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True Rate of Unemployment

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Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#251

Post by wallst07 »

ElProlactin wrote: post #141
foxglacier wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the term "land of opportunity" imply to you that it's also the "land of risk"? That's certainly how I've always seen lands of opportunity - places where you can fight it out on you own and have a chance to succeed - or fail. Not a comfortable safe zone to relax in.

That's not what "land of opportunity" means in the US. It means upward social mobility, plentiful job opportunities across a wide range of inudstries, decent work for decent pay, ample rewards for hard work. Socioeconomically, the post-WW2 era is widely considered America's peak. The strong economic growth was broadly shared and created the largest and most prosperous middle class in modern history. During this time,…

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Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#253

Post by wallst07 »

ElProlactin wrote: post #101
alex43578 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course two people with low incomes shouldn't have two kids. But (as detailed in my other comment) you need a 4 person household with 2 kids to get tax negative at $50,000/year. Even a 3 person household with 1 kid isn't tax negative in most of the US at $50,000/year. So the other poster's argument that $50,000/year isn't so bad because of transfers, tax credits, subsidies, etc. doesn't hold up to real-world exampl…

It holds up outside if costal urban areas, there are plenty of places where you can get a 2b/2ba home with garage with that salary.

You can't get it in high cost states like CA, NY etc...

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#254

Post by phil21 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #215
reddozen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coun…

It’s not revealing at all because unemployment numbers are directional and only useful in terms of comparison to prior years. The actual headline number is arbitrary and pretty much any metric you want to track already exists but is less popular. The only thing that matters is the methodology stays the same over the long term.

It might be educational to some, but this has been political rage bait since I became politically aware enough to listen to news, talk radio, etc going back to the 90s. It’s always been a favorite talking point for certain types.

Switch to using U-6 if it makes you feel better about the headline number making sense. U-3 has always been very clear over what the number is tracking and the methodology is quite well understood.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#255

Post by tsss »

runako wrote: post #11

Anybody who believes ~30% of the workforce was functionally unemployed in 1999 does not know what those words mean, or was not an adult in 1999. I get what they are trying to convey, but the stronger message is the more straightforward: there are too many jobs that do not pay enough to live on.

If you include all the stay-at-home wives that do nothing but watch TV all day, you reach those 30% easily. Add to that the college students who only work part time. If you also include pensioners, kids and disabled you find out that only around 15-30% of the population actually work and support everyone else. And again, of those that do work, a significant portion is bureaucrats that have to be paid from taxes of people with a productive job.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#256

Post by locallost »

alex43578 wrote: post #88
ElProlactin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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.

The economy exist for the people, not the other way around. If too many people can't get something as fundamental as a family that will guarantee long term survival of mankind, the economy needs to adapt, not the people.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#257

Post by helsinkiandrew »

> True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $26,000 (in 2025 dollars) annually before taxes.

I find it odd to use both an hourly specification (>35+ hours) and a minimum $ amount. What about those who are following Tim Ferris dream and are pulling in $100Ks in a 5-hour week?

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#258

Post by marginalia_nu »

a3w wrote: post #226
marginalia_nu wrote: post #218

Why 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…

> exaggerate the ethnicity and gender differences They call that race and sex, but probably mean gender, not sex. And there is no such thing as race, see wikipedia. Are those even social scientists?

The races, as seen in american sociology have a socioeconomic and historical reality which makes them interesting to track regardless. The racial segregation laws of the past were real, and this has had consequences that are still very real regardless whether the race concept is used correctly in a biological sense.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#259

Post by pmontra »

snovv_crash wrote: post #89
bruce511 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I guess that it can be rented or built upon. It's easy to imagine renting a field to a farmer but money is money, so why not letting somebody else build flats over one's land?

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#260

Post by bel8 »

teiferer wrote: post #230
2legit2quit wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and because I didn't use unemployment benefits I didn't show up in the statistics in switzerland and > It's unclear to me how folks with a university education can make such simplistic statements. Do you even fact-check yourself before making specious claims[0][1]? You HAVE to be registered via RAV to be counted. Full stop. 0 - https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/... 1 - https://switzerla…

"Full stop"? So you don't want to hear other arguments? The ILO-based statistics differ from what you cited and explicitly "encompasses all persons not employed and who are actively looking for and available for work, regardless of whether they are registered with a regional placement office. " That doesn't match your definition and that's ok.

The fact that they would rather try to win an internet argument by showing indifference to what others have to say than learn something might hint at traits that keep them unemployed. Harsh but maybe this helps changing their mindset.
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