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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

#91

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

logifail wrote: post #79
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…

> It would be good for everyone if people who are not professional economists paid less attention to this. It would be good for everyone if the BLS figures were trusted. Even "not professional economists" might lose trust in figures which are regularly revised downwards ... months after being published.

They're preliminary figures! The only alternative is for BLS to be less transparent, collecting data and then refusing to release it until they have enough information to construct their final estimate.

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

#93

Post by wnevets »

lokar wrote: post #42
wnevets wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I voted for him because of the economy" - People I know

Did these people think he would actually lower prices? And that “lowering inflation “ means prices go back down?

> Did these people think

Unlikely.

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

#94

Post by nodesocket »

putzdown wrote: post #85
nodesocket wrote: post #73

[flagged]

I'd love to see the evidence for or against this assertion. If BLS is grossly inaccurate, that'd be a good thing to know. If it's accurate, also good to know. Evidence?

We can start with this reading. Average monthly job growth dropped from 147,000 initially to just over 70,000 a reduction of approximately 52% from their data. This at precisely when the Fed needed to start cuts when the administration has been aggressively hammering them. Hopefully the Fed is not too late this time, and their 6+ month delay cutting won't result in a recession or serious economic impact.

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

#95

Post by cs702 »

txru wrote: post #64
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…

I heard Volcker speak once, you could still see him remembering how hated he was for those years of the Volcker Shock on his face. Strained and a little sad.

As he raised the federal fund rate to 20%, Volcker became widely hated indeed. Businesses and consumers suffered because of his actions.

Politicians of course tried to take control of the Fed. They also tried to fire him. At one point he needed Secret Service protection. Here's an article from the 1980's about it:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-05-fi-492-st...

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

#96

Post by franktankbank »

edoceo wrote: post #80
franktankbank wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people who care about that are the economists. You can also take a one time hit by getting back to the basics and forget the goddamn metrics.

What is back to basics mean here? Forgetting metrics, for a national economy, seems not good.

Incentivize our basic necessities and come down hard on fraud. If a bridge needs to be rebuilt pay to have it done. If shipping infrastructure needs to be modernized pay to have it done. If we need more mining get it done. Get it done and get it done fast. If bids are won but they go and fuck all the money away send them to jail. This is how stuff worked before people became obsessed with metrics.

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

#97

Post by babblingdweeb »

logifail wrote: post #22

Q: 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... )

(reposting a version of my comment somewhere below)

The BLS (USA) does adjust the numbers every month (for two months after the initial release) and annually. Regardless if the numbers go up or down, this is fairly common with statistics and forecasting in general. When actuals come in, the forecast is adjusted closer to reality.

Anecdotally: It gets lost in the mix of headlines when those adjustments show that the initial projections were on trend, or "close enough the talking heads don't care enough". However, it gets "interesting" when it's off-trend; or confirms prior notable good/bad news. In this case, it confirms* what was suspected, mostly confirms what was reported. As actuals came in, the reality was worse than projected.

*"Confirms" use case here: job growth is poop right now.

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

#98

Post by yepitwas »

StillBored wrote: post #62

Austerity has repeatably been shown to kill economic growth and trigger recessions/depressions. Yet for whatever reason there is one party in congress who's entire economic policy is basically austerity measures. Repeatedly, the ax man comes in and cuts spending that generates multiples of economic activity in return. This happens all the time cut a $1 here and it costs $4 over there kinds of things. Infrastructure i…

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 democrats at pursuing a balanced budget since then, so they're not serious about it, including and perhaps especially Trump—but they really, really want to get their hands on social security, it's so much money out of the hands of rich people that they just can't stand it.

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

#99

Post by xrd »

babypuncher wrote: post #84
StillBored wrote: post #62

Austerity has repeatably been shown to kill economic growth and trigger recessions/depressions. Yet for whatever reason there is one party in congress who's entire economic policy is basically austerity measures. Repeatedly, the ax man comes in and cuts spending that generates multiples of economic activity in return. This happens all the time cut a $1 here and it costs $4 over there kinds of things. Infrastructure i…

Well at least the billionaire class got their massive tax cut, that's what is important. Buying food may get more difficult for the rest of us, but at least Jeff Bezos can buy another megayacht, and I'm happy for him about that.

Me too. Since he migrated his wealth from the place he earned it for thirty years to a tax haven in Florida the realities are different. With warming tropical waters, he will need to spend more money on a yacht that can handle the bigger storms. It's not a problem you or I need to worry about, but he does, and that's probably why he is a billionaire and I'm not.

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

#100

Post by ForHackernews »

putzdown wrote: post #85
nodesocket wrote: post #73

[flagged]

I'd love to see the evidence for or against this assertion. If BLS is grossly inaccurate, that'd be a good thing to know. If it's accurate, also good to know. Evidence?

He's not the final word on the matter, but Nate Silver writes...

> I've worked a lot with data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other federal agencies. In fact, an economic index based on a half-dozen of these statistics is part of our presidential election forecast, so we’ve pulled this data all the way back to World War II.3

> And I consider it to be of very high quality. When BLS data is revised as more information becomes available, it’s meticulously documented and explained. For more on how this works, including just how difficult the BLS’s job is and how it’s being made harder by declining survey response rates and cuts to federal agencies that track economic activity, I’d strongly recommend this edition of the Odd Lots podcast with Bill Beach, the former BLS commissioner under Trump 1.0 and Biden. It might not be the most riveting interview, but one thing that comes through is just how much of a straight-shooter he is.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/trumps-jobs-data-denialism-wont...

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