Real Unemployment is 14.4%

[Lumpy 1]

Democrats have been, "Fooled Again" so many times by Obama, you do actually wonder if liberalism, really is, a mental disorder..


The real unemployment number is 14.4%, quit kidding yourselves...mmkay



Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

 

[boedicca]

It's actually closer to 23% when counting long term discouraged workers.

Alternate Unemployment Charts

 

[Polk]

I do love your guys gusto in coming up with new "real" measures for unemployment.

 

[Lumpy 1]

It's actually closer to 23% when counting long term discouraged workers.

Alternate Unemployment Charts

Thanks....smarty pants..

 

[boedicca]

You're welcome, mon cher lumpecito.

 

[Lumpy 1]

I do love your guys gusto in coming up with new "real" measures for unemployment.

That's nice of Ya..it's a pleasure to help out and to be appreciated for it.....

 

[Pogo]

I do love your guys gusto in coming up with new "real" measures for unemployment.

Exactly -- if you're gonna come up with a whole new scale, you have to redo all the numbers in history so we have something to compare your bogus nu...uh, your new scale to.

When you've done that I'll tell you all about my new "metric time". Ten hours in a day, ten days in a week. You'll love it.

 

[boedicca]

What's funny is that the two of you don't realize that Lumpy is referring to U6 unemployment, an official statistic provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. They calculate a few different levels of unemployment. It wouldn't hurt you to edumacate yourselves.

 

[Polk]

I do love your guys gusto in coming up with new "real" measures for unemployment.

Exactly -- if you're gonna come up with a whole new scale, you have to redo all the numbers in history so we have something to compare your bogus nu...uh, your new scale to.

When you've done that I'll tell you all about my new "metric time". Ten hours in a day, ten days in a week. You'll love it.

Like The Simpsons episode were Mayor Quimby flees and the town is governed by the "enlightened council".

 

[Polk]

What's funny is that the two of you don't realize that Lumpy is referring to U6 unemployment, an official statistic provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. They calculate a few different levels of unemployment. It wouldn't hurt you to edumacate yourselves.

I know he's referring to U6. The problem for your talking points is that that it's no more of a "real" measure than U3 is. In fact, it's a poorer measure in the sense that it counts people who have jobs, but just wish they had more hours.

 

[Pogo]

What's funny is that the two of you don't realize that Lumpy is referring to U6 unemployment, an official statistic provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. They calculate a few different levels of unemployment. It wouldn't hurt you to edumacate yourselves.

Whether it's an "official" statistic is irrelevant. What matters is whether it's a practical, known statistic. Something we can actually use for comparison.
If we don't know the baseline, we can't. It's just a bullshit way of trying to hang up a bigger number, related to nothing.

 

[Polk]

What's funny is that the two of you don't realize that Lumpy is referring to U6 unemployment, an official statistic provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. They calculate a few different levels of unemployment. It wouldn't hurt you to edumacate yourselves.

Whether it's an "official" statistic is irrelevant. What matters is whether it's a practical, known statistic. Something we can actually use for comparison. And if we don't know the baseline, we can't. It's just a bullshit way of trying to hang up a bigger number, relate to nothing.

I guarantee you he didn't spend 2003 running around shouting the Bush administration was undercounting unemployment.

 

[boedicca]

What's funny is that the two of you don't realize that Lumpy is referring to U6 unemployment, an official statistic provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. They calculate a few different levels of unemployment. It wouldn't hurt you to edumacate yourselves.

I know he's referring to U6. The problem for your talking points is that that it's no more of a "real" measure than U3 is. In fact, it's a poorer measure in the sense that it counts people who have jobs, but just wish they had more hours.

You think somebody who is working a minimum wage part time job because he can't find a full time job doing construction is "fully employed"?

There are some people who have enough pride to take any job instead of relying on unemployment. The fact that they are settling for far less than they used to make should not be used to signal economic recovery, bub. This is why U6 is more reflective of the employment picture than U3 to those who understand economics.

 

[Polk]

If you have a job, even if you want a better job/more hours, mean you are, by definition, not unemployed ("un" meaning "not", "employed" meaning "having a job".

 

[Lumpy 1]

I do love your guys gusto in coming up with new "real" measures for unemployment.

Exactly -- if you're gonna come up with a whole new scale, you have to redo all the numbers in history so we have something to compare your bogus nu...uh, your new scale to.

When you've done that I'll tell you all about my new "metric time". Ten hours in a day, ten days in a week. You'll love it.

