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

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

barrons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 514 posts

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

#481

Post by AbstractH24 »

BlackjackCF wrote: post #474
vlachen wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've honestly wondered this too. But we cannot obey in advance. If they're going to try and take it from us, then there should be a fight every step of the way. That means our cynical perspectives, as right as they may be, could lead us into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I tell myself if there weren’t going to be elections or if the admin had a sure fire way to compromise them, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to push through redistricting in every single state there’s a Republican-controlled state house/senate.

What if that is the way?

Plenty of countries have elections that are neither free nor fair. More likely Election Day suddenly ceases to occur.

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

#482

Post by thisisit »

franktankbank wrote: post #406
thisisit wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know economic data is not used only by "economists", right? Given that you seem to dislike the word "economic" data, focus only on the data part. Tell us how politicians/policy makers run the country without data? How do they know rates have to be increased/decreased if they don't have such numbers? Through wishful and magical thinking about focusing on the basics?

My point is that it should be more granular. I only ever hear it described in one of three things in tension with each other: markets, jobs, inflation. Do you think you can just watch those three things and guide a country/world into a prosperous one or could there be pitfalls?

What evidence is there that politicians or GOP today formulate policy only on these three things?

Media and GOP have talked about other items like immigration, taxes etc which impact the economy.

And if this is about metrics then GDP, budget deficits etc are also economic metrics talked about in the media.

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

#483

Post by ta1243 »

neonnoodle wrote: post #328
tomjakubowski wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did rents surge during past times of stagflation?

past times of stagflation didn't have such a tight housing supply.

If people can't afford the rents then they'll just cram more people in. Currently have a "Joey/Chandler" style apartment form friends with 2 people in for $4k/month? Now you get 4. Or 6. Price increases to $6k/month but it's down on a per-person basis.

In some cities you get time-sharing beds. In 2003 I lived (for 3 weeks) in a house in London, I had my own room - the largest in the house. A smaller room had a couple with a baby, the loft had 3 mattresses in it but 4 people living there, time-sharing with the mattresses like you have in a nuclear submarine.

There's plenty of opportunity for landlords to increases costs even if peoples incomes can't support an increase.

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

#484

Post by k3vinw »

deepGem wrote: post #327
rurp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to read up on the process a little more before forming such strong opinions. The BLS is extremely transparent, at least for now. The earlier reports are intentionally more noisy because there is value is being fast and then revising later, and everyone who uses this data is aware of that. Calling this a 50% error rate is simply wrong. If an earlier report said a single job had been created and that was…

The earlier reports are intentionally more noisy because there is value is being fast and then revising later, and everyone who uses this data is aware of that. I get it and yeah my tone is very exaggerated. I don't think anyone in BLS should be fired and whoever is suggesting that does not understand how public institutions work. I am just curious why there is so much of a discrepancy. This has been pretty much the…

I disagree. The BLS head was either incompetent or corrupt. The two are not mutually exclusive so they easily could have been both. Firing the BLS head was the obvious choice and it sends the right message to all involved that we will not accept this margin of inaccuracy when it impacts our economy. We need a BLS head with the balls to raise hell when the numbers are not reflecting reality.

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

#485

Post by penguin202 »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #340
penguin202 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last administration cooked the books on BLS numbers for nearly 2 years, issuing corrections and all that nobody paid attention to. They also redefined what a recession is during the last administration. Wasn't a news story then, but is now b/c trump.

[citation needed]

[dead]

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

#486

Post by penguin202 »

topaz0 wrote: post #282
penguin202 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last administration cooked the books on BLS numbers for nearly 2 years, issuing corrections and all that nobody paid attention to. They also redefined what a recession is during the last administration. Wasn't a news story then, but is now b/c trump.

twelve pinocchios

[dead]

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

#487

Post by ta1243 »

greycol wrote: post #465
flerchin wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do you, but at the end of the 30 years the latter person is ahead by quite a bit.

They really aren't. To pay off a 30yr 300k at 4% you pay $17350 a year. If you pay $17350 on a 100k 16% mortgage you pay it off in under 18 years and have saving of 222k (even at 0% returns) + 100k house by the time 30yrs is up.

The argument would be that after 30 years of 2.3%/yr inflation, the 300k house would be worth 600k in future dollars, and the 100k house would be worth 200k.

However as 15% interest rates implies an inflation rate far higher than 2.3% that argument breaks. With 7% inflation on a 100k house it's worth 760k after 30 years, more than the 600k in the 300k range.

Of course what that means in terms of big macs you can buy is different.

Not only that but if your salary keeps up with inflation, and you overpay the mortgage, you'll have cleared the 100k/7% inflation mortgage in 10 years but it will take 18 years to clear the 300k mortgage.

Sure, having your wage not decrease in real terms is a different challenge, but if that does happen then you're far better off with the 15% interest rate situation.

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

#488

Post by CaptWillard »

elgenie wrote: post #412
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 commi…

Except the BLS numbers have been significantly revised on an ongoing basis for the last five years.

That's been so widely known that I have a really hard time believing that you guys don't know this, which makes me wonder why you're out here propagandizing like this.

You need to understand it's a net loss in persuasion, this gaslighting.

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

#489

Post by CaptWillard »

jmull wrote: post #389
brandur wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair I guess, the way the article is titled goes out of its way to mislead. It would be quite easy to say "Added 911,000 fewer jobs from March 2024 to March 2025" or "the year starting in March 2024", but they are clearly aiming to deflect from the Biden admin by implying last year's revisions are the fault of the administration inaugurated in January 2025. Judging by the comments here, it worked marvelously.

> last year's revisions To be clear, these are this administration's revisions, about what happened in the previous administration. They also don't have much credibility. One problem with firing the economist running the BLS for reporting numbers the administration didn't like, and replacing her with a political loyalist is that no one will take the numbers the BLS reports seriously anymore.

" ... no one will take the numbers the BLS reports seriously anymore."

Pretty sure the last five years of significant consistent downward revision did that.

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

#490

Post by listenallyall »

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…

> it would be extremely unpleasant

As opposed to the current economic environment and that of the past 5 or so years, which absolutely nobody thinks is unpleasant.

Post reply on HN