- Joined
- Dec 20, 2012
- Messages
- 7,302
- Reaction score
- 3,402
- Location
- Northern Virginia
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
hmmm Where did that 16 million "dropped out" come from? Apparently the blog you cite is simply counting the change in the number of people not in the labor force. But not in the labor force does not mean "dropped out." Someone turning 16 who doesn't have and isn't looking for work is a new addition to "not in the labor force" but can hardly be considered to have dropped out. Retirees, disabled, stay home spouses, etc are also not in the labor force.And since the majority of those not in the labor force don't want a job.
A-38. Persons not in the labor force by desire and availability for work, age, and sex
Do you really think a blog is a reliable source? Look at my link: there are 502,000 people who left the labor force due to discouragement in the last year. The others left for personal reasons. Of the 3.5 million who say they want a job but haven't looked in the last year, do you really think people who haven't done anything at all about finding a job in over a year really want a job and are likely to start looking?
This is from Gallup, and their measure of "underemployment" is people who work part time who say they want to work full time. They do NOT check if the people are actually available to work full time, so their number is inflated.
The U-6 is not a measure of unemployment, let alone the "real" number. It is unemployed plus those marginally attached to the labor force, plus those working part-time for economic reasons as a percent of the labor force plus the marginally attached.
Do you really consider people who have jobs (many of them normally full time) are "really" unemployed? The U-6 measures how much labor and potential labor is not being used to its fullest. That's not unemployment.
I spent over a decade working with these numbers and teaching the methodology.
Last edited: