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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
#52What I really fail to understand - how can departments like BLS screw up to this extent. Either they are grossly incompetent or they are intentionally corrupt. The data covers the period from March 2024 to March 2025 and trims the average monthly jobs gains seen during this period (roughly the last 10 months of Joe Biden's presidency and the first two months of Trump's) from a monthly average of 147,000 to about 71,0…
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 later revised to two jobs, that would be super humanly accurate and yet you would be calling for everyone to be fired over the 100% error rate.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#53If 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 themselves unable to raise prices further and consumers find themselves unable to demand greater pay at work.
Raising rates to put stress on businesses and consumers is the only method known to work for ending self-reinforcing high inflation. It's what Paul Volcker did at the Federal Reserve in response to the stagflation that started in the early 1970's in the US and other countries, after OPEC raised oil prices. Volcker raised the federal funds rate in fits and starts to a high of 20% in 1981:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker#Chairman_of_the_F...
It worked. Volcker's actions are widely credited with ending self-reinforcing high inflation. His actions also triggered a recession.
Stagflation itself triggered a stock market crash in 1973-1974. It took over 20 years, until 1993, for the US stock market to recover:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973%E2%80%931974_stock_market...
Like I said, it would be extremely unpleasant, for everyone. I hope we don't end up with stagflation.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
One can argue that we're only seeing the beginning of the destruction. The economic policies of this administration could take years to be fully realized. That also means that, unfortunately, it will take years to repair the damage.
I don't think the trust in the US can be repaired for a very long time.
If ever.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#55Q: Hasn't the US monthly jobs figure frequently been revised downwards over recent years, regardless of which administration was in charge? (edit - see for instance Aug 2024: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4142722-why-was-there-such-a-b... )
You're right, I don't think that part is meant to be controversial.
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 professional economists paid less attention to this.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I voted for him because of the economy" - People I know
Also heard: "He's a billionaire so of course he knows what he is doing."
It's true, he knows what he's doing, and he is substantially more of a billionaire now than he was before this election.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#57What I really fail to understand - how can departments like BLS screw up to this extent. Either they are grossly incompetent or they are intentionally corrupt. The data covers the period from March 2024 to March 2025 and trims the average monthly jobs gains seen during this period (roughly the last 10 months of Joe Biden's presidency and the first two months of Trump's) from a monthly average of 147,000 to about 71,0…
It’s a survey, there are a lot of non-responses (getting worse) and late responses. They try to correct for this, and that normally works, but when “weird” things are going on the corrections can be pretty wrong. The people who use these numbers understand all of this and it’s fine. It’s just the popular media that freaks out. The quarterly numbers come from better data sources (tax withholding, unemployment insuranc…
For example, if a small business goes out of business and fires everyone, they probably won’t respond to the survey. If the rate of small business failures is not what we normally see (more of less is absolute of relative numbers) it can create a bias that throws the models off.
Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#58Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
#59[flagged]
I think its probably a lot more complicated than that. I think this started decades ago and we are at a point of pivot. I couldn't tell you where we are pivoting to but I'm not really reassured by the obsessive metricization(?) of our economy, from the stock market to inflation numbers to jobs numbers.
One weird but interesting theory : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...
There are recurring cycles in the American/Western history, with each cycle lasting +- 20 years.
The cycles are High, Awakening, Unraveling and Crisis.
We're supposedly in the Crisis cycle, where there are major crises like war, depression,revolutions that would help the society to rebuild institutions.
This theory seems completely flawed as it applies itself retroactively, entrenched in confirmation bias, but still entertaining.