9% ue

[Cuyo]

This press release is a great example of Orwellian Spin.

In the details of the actual BLS stats, 190,000 LESS people were employed in the U.S. comparing the end of April to the end of March.

If the economy created 244K new jobs, it lost EVEN MORE.

Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted


Civilian Noninstitutional Population increased by 146K
Total Employed decreased by 190K
Total Unemployed increased by 205K
Not In The Labor Force increased by 131K

The number of Unemployed is increasing faster than the population in general; and the Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 58.4%, meaning almost the entire increase in the population resulted translated into Non Participation.

How anyone can think this shows economic improvement is beyond comprehension.

That particular chart is Y/Y numbers, thus irrelevant to rise in unemployment last month.

It appears total employed actually went up last month, but enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again that the result was a rise in unemployment - At least, I don't see any other explanation.

The only sector to shed jobs was state and local government.

 

[boedicca]

By thistime into a recession, application of Conservative principals to combat recessions would have already dropped unemployment a significant amount, just like in 1920/21 and under Reagan. Instead we get Progressive principals and an FDR Economy eclipsing the 7 Biblical Lean Years.

Indeed. To pimp my own thread, check out the chart in the OP:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/165298-reagan-vs-obama.html

 

[boedicca]

This press release is a great example of Orwellian Spin.

In the details of the actual BLS stats, 190,000 LESS people were employed in the U.S. comparing the end of April to the end of March.

If the economy created 244K new jobs, it lost EVEN MORE.

Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted


Civilian Noninstitutional Population increased by 146K
Total Employed decreased by 190K
Total Unemployed increased by 205K
Not In The Labor Force increased by 131K

The number of Unemployed is increasing faster than the population in general; and the Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 58.4%, meaning almost the entire increase in the population resulted translated into Non Participation.

How anyone can think this shows economic improvement is beyond comprehension.

That particular chart is Y/Y numbers, thus irrelevant to rise in unemployment last month.

It appears total employed actually went up last month, but enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again that the result was a rise in unemployment - At least, I don't see any other explanation.

The only sector to shed jobs was state and local government.

Oh the heartbreak of economic illiteracy and poor reading comprehension combined.

The change column at the far right compared March 2011 to April 2011 - it is a one month view, not a year over year.

Try again.

 

[pinqy]

This press release is a great example of Orwellian Spin.

In the details of the actual BLS stats, 190,000 LESS people were employed in the U.S. comparing the end of April to the end of March.

If the economy created 244K new jobs, it lost EVEN MORE.

Not quite. "Created 244k jobs" is from the Current Employment Statistics, a survey of non-farm payrolls. From the pay period that contained March 12th to the pay period that contained April 12th, there were 244,000 more jobs according to the payrolls of non-farm businesses. That's good news.

The "190,000 LESS people" comes from the Current Population Survey, which covers all employment and unemployment. From the week that contained March 12th to the week that contained April 12th, there were 190,000 fewer people working.

Why the discrepency? They're measuring different things with a slightly different time frame. The CPS includes agriculture, self employed, private households: Take those out of the CPS calculations and you get a gain of over 100k in employment. Agriculture went down, self-employed went down, unpaid family workers went down.

 

[Cuyo]

This press release is a great example of Orwellian Spin.

In the details of the actual BLS stats, 190,000 LESS people were employed in the U.S. comparing the end of April to the end of March.

If the economy created 244K new jobs, it lost EVEN MORE.

Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted


Civilian Noninstitutional Population increased by 146K
Total Employed decreased by 190K
Total Unemployed increased by 205K
Not In The Labor Force increased by 131K

The number of Unemployed is increasing faster than the population in general; and the Labor Force Participation Rate decreased to 58.4%, meaning almost the entire increase in the population resulted translated into Non Participation.

How anyone can think this shows economic improvement is beyond comprehension.

That particular chart is Y/Y numbers, thus irrelevant to rise in unemployment last month.

It appears total employed actually went up last month, but enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again that the result was a rise in unemployment - At least, I don't see any other explanation.

The only sector to shed jobs was state and local government.

Oh the heartbreak of economic illiteracy and poor reading comprehension combined.

The change column at the far right compared March 2011 to April 2011 - it is a one month view, not a year over year.

Try again.

So it is, so it is...

Now, I think pinqy addressed this above, but, in simple English -

If total nonfarm payroll increased 244k, and the labor pool increased only 15k per your chart - How the hell did # employed decrease 190k? Simply due to the different time frames being used?

 

[boedicca]

This press release is a great example of Orwellian Spin.

In the details of the actual BLS stats, 190,000 LESS people were employed in the U.S. comparing the end of April to the end of March.

If the economy created 244K new jobs, it lost EVEN MORE.

Not quite. "Created 244k jobs" is from the Current Employment Statistics, a survey of non-farm payrolls. From the pay period that contained March 12th to the pay period that contained April 12th, there were 244,000 more jobs according to the payrolls of non-farm businesses. That's good news.

The "190,000 LESS people" comes from the Current Population Survey, which covers all employment and unemployment. From the week that contained March 12th to the week that contained April 12th, there were 190,000 fewer people working.

Why the discrepency? They're measuring different things with a slightly different time frame. The CPS includes agriculture, self employed, private households: Take those out of the CPS calculations and you get a gain of over 100k in employment. Agriculture went down, self-employed went down, unpaid family workers went down.

So the 190K less is the more important figure as it covers ALL employment and unemployment - and the 244K figure is BS.

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[doctor100]

Caligirl, I wish i could provide you a more complete explination, but here's a brief overview as I see it:

In the 90's there was a move toward deregulating the banking industry; and reregulating it bases on the bank's advice as lobbist.

this cause a lack in safeguards that had existed since the great depression, a workaround inherent int he laws that allowed banks and financial institutions to abandon/sell risk they had taken in their practice, and make more credit-(the way they make money).

A few factors come into play- such as a bursting dot.com bubble, when the money had to go somewhere; a call for consumption to get out of the 2001 recession, when we were already in debt, and lax standards made debt more available.

[example:]Variable interest rates? that was new, it didn't exist before. But the consumer didn't realize the change in the contract . . . and didn't expect the bank to lend to them if they didn't "qualify" i.e. could safely pay things off. So long story, some people defaulted.

The banks thought they could get rid of the risk of people defaulting . . .but basically they ended up selling it to each other and to other people they relied on. they did this in "blind" sales; where the person/bank literally didn't know what they were buying, they were just told "we have a lot of loans, and the repayment on them is suppose to be really big".

Well, after they did that for a while, people started looking at the blind purchases, and realized that they paid for a bunch of defaults. And they didn't want to admit it.

When they were forced to admit it, that is when the crash occured. Roughly.

(BTW, it crashed because they were saying that they had the value of those "blind" purchases on the books; but when they took the money away because it was just a bunch of defaults, they no longer had money to make the books balance.)


So simply? the banks stopped lending responsibly . . . and along the way a lot of people saw a way to make money because houses kept selling for more and more money.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Caligirl, I wish i could provide you a more complete explination, but here's a brief overview as I see it:

In the 90's there was a move toward deregulating the banking industry; and reregulating it bases on the bank's advice as lobbist.

this cause a lack in safeguards that had existed since the great depression, a workaround inherent int he laws that allowed banks and financial institutions to abandon/sell risk they had taken in their practice, and make more credit-(the way they make money).

A few factors come into play- such as a bursting dot.com bubble, when the money had to go somewhere; a call for consumption to get out of the 2001 recession, when we were already in debt, and lax standards made debt more available.

[example:]Variable interest rates? that was new, it didn't exist before. But the consumer didn't realize the change in the contract . . . and didn't expect the bank to lend to them if they didn't "qualify" i.e. could safely pay things off. So long story, some people defaulted.

The banks thought they could get rid of the risk of people defaulting . . .but basically they ended up selling it to each other and to other people they relied on. they did this in "blind" sales; where the person/bank literally didn't know what they were buying, they were just told "we have a lot of loans, and the repayment on them is suppose to be really big".

Well, after they did that for a while, people started looking at the blind purchases, and realized that they paid for a bunch of defaults. And they didn't want to admit it.

When they were forced to admit it, that is when the crash occured. Roughly.

(BTW, it crashed because they were saying that they had the value of those "blind" purchases on the books; but when they took the money away because it was just a bunch of defaults, they no longer had money to make the books balance.)


