Unemployement Drops: Legitimate or Not?

[Simon W. Moon]

The economy is growing at about 1.5%.
Only a moron or a partisan hack would believe that the economy created 850K new jobs last month.

I am not sure where you pulled the number from. But A quick Google showed that our economy grew at about that much last year. And I found this number for the second quarter of this year:

News Release: Gross Domestic Product

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property​

located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012​

(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the​

Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.​

Based on this Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted it seems that we had 243,566,000 people employed and that number increased by 206,000. dividing 206,000 by 243,566,000 shows that we had an increase of 0.0846% in one month. I think that annualizes out to (0.0846 x 12) just over 1% job growth to match our approximately 1.5% GDP growth.

Is a 1% job growth out of line with an approximately 1.5% GDP growth?
What should someone who is not a moron or a partisan hack expect the two numbers, job growth and GDP, to be in relation to one another?

 

[Simon W. Moon]

I am sure you would agree that one way for the government to determine whether or not a person is "actively seeking a job" is in receiving UI benefits, since that is a criteria for receiving UI. I may be wrong about that.

From what I can tell, the BLS counts people who are NOT receiving benefits but who ARE actively seeking jobs. They have pretty much flat out explicitly and directly said so in the link you posted earlier. I quoted the section where they said so.
There seems to be zero indication that people who ARE actively seeking work but who are NOT receiving UI benefits are dropped from the rolls of the unemployed.
ymmv. But if it does vary, could you share the info that made decide to vary your mileage?

But, a key determining factor also are those people that have dropped out of the workforce all together. Do they count?

From what I can tell, people who are not actively seeking employment are not counted in the total workforce. The reasons why they are not actively seeking a job doesn't seem to matter--so they might be lazy, frustrated, a vegetable on life support, or any number of reasons.
The BLS says that they include everyone who is actively seeking employment in the total workforce numbers.
Actively looking for a job or having a job are the main qualification they use to determine if someone is a part of the total workforce.
There seems to be no indication whatsoever that people who are not receiving UI benefits are excluded from the total workforce number.

 

[j-mac]

Did you read the following at the bottom of your link?:

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from
+141,000 to +181,000, and the change for August was revised from +96,000 to
+142,000.​

So an additional 86,000 jobs were found in July and August for a total of 200,000 jobs.

What jobs? Where'd they come from? How was that figured? Public, or private sector? Come on man, this is a huge shell game, and rep, or demo we are being lied to and have been for some time now....BTW, I'll be watching the revision in Dec. after the election. How much you wanna bet that we'll find out 'oh, so sorry, the Unemployment rate never dropped below 8%'......Yeah.

 

[j-mac]

From what I can tell, the BLS counts people who are NOT receiving benefits but who ARE actively seeking jobs. They have pretty much flat out explicitly and directly said so in the link you posted earlier. I quoted the section where they said so.
There seems to be zero indication that people who ARE actively seeking work but who are NOT receiving UI benefits are dropped from the rolls of the unemployed.
ymmv. But if it does vary, could you share the info that made decide to vary your mileage?
From what I can tell, people who are not actively seeking employment are not counted in the total workforce. The reasons why they are not actively seeking a job doesn't seem to matter--so they might be lazy, frustrated, a vegetable on life support, or any number of reasons.
The BLS says that they include everyone who is actively seeking employment in the total workforce numbers.
Actively looking for a job or having a job are the main qualification they use to determine if someone is a part of the total workforce.
There seems to be no indication whatsoever that people who are not receiving UI benefits are excluded from the total workforce number.

How accurate do you think the household survey is as compared to the business survey?

Second,

At least two economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have contributed to President Barack Obama’s campaign.

http://freebeacon.com/meet-the-obama-donors-at-the-bls/

and further, I can't recall where I heard this but the word is out there that the new appointee by Obama to the BLS as their commissioner is a partisan...Just sayin. :mrgreen:

 

[Fisher]

So people are saying the bad economy will be here until 2018. Awesome news.

even thought it sucks that most of the jobs created seem to be part-time. Seasonal I am heartened to see that people are now willing to work those jobs in lieu of the welfare by another name check.

 

[Travis007]

These things aren't your friend...

Facts
History
Trends

You only make yourself look foolish when you constantly argue static numbers to pump economic fear and then ignore Facts, History and Trends:

View attachment 67135794​

That's the vaunted U6 history from 1994 to the present. That's all the unemployed, all the discouraged workers and underemployed workers combined. Your history shows you are ignorant of the fact that all unemployment statistics are trending better. ALL OF THEM.

