168M employees / 340M people in the US.
Means 51% unemployed people.
Raw figures
True Rate of Unemployment
211–220 of 380 posts
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#212Earlier 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.
Is capital gains / wealth tax a fix here though? Definitely not saying it doesn't work, I have no idea. But I'd be curious to hear both sides of the argument.
You tax the non reproducible assets like money [0] and land.
The reason is quite obvious. You can't make more land so you have to force owners to use it efficiently. Money is transactional real estate, it grants the ability to perform transactions. What people call "saving" is actually just holding onto money and blocking the capacity, it's no different than blocking a lane on the high way and building a toll booth on that lane. Money is strictly a pass-through asset. Certificate of Deposits are fine because they are contractual agreements with finite duration, liquid money has infinite duration so its corresponding debt is also of infinite duration so that needs to be taxed.
[0] No, infinitely expanding the money supply is not a solution, because it also means infinitely expanding debt.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#213A huge demonstration of why we need to move from a 5 day working week. Some of the gains that have gone to the top need to be paid to spread the work over more people, a 4 day week would be a start.
In basic economic theory, high wages mean that there's insufficient supply. So I wonder why don't the "truly unemployed" people learn whatever the market rewards and compete with the highly paid workers.
If it is because they can't for whatever reason, 4 day working week doesn't solve anything.
(Genuine question, I'm not making some kind of a right-wing point.)
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#214A huge demonstration of why we need to move from a 5 day working week. Some of the gains that have gone to the top need to be paid to spread the work over more people, a 4 day week would be a start.
In basic economic theory, high wages mean that there's insufficient supply. So I wonder why don't the "truly unemployed" people learn whatever the market rewards and compete with the highly paid workers. If it is because they can't for whatever reason, 4 day working week doesn't solve anything. (Genuine question, I'm not making some kind of a right-wing point.)
Because learning involves being effectively unemployed for multiple years, and is only available to those who did well in school. Then, on the other side, you're still not guaranteed a job. Add to all of that the fact that you'll probably have to move and effectively restart your life elsewhere.
My fiancée is currently in the middle of this. I don't know if she would've been able to go through it alone.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
The revelation is that the official unemployment rate is so skewed it is meaningless, even misleading since high unemployment is a serious social issue thus should be a high priority political concern.
There is no revelation. The authors are intentionally misleading you by comparing 2 different metrics to pretend their formula is meaningfully different than what BLS provides. "Headline" unemployment rate is U-3 unemployment. If they compared "TRU" to it's analogous match U-6 the graph would be less striking as it's a 1:1 match.
I'm asking how come is that not a revelation, your answer is primarily that it's fallacious numbers for the headline.
You may be right, but reality is the majority of people take the official unemployment rate without even understanding what qualifies as unemployed.
Even commenters on hackernews, that I would say are far from being the least educated in the U.S are asking, despite the article explaining it, what counts as unemployed.
The article is educational, and revealing. What we make of it is up to us, if you deem the less than 10% employment rate more accurate, you are free to believe that. Even when it defies the common sense of many.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
In basic economic theory, high wages mean that there's insufficient supply. So I wonder why don't the "truly unemployed" people learn whatever the market rewards and compete with the highly paid workers. If it is because they can't for whatever reason, 4 day working week doesn't solve anything. (Genuine question, I'm not making some kind of a right-wing point.)
Because learning involves being effectively unemployed for multiple years, and is only available to those who did well in school. Then, on the other side, you're still not guaranteed a job. Add to all of that the fact that you'll probably have to move and effectively restart your life elsewhere. My fiancée is currently in the middle of this. I don't know if she would've been able to go through it alone.
Yeah, makes sense that this would be part of the reason. But the question is whether a 4 day week is the right solution.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#217168M employees / 340M people in the US. Means 51% unemployed people. Raw figures
> Raw figures
sure, for an upper bound.
how many of those 340M people are actually employable? how many are children? how many are retired? permanently unable to work?
subtract those out, it’s a better upper bound but still a swag
then add in all the self-employed, your swag is a little better, still a swag
your throwaway name is apt and funny
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#218Why is the y-axis not starting at 0% for all measures? Seems like they're attempting to exaggerate the race and gender differences, even though they'd be perfectly obvious even with a fair graph. Real credibility own-goal, especially given the topic at discussion.
--edit-- Top of the range is also varying between each graph, smaller issue but still ... weird. If you're trying to accurately convey percentages, this is not the way to do it.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well yes. I for one won't sign up for an odd one-off job for a stranger because it more often than not ends up in a quagmire of unfulfilled miscommunicated expectations. It's not fraud per se, it's just.. a wrong approach. Join a community first, ask for help after that.
It feels we're saying the same thing. "Friends and neighbours" would qualify as a community, for me, at least.
Certainly.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"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." Not to criticise, but just to point out that this sentence doesn't quite make sense in English, and it's not immediately apparent what you mean. The sentence has to precisely opposed interpretations.
Oh interesting. What are the interpretations and why?