NO...it merely means on the day they answered the question they were not.
No. The questions are about the previous week. So for June, the Census workers went out on the week on June 16-22 and asked about labor force activity for the week of June 9-15. If someone worked (or temporarily absent) they were classified as Employed. If they didn't work they were asked if they had looked for work anytime between May 19-June 15. If yes, then they were classified as Unemployed. For those Not in the labor force, it means that for those 28 days they were not participating in the labor market.
Uh...if you are asking about reasons given by the unemployed? NO, for the most part they are telling the TRUTH about their reasons. Why would you think I thought the unemployed were lying?
Your originally claimed in
Post #908 that "
Furthermore, the government creates a class of "not seeking work" containing over 80 million people, at least 40 million of which are able to work, old enough, and may actually be seeking work but have not been hired yet." I replied that if they were seeking work they'd be classified as Unemployed and then you responded that "Again, depends on your viewpoint. Having worked with both employers and the unemployed I am a little less skeptical about real causes of their "disgust" and "marginality."" But since all the info on job search and availability comes from the respondents, it certainly seems like you're questioning the validity of the classifications. You seem to be implying that they really are looking, yet are classified as not.
Duh, you already know it...count everyone of legal age and capable of working, minus prisoners, soldiers, retirees, and disabled on public assistance based on info garnered from tax records. Basically counting everyone else including the "Hidden Unemployed."
So basically, do a complete census every month. Otherwise you couldn't get that kind of info.
For the Employment Statistics a (mostly) complete count based on tax records is done...the
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). That takes 7 months to publish preliminary results for a quarter and that's just finding out people on payrolls and average wages and hours. For the full details required for everyone over 16 would take a huge number of people over a year. But you think it can be done every month?
As for the accuracy of the surveys, the official jobs numbers (Current Employment Survey) is benchmarked against the QCEW comparing the actual numbers from March to the estimate. In March 2012, estimate was 132,081,000 and the real number was 132,505,000. A difference of 0.3% I think that's a reasonable level of accuracy.
The data from the household survey is a bit less accurate...about +/-0.4% for total employed and about +/- 3% for unemployed.
....blah blah blah. If you are of legal age, capable of working, and can make yourself available for work THEN YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED! Period! That's because at any time of any working day you have the potential of seeking work.
POTENTIAL. Why do you want to measure potential instead of actual? The main number is, as it should be, the actual number seeking work, with the Potential listed seperately.
Analogy time. Let's say you run a giveaway of Item X every week. Last week you gave away 1,000 and you want to know the max you could have given away that day. You get interviews from everyone who was in town that day...1,695 people. You ask them
Did you get Item X? 1,000 say yes
If no, did you want one? 134 say yes, 561 say no.
If yes, could you have stopped by and received one? 102 say yes, 31 say no.
If yes, did you try to get one (show up, ask family/friend to get one or if there were any available)? 85 say yes, 18 say no.
If no, why didn't you try or ask? 11 say they were just busy doing other things and never got around to it, and 7 say they just didn't think they'd get one.
So....(and I realize you hate word problems)....If you had more, how many would you have given away? (assuming only that you had more..not that you could have convinced people to take one).
Obviously it's at least 1,000. Could you have given them away to the people who didn't want one? No.
And the people who were unable to come by and could not have picked one up? Obviously not.
The people who made an attempt and failed to get one? Sure, so that's 85 for a total of 1,085
And the people who didn't try or even ask if there were any? No, because no matter how many you had they wouldn't know you had enough, regardless of why they didn't go or ask.
So I would say you could have given away a total of 1,085. But you would include some of the people who said they didn't want one.....why? How could they, or the people who didn't try to get one, have gotten one? (again, only talking about having more, not about doing anything different.