>Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.
So many discussions online about unemployment take a framing like this, implying not so subtly that the government is lying about what unemployment _actually_ is. But the feds are publishing all of this data and being transparent about it. Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics literally publishes six different unemployment rates, each of which includes different combinations of unemployed, discouraged people who are not job searching, "marginally attached workers", and people working part time who want to be full time.
Here is the table of 2023 averages by state for each of these six rates:
The "True unemployment rate" from the link is basically U-6, except they use $25k as a cutoff to define marginally attached workers. It isn't immediately obvious how BLS defines marginally attached workers, so that might be different. It's not some government secret!
Yeah, it's just downright misleading to qualify someone working a full time job making $24k/yr as unemployed. The US national minimum wage, believe it or not, only amounts to $15k/yr for full time employment (40 hrs/wk!).
I think you could certainly call these people "poor", but not unemployed. That word means something different.
Another way of phrasing this is 23% want a job earning more than 25K per year and are incapable of finding one. I can’t imagine living on 25K per year. While I would technically be “employed” I wouldn’t be happy about it. What is the purpose of measuring employment? I think satisfaction with one’s living circumstances is certainly part of the reason. From that perspective, the measure proposed in TFA makes some sense.
Looking at the first graph, it doesn't seem like this is a "shadowstats" group of cranks trying to tell you that the economy is worse than it is. According to their "true rate", the unemployment situation (as they define it) is now better than it has ever been. The "true" stats look better than the real ones.
If you renamed it "applying some artistic license to motivate the populace" instead of "lying" could we then talk about it without being called cranks?
Anything stated by the government about the economy has an effect on said economy, so it makes sense to massage the metrics. But what makes the government's chosen cutoff truer than another one?
It's easy to use data to mislead; you see this all the time in organizations of any size, but especially in larger organizations - why would you expect the government to be the sole exception?
Would you say that the Kentucky government patting itself on the back for unemployment rates of 3.9%, while in fact real unemployment is at minimum 21.6%, is something other than the government lying about what unemployment actually is?
>But the feds are publishing all of this data and being transparent about it.
So?
If you're happy that the feds are "publishing all of this data and being transparent about it", then you should be happy for what the TFA does too (even if you disagree with their conclusion): they use this published data in a way that they think is more insightful.
Should the feds conclusions and choice of criteria be unchallenged just because they publish their data?
>Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also has all manner of "arbitrary cutoff points".
The number they use is not meant to be magical constant of the universe, it's just supposed to be a more insightful cutoff to understand the real impact of unemployment.
Besides, the main job of government agencies is to make the government and their managers look good.
I think what's going on is, we're having period of high inflation. Here's my theorey: this high inflation is effectively lowering the minimum wage level because minimum wage isn't keeping pace with the real rate of inflation. and because minimum wage is decreasing in real terms, this opens up lots of new positions that were made illegal by minimum wage. and so more and more people are finding jobs at the low end of the spectrum just above minimum wage and it's why the official reported Unemployment rates are so low and yet we have one hell of a sluggish economy.
Conclusion:
the low official Unemployment rates are not a reflection of a healthy economy, they are a reflection of decreasing minimum wages.
This is a valuable way of looking at employment in the US. Unfortunately in the current political climate this will probably be immediately weaponized instead of getting the nuanced discussion that it deserves.
The white paper linked on the site suggests they use the same denominator as the BLS, so only people with a job or seeking a job. Given that, I'd assume the numerator doesn't include the categories you mention.
I think it's very reasonable. I knew a lot of people, of all ages, who lived with or were supported by family members, while working part-time and going to school or just having fun being unemployed. I think that those with jobs had a lot more purchasing power with which they could support others.
Politically editorialized data. They just redefine what unemployed/underemployed means.
But the official numbers are undercounting the unemployed because they also changed the way they interpret the numbers.
The real unemployment rate using the old measurement methods is probably around 8% which isn't good, but it's not 23% which would be deep depression type numbers.
> If this data is correct, then ONE THIRD of the population was unemployed in 1995. Is this reasonable?
1/3 of the population "unemployed by modern standards" in 1995 doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Back then one stay-at-home-parent was a lot more normal.
to show why LISEP's measure of unemployment is problematic. I haven't had chance to look at the methodology for this particular piece but I suspect it's also got few holes/unmentioned bias in there (as so many of these think-tanks do).
BLS also has different measures of unemployment (see: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) and what LISEP is citing as "headline unemployment" is U3. Not all metrics are perfect and I think it's important to understand the methodology and the nuances of how to apply these different metrics.