History shows your boy destroyed the economy and your boy made this unemployment mess. History also shows that the next guy is cleaning up your boy's mess and that it is getting better much to your dismay. We can keep going round and round all you want. You keep posting static numbers while stating false comparatives and I'll keep posting graphs that show you do nothing but make ignorant and blatantly disengenuous posts.

The only sad thing about it all is watching you root for ecoomic destruction for the country just so you can make an excuse to have a republican in office. Fortunately, Facts, History and Trends rebuke your uber-partisan nonsense and proves that your claims of the economic sky is falling bull**** is merely lies.

You better use exta spin and tell Obama this amazing find of yours.. because reality and the U6 number is horrid..
Your chart is nonsense.. who you trying to fool?

Obama cant run on his record.... you know why?? because Obama is a fraud..

 

[Simon W. Moon]

How accurate do you think the household survey is as compared to the business survey?

What does it matter what I think or which one is more accurate?
Tbh, I don't have the mathematical background to evaluate the methodologies of the two different surveys.

If you do, and you have an evaluation, please share as it's not something that the average layman can do. So, it'd be cool if you would teach us a little.

Second,

Holy ****! An economist chose to give money to Obama! Duh-deh-duh!
Big whoop. Get back to me when you have some evidence that someone did something wrong. I'm not real interested in innuendo w/o substance. Lots of people make political donations everyday w/o being corrupt or unethical people.

...and further, I can't recall where I heard this but the word is out there that the new appointee by Obama to the BLS as their commissioner is a partisan...Just sayin. :mrgreen:

Get back to me when you have some evidence that someone did something wrong. Innuendo is for gossipy housewives over the back fence doing their washing in 1960's cartoons.
I am not concerned that someone somewhere in govt belongs to a political party.

It takes more than belonging to a party to be someone who is corrupt or unethical. That person must also be a politician before we can tell that they are categorically corrupt. ; )
Regular people belong to political parties all the time without being mustache-twirling villains.

To recap, save the gossip for the cartoons of yesteryear. Render unto me actual evidence of wrongdoing.

I'll wait until there's evidence before I join you in breathless speculation. But, you don't have to wait on me or evidence or anything else. We can each proceed down the path of baseless speculation at our own pace.

 

[j-mac]

What does it matter what I think or which one is more accurate?
Tbh, I don't have the mathematical background to evaluate the methodologies of the two different surveys.

If you do, and you have an evaluation, please share as it's not something that the average layman can do. So, it'd be cool if you would teach us a little.

Holy ****! An economist chose to give money to Obama! Duh-deh-duh!
Big whoop. Get back to me when you have some evidence that someone did something wrong. I'm not real interested in innuendo w/o substance. Lots of people make political donations everyday w/o being corrupt or unethical people.

Get back to me when you have some evidence that someone did something wrong. Innuendo is for gossipy housewives over the back fence doing their washing in 1960's cartoons.
I am not concerned that someone somewhere in govt belongs to a political party.

It takes more than belonging to a party to be someone who is corrupt or unethical. That person must also be a politician before we can tell that they are categorically corrupt. ; )
Regular people belong to political parties all the time without being mustache-twirling villains.

To recap, save the gossip for the cartoons of yesteryear. Render unto me actual evidence of wrongdoing.

I'll wait until there's evidence before I join you in breathless speculation. But, you don't have to wait on me or evidence or anything else. We can each proceed down the path of baseless speculation at our own pace.

K, fair enough....Too bad it may be too late by then....

 

[AdamT]

The economy is growing at about 1.5%. Bernanke just applied an open ended QE, braking all the rules for a central banker for decades if not forever due to no forseeable strong job growth. So the month he does that the job market suddenly turns and Bernanke is a dope. Plus it seems that 600K of these new jobs were part time, so not sure where they came from ( perhaps a change of definition?) as U-6 was UNCHANGED, surprising when the headline number goes down.

Only a moron or a partisan hack would believe that the economy created 850K new jobs last month.

Only a moronic hack conspiracy nut challenges official government statistics based upon absolutely nothing but a strong desire to see Obama fail. The willingness of the right to simply cover its eyes and plug its ears, ignoring reality just because its convenient, is incredibly disturbing. You can argue with people who have different positions and philosophies, but you cannot talk to people who don't even acknowledge stone-cold facts. Incredible.

