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

True Rate of Unemployment

lisep.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 377 posts

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#81

Post by jaredklewis »

fakedang wrote: post #47
jaredklewis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A land value tax would fix rich people parking money in real estate. A wealth tax or capital gains tax would not.

A wealth tax would also be beneficial in reducing wasteful stock buybacks. Without any benefits from high stock prices, boards and shareholders will be less inclined to impose those price targets on CEOs, CEOs will be less incentivised to "cheat" on quarter-based performance and the myopic share price performance view of their companies, hence will reduce stock buybacks and returning money to shareholders. That leave…

Why do you think a wealth tax would reduce stock buybacks? I don't see the relation.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#82

Post by danaris »

Aurornis wrote: post #66
alyeska2 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be confused about the point people are making. The point is that from about 1945 until around 2000 in the USA there really wasn't such a thing as "a job that doesn't pay enough to live on". People owned houses and cars by working at grocery stores. A single income from any white collar job supported a stay-at-home spouse. Teenagers bought cars by working part time. College kids paid their tuition and livi…

I understand that argument, but what does it have to do with the unemployment rate? You seem to be confused about the point I'm making, which is that low-paying jobs drive people to take on more employment, not less.

But "employment" is tracked as a binary, not as a "number of jobs someone is working".

So if person A takes 3 jobs just to get by, there are fewer jobs left for person B. (Not quite 2 jobs less, because it's not perfectly zero-sum, but generally at least 1 job less.)

So while I certainly wouldn't make the claim strongly, as I don't have any data, it would at least make sense for the lack of living-wage jobs to increase unemployment rates.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#83

Post by danaris »

naishoya wrote: post #46
ElProlactin wrote: post #8

> ...or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $26,000 (in 2025 dollars) annually before taxes. I couldn't easily tell how they decided on a $26,000 "living wage" figure but in most of the US, even double that is not Easy Street. The "True Rate of Barely Getting By" is ridiculously high in the US from what I can gather.

there is a cliff, such that a the 2 adults, 2 children on 22,500 gross income may have access to $48,700 after refundable tax credits, SNAP, housing, etc [linked in other comment]. However if that same household earns just $5,600 more annually nearly all of those transfers cease to be available and the total income accessible becomes $36,400. It really is a case where making more is too expensive. That's less than 11…

And much of that assistance is not a guarantee: they'll have to jump through a number of hoops to get it, and making a single mistake on a single form, or having one non-liquid asset that's too valuable on paper, may mean they get disqualified. At best that means they need to start the process again; at worst it's all over and they cannot be considered, at least for a certain time period.

It is, simultaneously, important to know about that cliff, because it's real and it causes untold hardship, and really, really dangerous to view poverty as a road to "easy money" in the way your first sentence (likely inadvertently) implies.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#84

Post by HDThoreaun »

hirako2000 wrote: post #20
zkmon wrote: post #18

> the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job ... What is the "U.S. labor force" defined as? Is it a age group thing?

It is typically who is able to be part of the labour force. remove the elderly, those for who it would be illegal to work or still engaged in formal education, the so significantly handicapped no work is manageable. So it is an age group, with caveats.

You have to be looking for a job or employed to be part of the labor force count. Stay at home moms arent in the labor force, neither are students that dont want to work.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#85

Post by stymaar »

IanCal wrote: post #71
floro wrote: post #44

Everyone knows the stats are false but I don't know an alternative. I've been unemployed after graduating for a year and because I didn't use unemployment benefits I didn't show up in the statistics in switzerland. I know many cases like mine.

I’d be surprised if that’s how they measure it, it’s a common misunderstanding in the UK that this is what the stat means.

It's not uncommon to use that as a measurement in addition to the ILO's definition.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#86

Post by teiferer »

floro wrote: post #44

Everyone knows the stats are false but I don't know an alternative. I've been unemployed after graduating for a year and because I didn't use unemployment benefits I didn't show up in the statistics in switzerland. I know many cases like mine.

Then maybe it's time you look up how unemployment statistics are calculated in Switzerland and you will be surprised that you counted into them.

It's unclear to me how folks with a university education can make such simplistic statements.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#87

Post by conductr »

boxed wrote: post #73
xbmcuser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the true problem which most countries dont even acknowledge is low wealth and capital gains tax. Salaries are not enough because of land prices and the prices inflation it causes through out the economy. You bring down price of home land rent then price of everything else comes down. And their is a lot more economic activity as trillions of dollars are not parked in real estate for wealth generation.

> You bring down price of home land rent then price of everything else comes down If any price for any reason goes down, that money ends up in housing. The only way to bring down housing pricing is to build more housing. This is extremely well documented.

I feel like the inflation of everything except wages will eventually show up in housing prices. People pay so much for existence, there’s not the same budget for housing. There’s only so much people can afford and also there’s now been a long track record of young generations having stunted starts.

Also not sure how the supply will be affected by boomers exiting the market. I know there will be no surge in supply, but I’m not certain there’s enough buyers at the prices they would expect. If that’s the case, supply will build and prices will drop.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#88

Post by alex43578 »

ElProlactin wrote: post #57
jandrewrogers wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lived much of their life in real poverty, you can live a pretty decent life on $50k in most of the US. Yeah, you won’t be posting your vacations on Instagram but who cares. Many people live a decent life within these income constraints. There is an enormous amount of government subsidies if you are this poor. Don’t exaggerate what is required for a decent quality of life in America. It doesn’t benefit…

> ...you can live a pretty decent life on $50k in most of the US. Where? And what's the size of the household? It's one thing to make $50,000/year as a single young person sharing an apartment with 2 other people. It's another to be a family of 4. > Don’t exaggerate what is required for a decent quality of life in America. It doesn’t benefit anyone. "Decent" is subjective, but we can look at hard numbers. After taxes…

Sure sounds like they can’t afford a family of 4 on that income. They have control over both variables in that situation.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#89

Post by snovv_crash »

bruce511 wrote: post #42
snovv_crash wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LVT can be deferred to the time of sale.

Unfortunately that doesn't really help. It has the effect of eroding the asset value such that it quickly means the owner can't sell. In other words, if selling removes much of your capital, you then don't gave capital to spend on the next place. Conversely investors become even more motivated not to ever sell. They can defer the LVT forever, and just use the property as collateral for loans (ie getting liquidity wit…

How will they use it as collateral if it has no value upon sale?

Similarly, why would the next place be expensive if it couldn't be used as a speculative asset?

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#90

Post by Aurornis »

ElProlactin wrote: post #59
nostrebored wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up below the poverty line for much of my life — 2x the poverty line seemed like wealth to me. There are absolutely people getting by on “feels like” 50k a year. There are not really frills, but in terms of “have shelter and food” it can work. Not everywhere is SF.

"Have shelter and food" is surviving. That's the point. And speaking of food, the USDA says that over 47 million Americans lived in a food insecure household in 2024. That's 1 in 7 people. In the world's richest country that prides itself on being the land of opportunity.

> 47 million Americans lived in a food insecure household

This statistic looked suspect so I had to look it up. The study defined multiple levels of food insecurity. The big 47 million number included mostly households where eating patterns were not disrupted and people did not reduce their food intake.

So most “food insecure households” actually had enough food and maintained their normal eating patterns. That’s not what most people would think of from that statistic.

I do agree that we should continue working on food security for all, but if you think 1 in 7 people in the US are going hungry then you’re consuming some misleading statistics.

Post reply on HN