The long term unemployment figures have reached EPIC proportions, not seen in 6 decades ever since the Bureau of Labor Statistics have been tracking unemployment, so the rules require a change to fit the epic failure of the Obamanomic years.. it's completely fair given the economic morass the country is stuck in..

---------------------

Not all unemployment is created equal—there are better and worse ways to be without a job. The worst way is to be jobless for a long time. As a raft of economic studies have shown, the longer a person is unemployed, the harder it becomes for him ever to find work. In some cases, skills grow obsolete; in many others, companies are reluctant to hire those who haven’t worked in a long time, figuring they’re damaged goods. Unemployment is a setback; long-term unemployment is a sentence. There are 6.7 million Americans not officially counted as part of the labor force who say they’d like a job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bringing these lost and largely invisible people back into the economy will be a long and expensive undertaking.

Today the overall unemployment rate is declining, but the number of long-term unemployed remains near historic highs: In late 2009 the percentage of the unemployed who’d been looking for a job for more than six months rose above 40 percent, a level the BLS hadn’t seen in the six decades it’s been tracking unemployment. The number has stayed above 40 percent since. The statistics are even more stark for those who’ve been out of work for more than 99 weeks—the point at which, in most states, unemployment benefits run out. In January 2009 there were 467,000 99ers. Last month the number was 1.8 million.

ETC...ETC...ETC...

The Plight of the Long-Term Unemployed - Businessweek

 

[boedicca]

What's funny is that the two of you don't realize that Lumpy is referring to U6 unemployment, an official statistic provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. They calculate a few different levels of unemployment. It wouldn't hurt you to edumacate yourselves.

Whether it's an "official" statistic is irrelevant. What matters is whether it's a practical, known statistic. Something we can actually use for comparison. And if we don't know the baseline, we can't. It's just a bullshit way of trying to hang up a bigger number, relate to nothing.

I guarantee you he didn't spend 2003 running around shouting the Bush administration was undercounting unemployment.

Now you've really jumped the shark: BOOOOOOSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!!

 

[Polk]

Thank you for admitting I was right. You don't have any actual standards, you'll just pimp whatever series of talking points sound good at the moment.

 

[boedicca]

I've made no such admission.

First, you denied the validity of the U6 statistic. Then, when I pointed out is is provided by the BLS along with the other measures of unemployment, you cry up BOOOSSSHHH.

You are a sad little hack.

 

[Polk]

You admitted it by omission. If you had been arguing for U6 to be the standard all along, you would say said so.

I denied the validity of U6 as "real unemployment" because it's not a true measure of unemployment. That was true in 2004, and it's true today.

 

[Pogo]

I do love your guys gusto in coming up with new "real" measures for unemployment.

Exactly -- if you're gonna come up with a whole new scale, you have to redo all the numbers in history so we have something to compare your bogus nu...uh, your new scale to.

When you've done that I'll tell you all about my new "metric time". Ten hours in a day, ten days in a week. You'll love it.

The long term unemployment figures have reached EPIC proportions, not seen in 6 decades ever since the Bureau of Labor Statistics have been tracking unemployment, so the rules require a change to fit the epic failure of the Obamanomic years.. it's completely fair given the economic morass the country is stuck in..

---------------------

Not all unemployment is created equal—there are better and worse ways to be without a job. The worst way is to be jobless for a long time. As a raft of economic studies have shown, the longer a person is unemployed, the harder it becomes for him ever to find work. In some cases, skills grow obsolete; in many others, companies are reluctant to hire those who haven’t worked in a long time, figuring they’re damaged goods. Unemployment is a setback; long-term unemployment is a sentence. There are 6.7 million Americans not officially counted as part of the labor force who say they’d like a job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bringing these lost and largely invisible people back into the economy will be a long and expensive undertaking.

Today the overall unemployment rate is declining, but the number of long-term unemployed remains near historic highs: In late 2009 the percentage of the unemployed who’d been looking for a job for more than six months rose above 40 percent, a level the BLS hadn’t seen in the six decades it’s been tracking unemployment. The number has stayed above 40 percent since. The statistics are even more stark for those who’ve been out of work for more than 99 weeks—the point at which, in most states, unemployment benefits run out. In January 2009 there were 467,000 99ers. Last month the number was 1.8 million.

ETC...ETC...ETC...

The Plight of the Long-Term Unemployed - Businessweek

These points may or may not be all well and good but it's still taking an oranges number and comparing to a traditional apples number. Unless you tell us what all the old apples numbers were in terms of oranges, this number is meaningless. You might as well call them Nesbitt Units. They have no meaning without a context.

Here's a simpler version: which of these is not like the others...

apples apples apples apples apples oranges apples apples apples ... mmkay?