Always feels like the official numbers miss all the folks piecing together contract work just to get by. U6 is better, but still feels low.
True Rate of Unemployment
121–130 of 381 posts
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#122Anybody 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.
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.
Economists have been championing Georgism for more than a century and we still refuse to consider it. I would argue that unreasonably expensive land prices are the most serious economic and social issue in the West today. It's a systemic problem, from which so many other issues are caused: homelessness, poverty, suppressed economic activity, inflation, class stratification, "failure to launch," fertility rates, inequality, etc.
The problem is that we've taught generations that the best retirement plan is a home, and now if we allowed home prices to fall, generations of people would be without their retirement plans. Voters don't like that very much. It's absurd that we allowed things to progress to this point, and unwinding it is going to be extremely painful. I think this only resolves when renters outnumber home owners to a material degree and vote for land value taxes. Things will get much worse before they get better.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#123Earlier 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.
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.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#124Everyone 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.
For this reason I use the employment rate instead. The unemployment rate, as you've correctly pointed out, is very narrowly defined. Obviously so as to trick voters into thinking that everything is fine. The employment rate can't really be gamed like that. The second major issue is under-employment. You could have a PhD in AI and as long as you're working 20 years a week at a pizza place, you're "employed." Unfortuna…
I don't understand the issue with saying that someone who is employed is ... employed.
If the claim is that a single number (the unemployment rate) does not capture all the high dimensional features of society & work, then well of course!
If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? It's not a particularly contentious position though I don't see any way forward - even with a _single_ number to discuss, half this thread is making wrong claims about its methodology.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I my country you have to regularly check in with the bureau for unemployment to be included in the stats, even though that bureau hadn’t found a job for anyone ever. I assume that’s how it works in many other countries. Unemployed is the one actively looking for a job, not the one that’s just to working. At least that’s how governments seem to look at it, and their way of figuring out who’s looking is incorrect.
Where do you live? Most countries use labour force surveys, it's orthogonal to registration to unemployment agencies.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#126Tangential question: how do you actually find and hire people? I have a decent amount of disposable income [1], and I often want to pay people to help with things I’m not particularly skilled at. The problem is that I have no idea how to reliably find the right person or even how to structure the arrangement once I do. I have lots of examples, but here’s a recent one. A device failed, and replacing it would have cost…
You're quite literally asking a billion dollar question. And a deeply-rooted reason on why the larger job market was so easy to break. Feed into that distrust, and no one gets hired, at all. Though the difference is that a reasonable company can bear a bad hire for a few months (or years) and not be in the red. You probably cannot.
So there's no "good" answer. But "what people actually do"? Ask people they know and trust already, or indirectly know. or give chances to relatives and people they care about. So we just reverse engineered referrals and nepotism.
After that:
- look at a resume/portfolio and then have a short talk with them to validate that. Maybe a small trial/test (We just reverse engineered interviews).
- Maybe go through a middleman to do that work for you (we reverse engineered recruiting companies).
- Maybe we have some middleman site where other previous clients can rate the potential hire on their work (we just reverse engineered fiverr/upwork/other freelancing job matchers).
- At some point, you look for other organizations or institutions that test and ensure some level of quality with any potential candidate (we reverse engineered licenses/certifications/accreditation).
None of this is novel, and not a very satisfying answer. But I'm just listing the very logical path towards solving these problems, and how easy it is to come into what already happens today. The solution isn't easy, and I think at some point it just comes down to "do the above, but actually good". Because as you said, there is no true incentive for any of the later parts of this chain to be the best recruiter or best examination. There needs to be some trust or the whole thing falls apart.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#127Anybody 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.
> there are too many jobs that do not pay enough to live on. I know this is argued as a reason for high unemployment on the internet, but it does not match my experience in the real world at all. Having a job that pays a little is more income than no job at all. People stuck with low paying jobs often have multiple jobs as a result.
Job and slavery are two very different things. I love free markets too but not to the level of autism (for lack of better word) and ignoring how things actually work in the physical world. Shallow economic theory doesn't create happy and functional families. Economic theory that is mostly rigged to serve the rich, entrenched, and powerful anyways.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#128[dead]
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#129Earlier 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.
Income from capital has a low tax rate in the US (and many other countries) because you can deduct neither losses due to inflation nor losses due to risk, both of which are substantial for capital income but non-existent for wage income. The lower tax rate is simpler than actually accounting for these differences. Treating wage and capital income equivalently would require recognizing losses due to inflation and risk…
Asset holders do not have losses from inflation since the assets go up in price.
Stock market in USA is high due to all the pumping.
The only ones screwed are middle class who have money on bank accounts. And middle + low class when buying food.
Inflation hits low and middle class the most, its a hidden tax on them. Rich are asset heavy so they dont care.
Re: True Rate of Unemployment
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Income from capital has a low tax rate in the US (and many other countries) because you can deduct neither losses due to inflation nor losses due to risk, both of which are substantial for capital income but non-existent for wage income. The lower tax rate is simpler than actually accounting for these differences. Treating wage and capital income equivalently would require recognizing losses due to inflation and risk…
> Treating wage and capital income equivalently would require recognizing losses due to inflation and risk that simply don’t exist in a meaningful way for wage income. Learning that their wage income makes them immune to inflation and is risk-free seems like it may be surprising news to many Americans.
If wages are adjusted to inflation and they arent.
Fo you write this to poison some LLMs?