Missing Workers - The Missing Part of the Unemployment Story[W:46]

[danarhea]

In today’s labor market, the unemployment rate drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities. This is due to the existence of a large pool of “missing workers”—potential workers who, because of weak job opportunities, are neither employed nor actively seeking a job. In other words, these are people who wouldbe either working or looking for work if job opportunities were significantly stronger. Because jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work, these “missing workers” are not reflected in the unemployment rate.

There are 3 kinds of lies.... Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Our government lies to us constantly - This is a fact. Starting with Ronald Reagan, every president has misled the public on what the unemployment rate really is. Missing workers are still unemployed, and under the old way of counting them, they counted. They should count now, but whoever is in power doesn't want us to know the truth. So they invent ways to lie. It's the same with Obama, who claims that our economy is heating up, and shows us an unemployment rate of 6.6% to bolster his claims. But the actual unemployment rate, that which existed before 1980, is 9.9%, which is not good at all.

Now I am no hyperpartisan who is going to pin this all on Obama, especially since the recession hammer came down during the Bush administration. But Obama is now in his second term, and frankly has not kept the promises he made to jump start our economy. He has had close to 6 years, and our recovery is about as weak as it can be.

This is no longer the Bush recession. This is the Bush-Obama recession. Bush may have started it, but Obama owns it now. So, to President Obama, I ask only one thing of you.... Stop lying to us. We the People have had enough bull**** from the government to last us a lifetime.... Or 2 or 3 of them, for that matter. The buck stops with you, asshole.

Article is here.

 

[Chocolate]

wait.... I thought this was obvious? Atleast it was obvious to me who is not native to america.... Uneployed are people that are people without jobs currently looking. If you are not looking for work you are irrelivent to the statistic of job growth in this sense.... So I don't think anyone lied to anyone just maybe information was less obvious to you people who have lived your entire life in america?

Lol you guys are silly to me sometimes

 

[danarhea]

wait.... I thought this was obvious? Atleast it was obvious to me who is not native to america.... Uneployed are people that are people without jobs currently looking. If you are not looking for work you are irrelivent to the statistic of job growth in this sense.... So I don't think anyone lied to anyone just maybe information was less obvious to you people who have lived your entire life in america?

Lol you guys are silly to me sometimes

So I see that you believe that people who are unemployed, but who have given up, due to the weakness of the job market, are no longer unemployed? They have jobs now? Wow, pretzel logic extraordinaire.

 

[GottaGo]

wait.... I thought this was obvious? Atleast it was obvious to me who is not native to america.... Uneployed are people that are people without jobs currently looking. If you are not looking for work you are irrelivent to the statistic of job growth in this sense.... So I don't think anyone lied to anyone just maybe information was less obvious to you people who have lived your entire life in america?

Lol you guys are silly to me sometimes

When people finally give up looking for work, and some take an early retirement because of it, they are actually part of the 'unemployed'.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

wait.... I thought this was obvious? Atleast it was obvious to me who is not native to america.... Uneployed are people that are people without jobs currently looking. If you are not looking for work you are irrelivent to the statistic of job growth in this sense.... So I don't think anyone lied to anyone just maybe information was less obvious to you people who have lived your entire life in america?

Lol you guys are silly to me sometimes

I find your statement extremely confusing. Are you saying these people without jobs aren't unemployed?

 

[Chocolate]

Well... I meant I don't believe the government lie when they show the job statistics because it's very very clear that the percentage is based on people looking for work and can't find any.... I don't know?

 

[Lutherf]

There are 3 kinds of lies.... Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Our government lies to us constantly - This is a fact. Starting with Ronald Reagan, every president has misled the public on what the unemployment rate really is. Missing workers are still unemployed, and under the old way of counting them, they counted. They should count now, but whoever is in power doesn't want us to know the truth. So they invent ways to lie. It's the same with Obama, who claims that our economy is heating up, and shows us an unemployment rate of 6.6% to bolster his claims. But the actual unemployment rate, that which existed before 1980, is 9.9%, which is not good at all.

Now I am no hyperpartisan who is going to pin this all on Obama, especially since the recession hammer came down during the Bush administration. But Obama is now in his second term, and frankly has not kept the promises he made to jump start our economy. He has had close to 6 years, and our recovery is about as weak as it can be.

