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

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

#321

Post by hellojesus »

gman83 wrote: post #208
ajmurmann wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wealth inequality matters a lot when rich people can spend unlimited amounts of money buying influence in politics and then use that influence to enact policies that favor the rich over the poor.

Aren't votes supposed to counter this effect? Individuals get the same voting power, so if things are too out of line, it should be easier to vote in folks that prioritize unbiased policies. Of course you could argue that the funds push up candidates for the wealthy for both parties, but independent media is allowing the unfinanced to compete.

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

#322

Post by HDThoreaun »

psunavy03 wrote: post #16
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…

> 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.

A quick conversation with an LLM can point in the right direction. Wont even take very long, you just have to do it.

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

#323

Post by danaris »

ajmurmann wrote: post #195
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does wealth inequality matter? If my real wealth doubles and Elon's real wealth doubles, inequality went up, Not in terms of the ratio between you, which is the way we normally talk about wealth inequality : "he has X times more wealth than I do", or "she makes X times more than I do". Anyway, this is not how wealth inequality has grown at all. It has happened by most people's real income barely rising at all o…

That's not at all what I've seen in the US. The middle class has shrunk but that part of the overall population has moved to upper income. Meanwhile, real (aka inflation corrected) median household income has gone up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N If what you care about is standing real wages why talk about inequality? I'm concerned that it just functions better as rage bait and leads to unproducti…

If that's what "you've seen", then you aren't looking in the right places.

Look at the graphs of real wages vs productivity that start pre-1970. Yes, it's true that real wages have gone up some since that time, but they remain completely divorced from productivity in a way that's totally different from the time before Reagan.

Meanwhile, the income/wealth of the highest earners has gone up astronomically during the same time.

They are staggeringly wealthy because they have redirected the flow of money from us to them. This is a very clearly visible and uncontroversial fact. The controversy is simply over whether it is a good thing.

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

#324

Post by danaris »

hellojesus wrote: post #321
gman83 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth inequality matters a lot when rich people can spend unlimited amounts of money buying influence in politics and then use that influence to enact policies that favor the rich over the poor.

Aren't votes supposed to counter this effect? Individuals get the same voting power, so if things are too out of line, it should be easier to vote in folks that prioritize unbiased policies. Of course you could argue that the funds push up candidates for the wealthy for both parties, but independent media is allowing the unfinanced to compete.

What independent media?

Mainstream media companies are owned by very wealthy people, who vote Republican, and put their thumbs on the scales over and over again.

You can see that in a myriad of different ways, but at no time in recent memory has it been more blatant than during the last election cycle, with events like Bezos forcing the Washington Post to issue no endorsement rather than endorsing Harris.

Like, you can agree or disagree with the politics of it, but it should take a monumental amount of motivated reasoning to deny the existence of this bias in our media.

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

#325

Post by sehansen »

pkaye wrote: post #164
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…

> 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.

Yeah, the relevant definition of unemployed is basically "did you reach out to anyone in any way about a job within the last four weeks?", even asking a friend if their workplace is hiring would count.

And the survey is surprisingly thorough, with around 110,000 individuals surveyed each month. There's a quite good writeup at: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

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

#327

Post by jjtheblunt »

giantg2 wrote: post #313
jjtheblunt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't lose hope; I left grad school right before the first dotcom failures 25ish years ago. I think you'll find that when some novel technology erupts onto the scene, the job market goes through a shift of semi incoherence, that hits folks like us. but, it's temporary and can introduce a way more enthralling era of jobs.

I think between agism and ableism probably won't get another developer job.

yeah you will; just think new learning adventure!

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

#328

Post by WillPostForFood »

al_borland wrote: post #316
WillPostForFood wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADP reported a meager 29,000 increase in new jobs, but the BLS showed a much larger 139,000 gain. April also showed a similarly wide gap between the two reports. Through the first five months of 2025, the difference between the two reports has averaged a whopping 63,000 a month. source: https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20250702107/be-... ADP has always been out of sync with BLS numbers. Here is an article…

Elsewhere in the comments it mentions that ADP is weighted more toward the private sector, while BLS is more representative of government jobs. These two things don’t need to be in lockstep.

BLS tracks both numbers, and the private still diverges quite a bit. We saw this again in July. ADP number was -33k private sector jobs, BLS showed growth of 74K for private sector, so massive 100k delta in just the private sector number.

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

#329

Post by danans »

gruez wrote: post #261
danans wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your metric is "more/better jobs", then yes tariffs are a failure. But in a roundabout sense ... yes they are working. At least if the goal is to discipline and squeeze labor, and return leverage to employers. Part of the goal of the tariffs (and other non-tariff related policies) seems to be to reset leverage at all layers of the labor markets, pushing higher skilled and paid workers into lower skilled and paid m…

>But in a roundabout sense ... yes they are working. At least if the goal is to discipline and squeeze labor, and return leverage to employers. I can't keep track of how many times how "X" is some sort of dastardly ploy to oppress workers, only for (different?) people to argue that "not X" also oppresses workers, with plausible sounding stories for both sides. Last time it was work from home. Is is a dastardly plot t…

> The same is true for Tariffs. In the 2010s it was not unpopular for leftist types to say how globalization was a disaster for the American middle class, and how it only enriches capitalists. Now you're saying that tariffs were actually some sort of 5d chess move by the capitalist class to crash the economy, so they can subjugate workers?

There has always been nuance to this debate.

Tariffs, when done selectively, coordinated with an industrial policy that develops a strategically important industry, can be a way to accelerate competitiveness.

Broad tariffs as a revenue raising mechanism are damaging to those who must spend most of their income to survive.

Globalization itself is a good thing, and increases cooperation and understanding between countries while reducing the cost of living in the developed world and lifting people out of poverty in the developing world.

Globalization without regard to human rights, growing inequality, or environmental impacts domestically and abroad results in the political instability we see today around the developed world.

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

#330

Post by hellojesus »

danaris wrote: post #324
hellojesus wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't votes supposed to counter this effect? Individuals get the same voting power, so if things are too out of line, it should be easier to vote in folks that prioritize unbiased policies. Of course you could argue that the funds push up candidates for the wealthy for both parties, but independent media is allowing the unfinanced to compete.

What independent media? Mainstream media companies are owned by very wealthy people, who vote Republican, and put their thumbs on the scales over and over again. You can see that in a myriad of different ways, but at no time in recent memory has it been more blatant than during the last election cycle, with events like Bezos forcing the Washington Post to issue no endorsement rather than endorsing Harris. Like, you c…

There is bias in all media. I used independent media to mean the plethora of single or small member operations that publish their findings on their own blogs, where they are not beholden to shareholders or investors.

There are also many emerging podcasts which either directly interview candidates or at least discuss the impacts of policy beyond the nonquestions presented by mainstream journalists. For example, how many times have journalists allowed Powell to say that he can't comment on proposed legislation like the BBB? Not once have we seen a follow up asking Powell why he has no comment on the bill considering his job is to offset its effects? His literal job is to comment on policy.

> events like Bezos forcing the Washington Post to issue no endorsement rather than endorsing Harris.

The Washington Post is independent media. It's just dependent on its owner like all media. I have no problem with Bezos' move concerning endorcements; he's maximizing his utility.

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