That reddit comment is itself opinionated. The poster says that you don't want to count people who are disabled or who don't want to work.
I'd argue we should count those people. If someone has failed to find a job they want for a long time, they might give up. That reduces the numerator and denominator each by 1, reducing the calculated unemployment rate. Does that make any sense?
[+] [-] comte7092|2 years ago|reply
So many discussions online about unemployment take a framing like this, implying not so subtly that the government is lying about what unemployment _actually_ is. But the feds are publishing all of this data and being transparent about it. Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric.
[+] [-] whats_a_quasar|2 years ago|reply
Here is the table of 2023 averages by state for each of these six rates:
https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm
The "True unemployment rate" from the link is basically U-6, except they use $25k as a cutoff to define marginally attached workers. It isn't immediately obvious how BLS defines marginally attached workers, so that might be different. It's not some government secret!
[+] [-] CydeWeys|2 years ago|reply
I think you could certainly call these people "poor", but not unemployed. That word means something different.
[+] [-] 4death4|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riehwvfbk|2 years ago|reply
Anything stated by the government about the economy has an effect on said economy, so it makes sense to massage the metrics. But what makes the government's chosen cutoff truer than another one?
[+] [-] strix_varius|2 years ago|reply
For example, it's been demonstrated that workers on disability is inversely correlated with unemployment: https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
West Virginia, Mississippi, and Kentucky all have almost 20% of their adult populations on disability:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/794278/disabled-populati...
Meanwhile, on kentucky.gov:
> Today, Gov. Andy Beshear announced that Kentucky set the lowest annual unemployment rate in state history for 2022 at 3.9%
https://www.kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=Govern...
Would you say that the Kentucky government patting itself on the back for unemployment rates of 3.9%, while in fact real unemployment is at minimum 21.6%, is something other than the government lying about what unemployment actually is?
[+] [-] coldtea|2 years ago|reply
So?
If you're happy that the feds are "publishing all of this data and being transparent about it", then you should be happy for what the TFA does too (even if you disagree with their conclusion): they use this published data in a way that they think is more insightful.
Should the feds conclusions and choice of criteria be unchallenged just because they publish their data?
>Nothing about having some arbitrary cap at salaries below 25,000 make this a “truer” metric.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also has all manner of "arbitrary cutoff points".
The number they use is not meant to be magical constant of the universe, it's just supposed to be a more insightful cutoff to understand the real impact of unemployment.
Besides, the main job of government agencies is to make the government and their managers look good.
[+] [-] tomcar288|2 years ago|reply
Conclusion: the low official Unemployment rates are not a reflection of a healthy economy, they are a reflection of decreasing minimum wages.
[+] [-] nickff|2 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynes%27s_theory_of_wages_and...
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] okaram|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pylua|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doug_durham|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peacefulhat|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|2 years ago|reply
https://www.lisep.org/population
[+] [-] zzleeper|2 years ago|reply
Also, why include people with no jobs? That would include stay-at-home parents and even FIRE folks that retired early
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|2 years ago|reply
https://assets-global.website-files.com/63ba0d84fe573c751359...
[+] [-] phendrenad2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skellington|2 years ago|reply
But the official numbers are undercounting the unemployed because they also changed the way they interpret the numbers.
The real unemployment rate using the old measurement methods is probably around 8% which isn't good, but it's not 23% which would be deep depression type numbers.
[+] [-] lmm|2 years ago|reply
1/3 of the population "unemployed by modern standards" in 1995 doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Back then one stay-at-home-parent was a lot more normal.
[+] [-] wakawaka28|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pknomad|2 years ago|reply
I will leave this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/jd3p0l/axios_...
to show why LISEP's measure of unemployment is problematic. I haven't had chance to look at the methodology for this particular piece but I suspect it's also got few holes/unmentioned bias in there (as so many of these think-tanks do).
BLS also has different measures of unemployment (see: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) and what LISEP is citing as "headline unemployment" is U3. Not all metrics are perfect and I think it's important to understand the methodology and the nuances of how to apply these different metrics.
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|2 years ago|reply
I'd argue we should count those people. If someone has failed to find a job they want for a long time, they might give up. That reduces the numerator and denominator each by 1, reducing the calculated unemployment rate. Does that make any sense?
[+] [-] okaram|2 years ago|reply
If they called the LISEP unemployment rate, I'd be happy :)