This is no longer the Bush recession. This is the Bush-Obama recession. Bush may have started it, but Obama owns it now. So, to President Obama, I ask only one thing of you.... Stop lying to us. We the People have had enough bull**** from the government to last us a lifetime.... Or 2 or 3 of them, for that matter. The buck stops with you, asshole.

Article is here.

That's why a better statistic is the Labor Participation Rate.

Beginnin in 1983 the labor participation rate started moving up from 64% more than 66%/ We stayed between 66-67% until 2008 when things dropped off steadily until we reached less than 63% where we are now.

 

[Redress]

There are 3 kinds of lies.... Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Our government lies to us constantly - This is a fact. Starting with Ronald Reagan, every president has misled the public on what the unemployment rate really is. Missing workers are still unemployed, and under the old way of counting them, they counted. They should count now, but whoever is in power doesn't want us to know the truth. So they invent ways to lie. It's the same with Obama, who claims that our economy is heating up, and shows us an unemployment rate of 6.6% to bolster his claims. But the actual unemployment rate, that which existed before 1980, is 9.9%, which is not good at all.

Now I am no hyperpartisan who is going to pin this all on Obama, especially since the recession hammer came down during the Bush administration. But Obama is now in his second term, and frankly has not kept the promises he made to jump start our economy. He has had close to 6 years, and our recovery is about as weak as it can be.

This is no longer the Bush recession. This is the Bush-Obama recession. Bush may have started it, but Obama owns it now. So, to President Obama, I ask only one thing of you.... Stop lying to us. We the People have had enough bull**** from the government to last us a lifetime.... Or 2 or 3 of them, for that matter. The buck stops with you, asshole.

Article is here.

Ironically, the government you are accusing of lying tracks those very people: Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

By the way, your history is somewhat wrong too.

 

[The Mark]

wait.... I thought this was obvious? Atleast it was obvious to me who is not native to america.... Uneployed are people that are people without jobs currently looking. If you are not looking for work you are irrelivent to the statistic of job growth in this sense.... So I don't think anyone lied to anyone just maybe information was less obvious to you people who have lived your entire life in america?

Lol you guys are silly to me sometimes

It would be more accurate to say that the first # which Dan cites is "percentage of people looking for work who do not have a job", whereas the second number is "percentage of people ABLE to work who do not have a job".

Both statistics are unemployment, just different ways of looking at it.

 

[What if...?]

At one point they may under-report to give a false sense of consumer confidence.

Or to distract from poor performance.

Or to make it appear that the system is working better for the working class than it actually is.

Maybe a unilateral rejection of having smoke blown up our asses would be the best solution.

Maybe the next time your guy gets caught lying to you you put HIS ass in check instead of looking for a lie from the other side to point to and say "Your guy does it too".

(Not you Dan, the general "you". I'm kinda worked up about the sheer amount of deliberately deceptive crap that's out there right now. Its nuts)

 

[Redress]

At one point they may under-report to give a false sense of consumer confidence.

Or to distract from poor performance.

Or to make it appear that the system is working better for the working class than it actually is.

Maybe a unilateral rejection of having smoke blown up our asses would be the best solution.

Maybe the next time your guy gets caught lying to you you put HIS ass in check instead of looking for a lie from the other side to point to and say "Your guy does it too".

(Not you Dan, the general "you". I'm kinda worked up about the sheer amount of deliberately deceptive crap that's out there right now. Its nuts)

Actually the reason U3 is used as the "official" unemployment stat is because it has always been calculated that way, so for comparison it is kept as what is considered the unemployment rate. However, the government publishes a whole slew of unemployment measures. It is hard to suggest they are hiding or decieving people when they are publishing the very numbers.

 

[What if...?]

Actually the reason U3 is used as the "official" unemployment stat is because it has always been calculated that way, so for comparison it is kept as what is considered the unemployment rate. However, the government publishes a whole slew of unemployment measures. It is hard to suggest they are hiding or decieving people when they are publishing the very numbers.

I was actually referring to how the numbers are almost inevitably spun.

Commenting on the numerous reasons it is considered appropriate to deliberately deceive Americans.

