Legitimate Unemployment Thread

[Zoomie1980]

This thread reminds me of Sealybobo. I hope he finds a job with access to the internet soon!

If sealy were actually out of work, you would definitely not have inside info. Don't spread rumors.

The BLS is the de-facto standard of employment statistics used by every governmental, banking and investment company as well as general business. It is the "GOLD" standard. You might as well argue air doesn't exist because you cannot see it.

Same thing with the money supply, M1, M2, M3. The only people who don't like these, are the extremist ranters who refuse accept facts that do not paint the picture they want to see, or see a government conspiracy around every corner.

The numbers are what they are, and are the standards by which our economy is measured by everyone in the business.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

I should have the august numbers up next week. I hope we did good in august....my local economy "feels" like it did pretty good.

We were busy at work

Prices of steel went up at the scrapyard and Precious metals in the catalytic converters went up. That shows people are building stuff


Fingers crossed, lets hope we finally gained some jobs.

 

[Neubarth]

Ironic that according to our corrupt government, in July 2009 the Labor Force was 154,504,000 Yet, the population of the United States was 308,000,000.

Does anybody honestly believe that half of the US population is not interested in working a job? I know, there are so many million under the age of 16 and so many over the age of 65 who are not capable of work. Believe me they do not make up half of our population.


The "Labor Pool" is a totally fictitious number foisted upon weak minds.

 

[edthecynic]

Ironic that according to our corrupt government, in July 2009 the Labor Force was 154,504,000 Yet, the population of the United States was 308,000,000.

Does anybody honestly believe that half of the US population is not interested in working a job? I know, there are so many million under the age of 16 and so many over the age of 65 who are not capable of work. Believe me they do not make up half of our population.


The "Labor Pool" is a totally fictitious number foisted upon weak minds.

You also have "stay-at-home wives."

 

[pinqy]

Ironic that according to our corrupt government, in July 2009 the Labor Force was 154,504,000 Yet, the population of the United States was 308,000,000.

No, it's not ironic. Perhaps you should look up the word.

Does anybody honestly believe that half of the US population is not interested in working a job? I know, there are so many million under the age of 16 and so many over the age of 65 who are not capable of work. Believe me they do not make up half of our population.

It's really starting to amuse me that your random observations, and off-the-cuff ideas seem more valid to you than real research and science. If you don't understand how something could be true, then you decide it can't be.

Let's go through the not seasonally adjusted numbers.

As has been pointed out to you before, the population used for the CPS is the Adult civilian non-institutional population...those 16+, not in the military, not in prison, not in an institution. That population, as of July, was 235,870,000. 141,055,000 were employed. 15,201,000 had not worked but looked for work in the previous 4 weeks. 73,370,000 hadn't looked and didn't want a job. (this would include not just retirees, but students, and stay-at-home-spouses, independently wealthy, trust-fund babies, etc). 3,962,000 wanted a job, but hadn't looked for work in the last year or weren't actually available to work in the next 2 weeks. 796,000 wanted to work, were available to work, had looked in the last year, but not in the last 4 weeks because they believed they wouldn't be successful (discouraged workers). 1,486,000 wanted to work, were available to work, had looked in the last year, but not in the last 4 weeks for any other reason, such as transportation, child care, illness, etc.

So, it's clear you really didn't give this much thought if "under 16 and retired" were the ONLY categories you could think of besides employed and those who had looked for work in the last 4 weeks.

 

[Neubarth]

No, it's not ironic. Perhaps you should look up the word.....

1,486,000 wanted to work, were available to work, had looked in the last year, but not in the last 4 weeks for any other reason, such as transportation, child care, illness, etc.

So, it's clear you really didn't give this much thought if "under 16 and retired" were the ONLY categories you could think of besides employed and those who had looked for work in the last 4 weeks.

Anal Ignoramus! Still showing that you love your false numbers!

There is a fool born every minute!

As far as "Ironic," this can be said. all senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is expressed and what is intended, or between an understanding or expectation of a reality and what actually happens: the literal truth is in direct discordance to the perceived truth. Irony is very appropriate here. It is ironic that you pretend to be intelligent when you are so ignorant.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Neubarth that number seems low because it is all Non-Farm labor. All those who work in the farming industry are not included in the numbers.

I got a nice little chart for the payroll numbers over the last 2 years or so

 

[pinqy]

Neubarth that number seems low because it is all Non-Farm labor. All those who work in the farming industry are not included in the numbers.

I got a nice little chart for the payroll numbers over the last 2 years or so

No, I was citing the CPS which does include agriculture....the Labor Force numbers include everyone in the adult civilian non-institutional population.

The Employment numbers (job losses and job gains) does exclude agriculture, the self-employed, domestic workers, and unpaid family workers.

Labor Force Employed for July was 141,055,000 while the official preliminary Employment number (non-farm payroll) was 131,318,000 (both not seasonally adjusted.

 

[pinqy]

No, it's not ironic. Perhaps you should look up the word.....

1,486,000 wanted to work, were available to work, had looked in the last year, but not in the last 4 weeks for any other reason, such as transportation, child care, illness, etc.

So, it's clear you really didn't give this much thought if "under 16 and retired" were the ONLY categories you could think of besides employed and those who had looked for work in the last 4 weeks.

Anal Ignoramus! Still showing that you love your false numbers!

There is a fool born every minute!

Ah, and your evidence that they're false is that you don't understand the concepts and methodology and that you've never met anyone who specifically told you they participated in the surveys. Do you really think that's logical? Oh, wait, you do. Does anyone else?

 

[Neubarth]

No, it's not ironic. Perhaps you should look up the word.....

