Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 366 posts

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

#161

Post by lawlessone »

MangoToupe wrote: post #81
BurningFrog wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP is fairly easy to measure, and since a society normally consumes as much as it produces, it's a pretty good measure of average economic health. You're right that there is more nuance you'd wish to see, but it's harder to measure, and I don't know how much it's normally worth.

> it's a pretty good measure of average economic health Median economic health strikes me as far more interesting than mean. I don't really care how well rich people are doing.

>I don't really care how well rich people are doing.

ahem "people of wealth"

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

#162

Post by thayne »

jjk166 wrote: post #93
thayne wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> that's a very different scenario from people getting laid off to reduce labor costs.

Not necessarily. People could be laid off to reduce labor costs, in order to distribute more wealth to those at the top. And since the average is national, it doesn't even have to be at the same company. People could be laid off from company A, because A is unable to compete with company B that has a smaller head count, but pays their execs more.

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

Sure, but the point is that metrics used to discuss economic health don't typically include metrics that represent wealth inequality, or the standard of living of the general population.

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

#163

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

tshaddox wrote: post #154
frontfor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a very different form of rent though, namely because the mortgage borrower has a lot of collateralized debt and the mortgage borrower owns the appreciation (or depreciation) of the property (proportional to their equity).

A home dweller is paying "rent" to the government as property taxes, possibly indirectly through a mortgage.

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

#164

Post by pkaye »

ajmurmann wrote: post #12
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…

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…

> Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers, since you fall out of the count once unemployment benefits expire.

Unemployment rates are calculated based on surveys. They call many people and ask a series of questions to determine which category they fit into.

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

#165

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

> Median disposable household income is probably the best measure

Median disposable income won’t meaningfully capture OP’s case of losing a high-paying job and having it replaced by a low-paying one. For that you need to look at the distribution of household disposable income.

We have terrific economic metrics in America. It really should be part of a mandatory civics class to learn how to read them.

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

#166

Post by ajmurmann »

shafyy wrote: post #50
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Even better one: real wages, and income and wealth inequality.

Why does wealth inequality matter? If my real wealth doubles and Elon's real wealth doubles, inequality went up, yet everyone is tremendously better off. I think we are using inequality as a very bad proxy for poverty but we have much better metrics for that. I suspect people just dislike it for emotional reasons. I want to point out that Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US. Yet everyone is fine with Sweden.

I can set an argument about political influence that's gotten really strong lately but maybe that's better addressed by strengthening the politically system

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

#167

Post by thayne »

jltsiren wrote: post #98
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think a better measure would be household income divided by number of adults in the household. Possibly with some consideration for the number of children in the household.

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

#168

Post by protonbob »

IshKebab wrote: post #121
chasd00 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ADP say that they handle payroll for one in six of all companies in America that's less than 20%. If you had 10 people to interview and interviewed 2 of them i wouldn't say you interviewed a representative sample of the 10.

No, but if I had 1000 people to interview and interviewed 200 of them at random then absolutely yes. I know right. Statistics.

The key is "at random". Businesses are not randomly assigned to use ADP

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

#169

Post by ajmurmann »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #139
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Perhaps the Gini coefficient would be a better metric to capture this?

Certainly not in isolation. It measures inequality. If everyone has nothing you get a perfect Gini score. Pakistan, Ukraine, Belarus and Algeria have a lower (better) Gini score than all of the Americas and most of western Europe and Japan. Want to move?

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

#170

Post by IshKebab »

protonbob wrote: post #168
IshKebab wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but if I had 1000 people to interview and interviewed 200 of them at random then absolutely yes. I know right. Statistics.

The key is "at random". Businesses are not randomly assigned to use ADP

That's a separate problem. I have no idea what the sampling bias is, but the issue isn't that they "only" sample 20% of the population.
Post reply on HN