 

[j-mac]

Only a moronic hack conspiracy nut challenges official government statistics based upon absolutely nothing but a strong desire to see Obama fail. The willingness of the right to simply cover its eyes and plug its ears, ignoring reality just because its convenient, is incredibly disturbing. You can argue with people who have different positions and philosophies, but you cannot talk to people who don't even acknowledge stone-cold facts. Incredible.

So that's it eh....Just another spin on the liberal favorite "infallible argument" eh? In that case I am surprised that Obama didn't hold up a 7year old to make the claim so that he could come back later and ask why repubs don't like children when the numbers were disputed....hehehehehe

 

[Travis007]

Only a moronic hack conspiracy nut challenges official government statistics based upon absolutely nothing but a strong desire to see Obama fail. The willingness of the right to simply cover its eyes and plug its ears, ignoring reality just because its convenient, is incredibly disturbing. You can argue with people who have different positions and philosophies, but you cannot talk to people who don't even acknowledge stone-cold facts. Incredible.

NIce try.. most people who know who Obam is , they know its time to get rid of this plague..its that simple.

You may want to open your eyes speaking of those who have trouble seeing..

If Im Mitt I carry a chart with the U6 number plainly explainingto the point that an Obama voter can even understand it..just simply points in crayons so that an Ozero fanclub member understand it..

 

[Simon W. Moon]

So people are saying the bad economy will be here until 2018. Awesome news.
even thought it sucks that most of the jobs created seem to be part-time.

Yeah. It doesn't seem like news that's worth the GOP bunching their panties over. But since they have, people're bound to think it's more significant of a drop than it actually is. But w/e. No one has asked me to be a campaign advisor.

Seasonal I am heartened to see that people are now willing to work those jobs in lieu of the welfare by another name check.

You're ill-informed on this count.
People are looking for work harder and longer now than anytime in the past few decades.
The average time it takes people to give up looking for work is also at the most it's been in the past few decades.
It's very incorrect that Americans have somehow suddenly turned into lazy caricatures of ourselves.

Bloviators in the media like to say things like this because it makes their audience feel good about themselves. But the data just doesn't back up the theory that America turned into a nation of lazy crybabies overnight.
Shame on those talk about our country and their fellow Americans that way for their own benefit. Too bad those self righteous, bloviating assholes in the media try to make their living tearing down our country and our countrymen.
imho. ymmv.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

K, fair enough....Too bad it may be too late by then....

And what actions are we supposed to take based upon breathless speculation w/ zero evidence?
Are supposed to react this way to every bit of unsubstantiated speculation that flies across the internet?
Or only when the bit breathless speculation is about people who have gored our ox?

 

[johnny_rebson]

The largest one month jump in total employment in the last 29 years. And it just happens to occur 4 weeks before a tightly contested presidential election.

We'll just have to lay off enough American workers to get the unemployment rate back above 8 percent.

 

[j-mac]

And what actions are we supposed to take based upon breathless speculation w/ zero evidence?
Are supposed to react this way to every bit of unsubstantiated speculation that flies across the internet?
Or only when the bit breathless speculation is about people who have gored our ox?

Oh come on man, What you do is up to you. All I know is that for the unemployment picture to have done what the BLS say that magically it did, we'd see it out here in real terms. Think about it, do you see 'help wanted' signs everywhere? Do you see marked increases in people you know looking optimistically at the future? Do you think that this magically timed announcement is the real deal, or a slight of hand spoon fed you, and timed to capture the headlines from a dismal failure of Obama in the first debate...?

I don't buy it, nope, not this guy.....

 

[AdamT]

So that's it eh....Just another spin on the liberal favorite "infallible argument" eh? In that case I am surprised that Obama didn't hold up a 7year old to make the claim so that he could come back later and ask why repubs don't like children when the numbers were disputed....hehehehehe

No, not infallible. The results always have a significant margin of error. The problem, of course, is that the right only challenges the results when they don't like them. I didn't see any of y'all questioning Romney's claim that unemployment hasn't been below 8% for x months. Why is that? I mean we know that BLS has been undercounting the employed by hundreds of thousands, and those numbers haven't been incroporated into the official BLS data yet. So why wasn't it fishy that unemployment hadn't fallen below 8%? Face it, my brother: the ONLY reason you question the numbers is because you don't like their implication. It's literally insane to think that there's a conspiracy to make them look better.

 

[j-mac]

No, not infallible. The results always have a significant margin of error. The problem, of course, is that the right only challenges the results when they don't like them. I didn't see any of y'all questioning Romney's claim that unemployment hasn't been below 8% for x months. Why is that? I mean we know that BLS has been undercounting the employed by hundreds of thousands, and those numbers haven't been incroporated into the official BLS data yet. So why wasn't it fishy that unemployment hadn't fallen below 8%? Face it, my brother: the ONLY reason you question the numbers is because you don't like their implication. It's literally insane to think that there's a conspiracy to make them look better.

Personally, I'd like to see an investigation into why the true unemployment number hasn't been calculated correctly since the 70s....But beyond that, you say 'we all know', that's BS. It's like when Obama says "all economists agree with me..." " All scientists agree with me....".....Bull! The transparency obviously Obama was speaking of in '08 was the transparent nature of his lies.

 

[AdamT]

Personally, I'd like to see an investigation into why the true unemployment number hasn't been calculated correctly since the 70s....But beyond that, you say 'we all know', that's BS. It's like when Obama says "all economists agree with me..." " All scientists agree with me....".....Bull! The transparency obviously Obama was speaking of in '08 was the transparent nature of his lies.

In other words, you have nothing but a dislike for the numbers. Accordingly there must be something wrong with them. Insanity.

 

[j-mac]

In other words, you have nothing but a dislike for the numbers. Accordingly there must be something wrong with them. Insanity.

Do you believe that part time employment should count as a job?

 

[Fisher]

.....
You're ill-informed on this count.
People are looking for work harder and longer now than anytime in the past few decades.
The average time it takes people to give up looking for work is also at the most it's been in the past few decades.
It's very incorrect that Americans have somehow suddenly turned into lazy caricatures of ourselves.

Bloviators in the media like to say things like this because it makes their audience feel good about themselves. But the data just doesn't back up the theory that America turned into a nation of lazy crybabies overnight.
Shame on those talk about our country and their fellow Americans that way for their own benefit. Too bad those self righteous, bloviating assholes in the media try to make their living tearing down our country and our countrymen.
imho. ymmv.

Since I am helping support my unemployed brother and his kid, I do not think I am ill-informed at all....

 

[tech30528]

See? Obama's policies really DO work. It just took 3 1/2 years or so for them to kick in. We're in the home stretch now.

 

[poweRob]

You better use exta spin and tell Obama this amazing find of yours.. because reality and the U6 number is horrid..
Your chart is nonsense.. who you trying to fool?

Obama cant run on his record.... you know why?? because Obama is a fraud..

Nice denial and as usual with you, with no proof. Go dig up a current U6 graph showing it's path for the last 15 to 20 years or so. I'm not holding my breath that you'll do so because you won't like debunking yourself.

I'll save you some time... You don't like the source of my last one apparently... here is BLS as a source





I guess you are gonna start hating on BLS now? It is a government institute and all... so maybe there is an Obama conspiracy you can fake up so that you still feel good about not being right.

 

[j-mac]

Nice denial and as usual with you, with no proof. Go dig up a current U6 graph showing it's path for the last 15 to 20 years or so. I'm not holding my breath that you'll do so because you won't like debunking yourself.

I'll save you some time... You don't like the source of my last one apparently... here is BLS as a source


View attachment 67135800


I guess you are gonna start hating on BLS now? It is a government institute and all... so maybe there is an Obama conspiracy you can fake up so that you still feel good about not being right.

That graph ends Jan 2012....Do you have anything recent?

 

[poweRob]

That graph ends Jan 2012....Do you have anything recent?

Sure do... and its even better news.

 

[LowDown]

These things aren't your friend...

Facts
History
Trends

You only make yourself look foolish when you constantly argue static numbers to pump economic fear and then ignore Facts, History and Trends:

View attachment 67135794​

That's the vaunted U6 history from 1994 to the present. That's all the unemployed, all the discouraged workers and underemployed workers combined.

No, that does not include discouraged workers. It does not include those who have dropped out of the work force.

Here is the real story on that:

Your history shows you are ignorant of the fact that all unemployment statistics are trending better. ALL OF THEM.

History shows your boy destroyed the economy and your boy made this unemployment mess.

Nope. That's the canard that you guys keep repeating.

Tell us exactly which of Bush's policies resulted in the financial crisis.

Deregulation? Bush wasn't deregulating. He was re-regulating after all the deregulation that got signed into law under Clinton. He was adding regulators and funding more of it.

Crony capitalism? Bush was throwing CEOs in jail.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac going out of control? That was entirely the fault of Democrats, who blocked Bush's efforts at reform in 2006-2007.

The policies that set us up for the housing bubble and the resulting financial crisis were bipartisan and go back through several presidents. Blaming it all on Bush is a cheap, tawdry lie.