So simply? the banks stopped lending responsibly . . . and along the way a lot of people saw a way to make money because houses kept selling for more and more money.

Why is it no one wishes to talk about "irresponsible borrowing"?
And why is it no one wants to talk about people who delibreately live beyond their means with no intention of repaying debt?
Yes, deregulation created many problems. The federal government also made the mistake of mandating lending institutions to lend to people who in the past when the banking industry was more heavily regulated, who were unqualified.
That also drove up the price of homes. With more buyers than ever flodding the market, demand outplaced supply of homes. Builders, especially production builders could not build homes fast enough. Especially homes in the starter to mid range.
At the insistence of a few House members and Senators, Fannie/Freddie was permitted to become a two headed monster even though these people were warned about impending disaster.
Heck, we have great credit figs , well up in the "A" range. Our mortgage was sold three times in the first 18 months of it's life.
If it were up to me, I'd get rid of this system of large national banks and create a marketplace so small regional banks could compete. This would bring us back to the days where you walked into your neighborhood branch and the employees and the customer were on a first name basis.

 

[pinqy]

This press release is a great example of Orwellian Spin.

In the details of the actual BLS stats, 190,000 LESS people were employed in the U.S. comparing the end of April to the end of March.

If the economy created 244K new jobs, it lost EVEN MORE.

Not quite. "Created 244k jobs" is from the Current Employment Statistics, a survey of non-farm payrolls. From the pay period that contained March 12th to the pay period that contained April 12th, there were 244,000 more jobs according to the payrolls of non-farm businesses. That's good news.

The "190,000 LESS people" comes from the Current Population Survey, which covers all employment and unemployment. From the week that contained March 12th to the week that contained April 12th, there were 190,000 fewer people working.

Why the discrepency? They're measuring different things with a slightly different time frame. The CPS includes agriculture, self employed, private households: Take those out of the CPS calculations and you get a gain of over 100k in employment. Agriculture went down, self-employed went down, unpaid family workers went down.

So the 190K less is the more important figure as it covers ALL employment and unemployment - and the 244K figure is BS.

Nope. The advantages of the CES are larger sample, so it's more accurate, and ability to benchmark. Every year a full count based on UI records is done and that's used to reset the levels for better accuracy. So the nonfarm payroll isn't as complete, but it's a lot more precise, so it is better for measuring trend of jobs, hours and wages. Especially for hours and wages because from a household survey, people are inaccurate: they cite wages and hours from memory and little accuracy. So the admin records are a lot more accurate there.

 

[expat_panama]

...It appears total employed actually went up last month, but...

No, there are 139,674,000 people employed now, and that's down 190,000 from last month. Jobs were lost and all this talk about new jobs created is delusional.

.. enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again that the result was a rise in unemployment...

No, the increase in the labor force this month was 15,000, not nearly enough to have caused the 190,000 drop in employment. The economy is contracting.

 

[expat_panama]

What are the root problems here? I think overpopulation (unsustainable - you can't keep growing and growing for more and more people as resources get further and further thinned out)...

That would be true if technology wasn't growing faster than population and making possible greater wealth creation with fewer resources. Over the decades population's increased while resource prices have fallen (aka supply more than demand).

...I don't see how a human population can keep growing physically and economically ad infinitum in a limited space...

Space, like all other resources may be limited, but the wealth that can be created in that space with those resources has become more and more a wealth of information, which is infinite for our purposes.

...Doesn't this downturn make some sort of cold analytical sense at some level, as a cost of the booms that we had? What am I missing?

The reason we're not creating wealth as we did a few years ago is that people aren't participation as much in market activity, and the reason for that is those that start it are under and an attack of scorn and regulation.

 

[pinqy]

...It appears total employed actually went up last month, but...

No, there are 139,674,000 people employed now, and that's down 190,000 from last month. Jobs were lost and all this talk about new jobs created is delusional.

No, it's not delusional, it's just measuring different things. Non farm payroll employment absolutely went up. The estimate of change was between +144,565 and +343,435 with a published change of +244,000

Employment from the Current Population survey showed an estimated change of between -621,940 and +241,940, making it not statistically significantly different from zero.