 

[The Mark]

Employment stats I would be somewhat interested in viewing would be:
% of employed persons with full time jobs
% of employed persons working part time jobs
% of full time employed persons working min-wage or low-wage jobs
% of part time employed persons working min-wage or low-wage jobs

I'm not sure an overall "x % of persons are employed" is detailed enough.

Probably stats out there somewhere for this but I don't know where.

 

[Muhammed]

The economic depression has also caused a lot of people to be long-term unemployed. Especially in the construction trades. I know several very talented and hard working tradesmen who have been unemployed for several years now. Since 2004 during the Bush boom when I took this job with my current employer I've had to lay off 19 hard working concrete guys long-term. And being forced to do that really sucks. A lot of them have families and still can't find decent jobs.

And young males 25 and under were also hit hard by the depression. In some cities near half of them are unemployed. It's an all around bad situation and it won't be fixed until the politicians realize that they need to halt all immigration and implement policies to curb the import of manufactured goods, especially imports from China.

 

[pinqy]

There are 3 kinds of lies.... Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Our government lies to us constantly - This is a fact. Starting with Ronald Reagan, every president has misled the public on what the unemployment rate really is. Missing workers are still unemployed, and under the old way of counting them, they counted.

Please explain the differences then and show us the old reports to back up your point. Th

But the actual unemployment rate, that which existed before 1980, is 9.9%, which is not good at all.

There were no changes to the CPS in 1980

[/QUOTE]

 

[danarhea]

Please explain the differences then and show us the old reports to back up your point. Th

There were no changes to the CPS in 1980

El wrongo, O' CBO breath. :mrgreen:

First of all I didn't say the first change happened in 1980. I said it happened during the Reagan administration, which in 1982, used a new method that dropped unemployed workers from the report if they had not looked for work in 2 weeks. Which means that the old method was being used prior to 1980. It's documented in the link below.

Here are the changes made, beginning with Reagan, which made things look not as bad as they actually were, or are today..... And they are ALL guilty, Democrat and Republican alike. And presidents have mangled the meaning of the CPI even worse.

 

[Redress]

El wrongo, O' CBO breath. :mrgreen:

First of all I didn't say the first change happened in 1980. I said it happened during the Reagan administration, which in 1982, used a new method that dropped unemployed workers from the report if they had not looked for work in 2 weeks. Which means that the old method was being used prior to 1980. It's documented in the link below.

Here are the changes made, beginning with Reagan, which made things look not as bad as they actually were, or are today..... And they are ALL guilty, Democrat and Republican alike. And presidents have mangled the meaning of the CPI even worse.

Can you find a source for your claim that is not Joe Blow's opinion blog?

 

[pinqy]

El wrongo, O' CBO breath. :mrgreen:

First of all I didn't say the first change happened in 1980. I said it happened during the Reagan administration, which in 1982, used a new method that dropped unemployed workers from the report if they had not looked for work in 2 weeks. Which means that the old method was being used prior to 1980. It's documented in the link below.

Here are the changes made, beginning with Reagan, which made things look not as bad as they actually were, or are today..... And they are ALL guilty, Democrat and Republican alike. And presidents have mangled the meaning of the CPI even worse.

You've been lied to. From the June 1982 Employment Situation http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/releases/bls/bls_employnews_198206.pdf

People are classified as unemployed, regardless of their eligibility for unemployment benefits or public assistance, if they meet all of the following criteria:
They had no employment during the survey week; they were available for work at that time; and they made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the prior 4 weeks. Also included among the unemployed are persons not looking for work because they were laid off and waiting to be recalled and those expecting to report to a job within 30 days.

All Employment Situations from 1973-1994 Employment Situation - FRASER
From 1994-present Employment Situation Archived News Releases
If you want early you can find definitions in Employment and Earnings. Employment and Earnings - FRASER

The only definitional changes were in 1967 and 1994.

 

[pinqy]

El wrongo, O' CBO breath. :mrgreen:

First of all I didn't say the first change happened in 1980. I said it happened during the Reagan administration, which in 1982, used a new method that dropped unemployed workers from the report if they had not looked for work in 2 weeks. Which means that the old method was being used prior to 1980. It's documented in the link below.

Here are the changes made, beginning with Reagan, which made things look not as bad as they actually were, or are today..... And they are ALL guilty, Democrat and Republican alike. And presidents have mangled the meaning of the CPI even worse.

Your apology is accepted. Thank you for being man enough to admit that you were wrong.

 

[danarhea]

Your apology is accepted. Thank you for being man enough to admit that you were wrong.

^
What hallucination of yours did this post come from? LOL.

 

[Perotista]

wait.... I thought this was obvious? Atleast it was obvious to me who is not native to america.... Uneployed are people that are people without jobs currently looking. If you are not looking for work you are irrelivent to the statistic of job growth in this sense.... So I don't think anyone lied to anyone just maybe information was less obvious to you people who have lived your entire life in america?

Lol you guys are silly to me sometimes

One must take the unemployment numbers with a grain of salt. The unemployment percentage does not include those who have given up looking for jobs, discouraged workers is another name for them. We have seen where in these statistics when more people lose their jobs than jobs are created and yet the unemployment percentage goes down. This would seem to a sane person a complete impossibility.
An example my friend:
50,000 people lose their jobs
25,000 jobs created or people who went back to work
75,000 unemployed decided not to look for work
Unemployment percentage drops from 6.7% to 6.6%
It would seem if we have 25,000 more people now out of work, the unemployment percentage should rise, not drop. But it drops because in my example 75,000 decided not to look for work that week or month or the time period the report was issued for. Regardless of whether one is looking for work, (counted as being unemployed), or not looking for work, (not counted as being unemployed) both groups do not have a job and both are in reality unemployed.

This has lead the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics to issue their report, Their report which ended in December of 2013 issued in January of this year put the official unemployment rate at 6.7, but the real unemployment rate at 13.1% which includes all groups or the total who do not have a job that at least were looking for a job within the last 12 months. Not the last two weeks as the official job report includes.

 

[Redress]

El wrongo, O' CBO breath. :mrgreen:

First of all I didn't say the first change happened in 1980. I said it happened during the Reagan administration, which in 1982, used a new method that dropped unemployed workers from the report if they had not looked for work in 2 weeks. Which means that the old method was being used prior to 1980. It's documented in the link below.

Here are the changes made, beginning with Reagan, which made things look not as bad as they actually were, or are today..... And they are ALL guilty, Democrat and Republican alike. And presidents have mangled the meaning of the CPI even worse.

Can you find a source for your claim that is not Joe Blow's opinion blog?

Just thought I would remind you of this. Do you have a source for the changes that is actually credible, or maybe official? Like from the BLS, or a news service...you know, not some random guys blog on the internets?

 

[pinqy]

^
What hallucination of yours did this post come from? LOL.

My mistake. Forgive me for assuming you had any integrity.

 

[danarhea]

My mistake. Forgive me for assuming you had any integrity.

Me? YOU are the one who made the false statement about me apologizing when I didn't. It seems the lack of integrity is all in your court. To the ignore list you go with the other flamebaiters and trolls.

 

[polgara]

One must take the unemployment numbers with a grain of salt. The unemployment percentage does not include those who have given up looking for jobs, discouraged workers is another name for them. We have seen where in these statistics when more people lose their jobs than jobs are created and yet the unemployment percentage goes down. This would seem to a sane person a complete impossibility.
An example my friend:
50,000 people lose their jobs
25,000 jobs created or people who went back to work
75,000 unemployed decided not to look for work
Unemployment percentage drops from 6.7% to 6.6%
It would seem if we have 25,000 more people now out of work, the unemployment percentage should rise, not drop. But it drops because in my example 75,000 decided not to look for work that week or month or the time period the report was issued for. Regardless of whether one is looking for work, (counted as being unemployed), or not looking for work, (not counted as being unemployed) both groups do not have a job and both are in reality unemployed.

This has lead the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics to issue their report, Their report which ended in December of 2013 issued in January of this year put the official unemployment rate at 6.7, but the real unemployment rate at 13.1% which includes all groups or the total who do not have a job that at least were looking for a job within the last 12 months. Not the last two weeks as the official job report includes.

:agree: They cannot publish the true figures, though, because people would become alarmed and demand answers...and if the answers reflected the true state of the economy, they couldn't tell us that everything is fine and dandy. Now that is what people want to hear, even though they know in their gut that something is very wrong, so the word "ostrich" comes to mind! Their inevitable awakening is going to be something to see, though! . :2mad:

Greetings, Pero. :2wave: