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Median disposable household income is probably the best measure If I used to make $78k as a full time IT employee, but now have to work two jobs to make $78k, I still have same household income but I’m considerably worse than before. A combination of hours worked, wages earned and household debt together would paint a much more accurate picture.

I'm not sure household debt is a great indicator. Someone that has a mortgage will have much more household debt than a renter, but also not have to pay rent. This would need data to contextualize.

You could argue household debt is just another form of rent, where you “rent” capital from the wealthy in exchange for paying interest on a monthly basis. Just because you don’t pay a rent directly named as such doesn’t change the substance of it.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#96

Post by MangoToupe » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #35

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

> I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. This is captured as part of the "U-6" figure for unemployment. The thing is, at a large scale, these events don't matter. They are rare enough to be noise in the grand scheme of things. T…

The harm is when people take the metric as literally "what percentage of people who want to be employed can find a job", which U-3 emphatically does not represent.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#97

Post by pixl97 » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:41 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #82

ajmurmann wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have good metrics. The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture. Your scenario would be called out by median household income, or better median disposable household income. Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case. Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers…

It's the incentive. There is a reason the media focuses on easily juiced metrics.

Add in that most media companies these days are a branch of large corporations and it's easy to see where their incentives lie.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#98

Post by jltsiren » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #45

ajmurmann wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have good metrics. The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture. Your scenario would be called out by median household income, or better median disposable household income. Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case. Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers…

> Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case. Absolutely not. If corporate revenue increases, but wages stay the same, GDP per capita goes up, yet the workers aren't any better off. All that extra money is being absorbed by the ones at the top. Median disposable household income is probably the best measure.

Household income is a funny collective measure. If housing becomes less affordable, household income increases, as kids stay longer with their parents. And if housing becomes more affordable, household income decreases, as kids move out earlier.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#99

Post by antman » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #25

psunavy03 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture. This is what I'm getting at. I recognize there are more detailed measures, but they also never seem to inform the public discourse.

Not to come off as too cynical but I've increasingly come to the conclusion that the public discourse stays generally at a very shallow level that basic research for 30 minutes quickly moves you beyond. On one hand I find that appalling and poisonous for a democracy. On the other hand, imagine everyone having to spend 30+ minutes on every important topic. It quickly gets out of hand. One could argue that the media sh…

One just needs a couple of hours per important subject with proper mentorship. Then most mews is repeated patterns or red herrings

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#100

Post by MangoToupe » Wed, Jul 02, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

tqi wrote: post #79

Analemma_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's extremely irritating every time people trot out the same copy-pasted complaints about the BLS unemployment rate and how wrong it is, ignoring the fact that the BLS publishes six different unemployment rates, which specifically address most of those complaints. It's a sign of terminal incuriosity and using only superficial and secondhand sources of information like news reports on the unemployment rate, and…

It's also a sign of intense hubris - the idea that thousands of labor economists have never considered something they thought of after 30 seconds of reading means that either a) the economists are all idiots or b) the reader is orders of magnitude smarter than them.

This is also a sign that communication of the semantics in understandable terms is pretty bad.