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U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

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Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#411

Post by riazrizvi »

tzs wrote: post #393
riazrizvi wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that pass the basic common sense smell test? Everyone can see on their paycheck the amount, that is paid 30 days after any work day in the worst case. These payments are sent to a single federal bank account, and data-wise are combined with Social Security ID, sending bank id, date. It’s a bank, there’s a database. We are talking at most about 200mm records, a raspberry pi can process that query in minutes. If w…

The payments are deposited monthly or semiweekly (for employers with large payroll) but that's a lump sum. If you are looking at that from the government side all you can tell is whether total payroll has gone up or down. That won't tell if any change is due to a change in number of employees or a change in pay rates or some combination of that. It isn't until the employer files their quarterly Form 941 that you'd se…

Ah okay, this is why then. So all my other comments complaining about the lack of timeliness have this simple explanation. TIL

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#412

Post by elgenie »

CaptWillard wrote: post #255

Amazing how many here are so quick to lay the job numbers from last year at Trump's feet.

These are numbers compiled by this administration about a period immediately before Trump imposed some very very very economically stupid tariffs. It's quite suspicious to have such a big drop timed precisely as if to serve as a handy baseline to minimize the perceived impact of that idiocy; it comes out of an agency (BLS) whose previous head was fired for the sin of a displeasing report and was replaced with a commissar.

Note that survey data about the present is collected and aggregated piecemeal by a sizable bureaucracy and is thus hard for a dedicated ideologue to systematically revise without that leaking. However, when the data about today comes in below estimates the number of people involved in reconciling and dating the discrepancy to ascribe it to the past is much smaller.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#413

Post by cman1444 »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #307
nradov wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? There is no practical limit to human innovation and productivity growth.

As the saying goes. You can't have infinite growth on a finite planet

That implies that economic activity is confined to this planet. Even today we can see this doesn't hold true as we already have activity in orbit. Also, economic activity is less and less tied to physical constraints as technology progresses and digitization spreads.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#414

Post by ChuckMcM »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #307
nradov wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? There is no practical limit to human innovation and productivity growth.

As the saying goes. You can't have infinite growth on a finite planet

I want you to think about, for a minute, the notion that you can have a number bigger than all of the atoms in the universe :-). From that, you can see that its possible to have more 'dollars' than there are atoms in the universe. Specifically, without defining 'growth' you can't reason about the limits on that growth.

The other point that simplified analysis fails to consider is that you are inside the system so as it "grows", it also "changes". If you lived in the 70's with the tales of how we're going to run out of fossil fuels by 2000, looking back you can see how things changed (cars got more efficient, other sources were discovered, etc).

My macroeconomics professor had a funny saying that you could take any segment of a sinusoid and use that to extrapolate forward and get the wrong answer about what the waveform was going to do. In my differential equations class we got to see how you could predict some things if you new both the initial conditions and you continued to refine your model. But to predict all things your model needed to take into account all variables and their impact, and it was the unknown variable problem that messed up predictions using that method.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#415

Post by bluGill »

triceratops wrote: post #239
georgeecollins wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The department of labor has a methodology that gives an early number that tends to get revised. They have been doing it the same way for a long time and it would not be controversial, except the business press with too little news to report makes a big deal about it with very little context. So its, like jobs increased 200k (not saying +/- 200k is the error bar). It would be good for everyone if people who are not pr…

Serious question: employers presumably also use DoL numbers to decide whether to invest or cut. Could incorrect initial numbers lead to a self-fulfilling spiral?

Employers use a lot of data. DoL numbers are one, but they are trying to predict their own future needs. They generally have much better sources of data to their industry that are used as well.

Different companies react differently as well. Companies that have a steady flow of cash (food is very inelastic - people eat about the same every day) realize they can give smaller raises, and this is a good time to invest in the company by building so they often hire. Companies that make luxury goods for the common man (think small boats - large yachts for the rich are different) tighten their belts because they are the first place people in fear cut spending.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#416

Post by zahlman »

zahlman wrote: post #206
cs702 wrote: post #53

If unemployment continues to rise, and the one-time impact on prices of tariffs leads to self-reinforcing high inflation, we'll have stagflation : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation I sure hope not , because stagflation would be extremely unpleasant for everyone. Central banks like the Federal Reserve would be forced to raise interest rates, to put stress on businesses and consumers, so businesses find themsel…

Unemployment was continuously higher than the current level from approximately early 1970 to mid 1999: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1M4lw (click "Max") Markets currently don't expect significantly higher inflation in the long term, as the "10 year breakeven inflation rate" ("The latest value implies what market participants expect inflation to be in the next 10 years, on average.") is fairly stable: https://f…

> And the employment situation in the US is still very good in historical terms. (There are valid concerns about the methodology behind the headline unemployment rate, but it's still the same methodology.)

I should add: historically, increases in the unemployment rate have a tendency to accelerate and then produce a spike, which is then brought under control by some other mechanism, and tends to correspond with a recession. But this is just the normal boom-bust cycle, and seems rather unavoidable. The rate can't keep going down forever, and having it level out doesn't seem feasible, either. The magnitude of such a spike doesn't necessarily indicate the severity of economic downturn, either.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#417

Post by jshen »

lovich wrote: post #401
jshen wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm as anti-trump as anyone. He's doing tremendous harm to our economy and our society. Your anger is making you see things that aren't there. All I did was question the assumption that our economic problems are ENTIRELY the result of bad policy. Some how you jumped to some very wrong conclusions based on that tiny shred of information which wasn't even about Trump.

Nah man, I have eyes. You coyly suggested that there were other contributors at play to multiple people who suggested what bad policies are causing the economic issues and then didn’t provide them until called out. You’re running partisan defense when you act that way

I questioned the use of ENTIRELY in this sentence, "these economic problems are ENTIRELY the result of bad policies", that is not partisan.

You aren't trying to have a conversation. Have a good day, I have better things to do.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#418

Post by bluGill »

throw912 wrote: post #144
yepitwas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of current conservative grousing about the deficit is priming the electorate for destroying social security. That's why they always highlight it as the main cause of the deficit, even though it has a totally separate income stream from the rest of the budget. Republicans have done the exact opposite of balancing the budget at least since Reagan (inclusive) non-stop, zero R presidents have even done as well as d…

Expect this to get much worse soon. Even left-leaning youth will probably start to agree with the idea of destroying it out of spite, and even if they know it won't actually help them. At some point we'll have to admit, it's not easy to explain why youth need to subsidize things for an older generation that enjoys housing, healthcare, and stocks when they themselves have not had the disposable income for any of that.…

I've heard this type of thing all my life. The generation that screwed the youth has changed, but there was always such talk.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#419

Post by CamperBob2 »

staticman2 wrote: post #409
CamperBob2 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's talking about a time period when the stock market was in the doldrums and inflation was high. Right now inflation is considered high (even though it isn't really, historically) and the stock market is berserk. And why wouldn't the stock market be considered a valid investment in the presence of inflation? Where else are you supposed to park your cash if you want to outperform TIPS? Remember that in the 1970s the…

You acknowledge inflation isn't high by historical standards yet went on to argue he's wrong because stocks went up when inflation wasn't high by historical standards? The last time we had sudden unexpected high inflation was 2022 and stocks crashed did they not? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA I have no opinion on whether the article is relevant I was only responding to the sentence you quoted whic…

Hmm. What else was going on around that time that might confound any conclusions?

Also, a 'crash' that recovers in 90 days isn't much of a 'crash', but the fact that people consider it a 'crash' is admittedly kind of scary.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#420

Post by bluGill »

joshdavham wrote: post #68
KingOfCoders wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the trust in the US can be repaired for a very long time.

Yup. Even if Americans vote out the current administration, there’s no guarantee they won’t vote in another administration like this again. They’ve already done it twice.

There is nothing unusual about Americans here. Every democracy has the same worry, and always has. Every change in party has brought in instability, going right back to the founding of the country. Sometimes worse than others. Trump isn't that much different from some of the stupid things presidents were doing in the 1800s...
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