1,486,000 wanted to work, were available to work, had looked in the last year, but not in the last 4 weeks for any other reason, such as transportation, child care, illness, etc.

So, it's clear you really didn't give this much thought if "under 16 and retired" were the ONLY categories you could think of besides employed and those who had looked for work in the last 4 weeks.

Anal Ignoramus! Still showing that you love your false numbers!

There is a fool born every minute!

Ah, and your evidence that they're false is that you don't understand the concepts and methodology and that you've never met anyone who specifically told you they participated in the surveys. Do you really think that's logical? Oh, wait, you do. Does anyone else?

Anal Ignoramus your numbers are so totally bogus as to make me laugh.

Nobody in his right mind would ever believe the US government labor force numbers. You, of course, have to be insane to believe them and worship them as you do.

We need to get rid of this horribly corrupt government and we need to get rid of ignoramuses like you. You pride yourself on your stupidity. Never have I seen an act so dumb.

There are close to 175,000,000 people in my labor pool and over 30,000,000 of them are out of work regardless of all the government lies.

Oh, and those are MY numbers based upon my accurate survey of the hard working people of America.

 

[Toro]

The statisticians at the BLS are professionals. Many if not most of them are Ph.D.s who have forgotten more about statistical methodologies than everyone here combined (except for pinqy), and that includes me. I would bet virtually almost every person here (except for pinqy) would think that homoscedasticity has something to do with two men getting it on.

BTW, here is the employment to population ratio. It is the simplest measurement of employment in the country. It estimates the total percentage of employed people to the eligible working population.

Notice that this "depression" has left this ratio at levels higher than from WWII to 1980. Were we in a depression for those 35 years too? Was unemployment really 25% then?

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Toro and I might not always agree on issues but he is educated in economics so i love to have him posting here.

Thanks for coming by and adding your input toro.

 

[Toro]

Toro and I might not always agree on issues but he is educated in economics so i love to have him posting here.

Thanks for coming by and adding your input toro.

Thanks but the real go-to guy on this thread is pinqy. I know a little bit about how they put the data together and I have enough statistics to know that pinqy knows what the heck he is talking about.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Well, in my opinion, pinqy just got a good reference so i'll keep that in mind.

I did enjoy his posts, they made sense when i read them.

Should be a few more days for the info.


The BLS said there will be more women in the workforce then men in 2 months....that came out today according to the radio.

 

[Neubarth]

Anal Ignoramus only knows what the government says is its manner of compiling statistics on unemployment. I know the government stats are totally bogus. If anybody believes them, they do not know how corrupt the government is. You will not change my opinion on this issue. I see what is going on in the streets and it does not agree with the government lies.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Anal Ignoramus only knows what the government says is its manner of compiling statistics on unemployment. I know the government stats are totally bogus. If anybody believes them, they do not know how corrupt the government is. You will not change my opinion on this issue. I see what is going on in the streets and it does not agree with the government lies.

If your point was valid you wouldn't have to resort to insults.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

new info is out

i'll update the op soon

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Thanks to Article_15 for editing the OP for me .

 

[AllieBaba]

The numbers do not show you the whole truth, PP. They cover only people who have filed claims and whose benefits have not expired.

For the billionth time, the Unemployment rate has NEVER been based on Unemployment insurance. It's not asked in the survey and never has been. I don't get how you could make that post when you've clearly never actually researched it yourself. Where on earth did you get the idea that the Unemployment rate had anything to do with Unemployment benefits?

The official definitions from The Bureau of Labor Statistics

People are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following criteria: They had no employment during the reference week; they were available for work at that time; and they made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons laid off from a job and expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed. The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibilityfor or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits.

(bolding is mine)

If you remove the "l" from bls you get what the BLS has to say.

They use a bunch of double talk and feel-good rhetoric to cover the few sentences in there that explain how they figure the numbers.

PPL who aren't looking for work are counted as "not in the labor pool". Welfare mothers are not in the welfare pool. People who work odd jobs part time are considered "employed".

 

[Vast LWC]

OK, first of all, thank you Pilgrim for a non-partisan heading for this thread.

Secondly, I agree with many of the posters here, in that there are many ways to interpret Unemployment data.

And so, to put it in context, I think it's important to point out what we're using the employment data for, and what we're comparing it against.

For instance, if one were to use a figure that included all unemployed, a so-called "real" unemployment number, and then compare it to data from years past that were not "real" numbers, then you would be wrong.

Let's do a comparison from a similar situation, using just the official numbers, not the "real" numbers.

When Jimmy Carter's disaster of a presidency finally ended, it took Ronald Reagan about 2 1/2 years to get the economy back on track and stop unemployment from rising.

Here are the "official" numbers (not the "real" numbers) for the period:

Feb 1980: 6.3%
Feb 1981: 7.4%
Feb 1982: 8.6%
Feb 1983: 10.4%
Feb 1984: 8.0%

Notice unemployment increased by 1.2% in the first year of his presidency and then by almost 2% in the following year, before starting to decrease again.

Now, the economic recovery had begun before the unemployment figures started turning around, because, and this is important, unemployment is always the last issue to go away after a recession.

Now as a comparison, here is the data from the end of Bush's disaster of a presidency:

Feb 2008: 4.8%
Feb 2009: 8.1%
Aug 2009: 9.7%

Notice that the unemployment rate increased by 3.3% in the year before Mr Obama got into office, and increased by 1.6% in the 6 months following his inauguration, which is actually a slight decrease in the rate of unemployment growth. Not much, but a slight decrease, just the same.

Source Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data