CES is narrower, but more accurate and measures the largest segment of employment: Private Industries and Government.

.. enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again that the result was a rise in unemployment...

No, the increase in the labor force this month was 15,000, not nearly enough to have caused the 190,000 drop in employment.

What do you mean "not nearly enough to cause the ... drop?" Labor Force is simply Employed plus unemployed..a change in LF is just the sum of changes in Employment and Unemployment...it can't "cause" anything. Employment went down 190,000, Unemployment went up 205,000, so Labor Force went up 15,000. The largest chunk of the increase in unemployment was from people previously Not in the Labor Force who were starting to look. Labor Force Flows

 

[expat_panama]

...it's not delusional, it's just measuring different things. Non farm payroll employment absolutely went up. The estimate of change was between +144,565 and +343,435 with a published change of +244,000...

Dang, I spotted that right after my post went in! You're absolutely right and saying we created jobs is not "delusional", it's just a misleading half truth. My bad.

...The largest chunk of the increase in unemployment was from people previously Not in the Labor Force who were starting to look.

If we're talking about the labor force and employment, then we're back to using CPS stats. Those have a higher unemployment rate because employment dropped more than ten times labor force growth.

 

[pinqy]

]If we're talking about the labor force and employment, then we're back to using CPS stats. Those have a higher unemployment rate because employment dropped more than ten times labor force growth.

No, it did not. Labor Force COMES FROM EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT. You're talking like they're seperate.
March 2011: Employment = 139,864,000, Unemployment = 13,542,000, so LF was 139,864,000 + 13,542,000 = 153,406,000
April 2011: Employment = 139,674,000, Unemployment = 13,747,000, so LF was 139,674,000 + 13,747,000 = 153,421,000

The UE rate went up because the numerator (unemployment) went up by 205,000 and the denominator (employed + unemployment) only went up 15,000.

 

[expat_panama]

]If we're talking about the labor force and employment, then we're back to using CPS stats. Those have a higher unemployment rate because employment dropped more than ten times labor force growth.

No, it did not. Labor Force COMES FROM EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT. You're talking like they're seperate...

How about you and I talking about this:

 

[pinqy]

]If we're talking about the labor force and employment, then we're back to using CPS stats. Those have a higher unemployment rate because employment dropped more than ten times labor force growth.

No, it did not. Labor Force COMES FROM EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT. You're talking like they're seperate...

How about you and I talking about this:

And what in particular did you have in mind? Labor Force is Employed + Unemployed, Labor Force Participation is Labor Force/adult civilian noninstitutional population, and unemployment rate is Unemployment/Labor Force.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Nov 2012 is when Obama gets unemployed

 

[expat_panama]

...And what in particular did you have in mind? Labor Force is Employed + Unemployed...

Agreed. Please tell me if we're also together with how CPS data from Mar. to Apr. show changes of:

employment down by 190,000
labor force up by 15,000,
and unemployment up by 205,000.​

 

[pinqy]

...And what in particular did you have in mind? Labor Force is Employed + Unemployed...

Agreed. Please tell me if we're also together with how CPS data from Mar. to Apr. show changes of:

employment down by 190,000
labor force up by 15,000,
and unemployment up by 205,000.​

Yes, and the reason labor force is up by 15,000 is because 205,000-190,000=15,000 labor force is a dependent variable. I don't know if you meant it, but it seemed as though you believe that labor force is independent of employment, when it is not.

 

[expat_panama]

From an earlier post I'd understood--

.. enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again that the result was a rise in unemployment...

No, the increase in the labor force this month was 15,000, not nearly enough to have caused the 190,000 drop in employment.

What do you mean "not nearly enough to cause the ... drop?" Labor Force is simply Employed plus unemployed...

--to mean you considered the "rise in unemployment" to be the result of "the increase in the labor force" AKA "enough discouraged workers became... ahem... 'encouraged' again".

Now we have--

...we're also together with how CPS data from Mar. to Apr. show changes of:

employment down by 190,000
labor force up by 15,000,
and unemployment up by 205,000.​

Yes...

--and we both see that from Mar. to Apr. the increase in the labor force was not significant, and that the increase in the unemployment rate was for the most part the result of increased unemployment and decreased employment.