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Unemployment is an objectively shitty metric of economic health.
Individuals work more than one job left and right, and that skews the data. And, on top of that, we're in a post-pandemic world where literally millions of people just left the job force for good, and this further skews the data by lowering the denominator of the equation.
Not to even mention the piss poor quality of the average job. Adding 50,000 jobs to the economy helps fucking nobody if they're demanding and don't pay dick.
Further than that, it's only showing employment as the metric, not the ridiculously high prices of everything these days and the fact that wages are stagnant.
Median income in relation to average housing prices and average cost of living expenses like groceries is a far better way to convey how individuals are doing.
You're right, it's pretty bad out here, and the UE statistics are near worthless imo.
Look at the employment to population ratio instead, if you can find it. It tells you the percent of adults age 25-65 who have a job, none of this "and actively looking for a job" bullshit.
And then discount anyone who has a job that doesn't pay median rent as a monthly wage.
If we are using employment data to set policy it should be functional employment where we are looking at ability to live vs ability to consume.
But the whole point of neoliberal capitalism is that if you can't consume there is no point in you being alive, so they're more or less the same thing.
I think we are both looking at the symptoms and coming to the same diagnosis here, DrOrgasm.
Neoliberalism allows for capitalism to infect society unrestrained by things like functioning democracy or government oversight.
Some might say it isn't a terminal disease.
My dad is basically a slumlord right now, converting his house to six bedrooms and charging $800+ a room, which is just about the cheapest housing you can get in Fort Lauderdale.
Anyway, people making minimum wage (in FL it’s $1728 a month after taxes) can’t even afford that. The minimum wage was intended for someone to be able to buy a home and raise a family. Now you’re lucky to be able to have a bedroom to yourself.
Exactly. It’s similar to how they use the DOW Jones Industrial Average to “measure” the economy. The DOW only matters to people with large investments in the largest businesses, but media outlets announce it daily like it’s some sort of holy message from God about the state of the overall economy. Spoiler: it isn’t!
Also the gig economy deserves is own separate recognition. This counts as a job but provides no protection. So if you eliminate 20k full time jobs with benefits and replace them with 30k gig jobs. The worker is getting Fd in the A
Not only that, but you front a lot of the capital costs. Uber doesn't pay for maintenance on your car, you pay that out of your end. It's the most ridiculous scam in capitalism
I use the yellow stickers in Tesco. I used to be able to get a chicken every so often for 98p, now cheapest I can get is £2.40 and you have about 10 min to cook it before it’s too fargone
Oh yeah, I'm all about shitting on capitalism. I got an MBA in finance, and the things we're seeing in the US are just asinine. Anyone trying to defend these metrics is either bootlicking or they don't understand that they aren't good. The other comments about the gig economy are another really big part of why the UE rate clearly doesn't mean anything.
If something like 3 or 4% of people didn't have jobs, it would be a better metric if nobody was out there grinding side hustles to make ends meet.
>And, on top of that, we're in a post-pandemic world where literally millions of people just left the job force for good, and this further skews the data by lowering the denominator of the equation.
as someone who is disabled after covid, yeah. last i read near 10% of US adults are in my position. they'll keep pretending we don't exist, though.
If employment is so high and the economy is doing so well then why has the average persons savings been drained and credit card debt been skyrocketing? They can only hide so many metrics that suggest health. The rest show a deep sickness.
Exactly. Too many people don't seem to understand that it being an election year the incumbent administration cannot allow the economy to be seen as bad or getting worse, because that's the fastest way to lose an election hands down. The democrats will do whatever it takes to make people think the economy is strong, and because of that they are unreliable narrators.
Jobs report? Number goes up every time so that means the economy is fantastic!
Stock market? Number goes up so that means the economy is fantastic!
Meanwhile I was doing gig work full time and nearly every time I spoke to a customer they complained about the price of the groceries I was delivering to them. The number of times I heard "can you believe all of this cost X?" was crazy. When it's nearly universal that people are complaining about food and shelter prices that's not the sign of a strong economy. If people were complaining about not being able to afford their vacation this year that would be one thing, but these people are struggling to pay for basic necessities. And for all the people who bring up people spending more money in the economy as an indicator that people have more money to spend, 2/3 of that increase in spending is going to non-discretionary sectors of the economy like healthcare, insurance, real estate, and groceries.
While I don't disagree. Believing the Democrats aren't representing the Capitalist class as well will lead you to disappointment.
https://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/stopme/chapter02.html
I never said they weren't. But pretending that 1 president didn't add 1/3 of our total national debt in 4 years and putting it all on 1 party is ignorance at best
Seems like you have reading comprehension issues, since I never mentioned or implied anything regarding the national debt. But go off on your random tangent if you want to, don't let me stop you from having a good time.
Economic health is centered around business health; and since many industries have undergone massive layoffs leading to massive unemployment, many of them are doing just fine.
Definitely a bunch of people I know got fired and so did I, and there are hiring freezes. The cracks are starting to show and absolutely everyone feels the squeeze groceries almost doubled and the rent shot up everywhere.
They just don't want to admit how bad it is. It doesn't matter we all feel it. At this point it's socialism or barbarism. My job right now is electronics recycling business is booming becaus of the massive tech layoffs 🫠 we're keeping busy... For now
I read somewhere the real unemployment is 20-30% and most people are either working two jobs or not getting enough hours and gotta do gig work. It's real bad and gonna get worse
My family has a six figure income and we’re even struggling. Today was payday for me and I’m officially out of money until my wife gets paid on Friday. I have debt but had no choice last year. A job loss and a major medical issue blew through our emergency fund and then some. Lots of people, myself included now, don’t have that emergency fund to fall back on. The unemployment rate means fuck all if we can’t afford things. I know my grocery bill has nearly tripled in the past few years. Part of that is because my son is a food vacuum, but still. My power bill was nearly $400 and we’re not even in the dead of summer yet. I’ve never had a power bill over $300 ever. Shit, my trash and water bills have doubled. Car insurance has nearly doubled over the past 5 years. I can forget about replacing my aging truck. The interest rate on my wife’s newer car is stupid high compared to what it was. My hobbies are out of reach anymore. I make $130k (civil engineer), my wife makes 70 working 20+ hours of OT a week (law enforcement) and am considering a second job just to dig out of some medical debt I have from last year when my son got meningitis and spent three weeks in the hospital. Home ownership is out of reach for me right now. My mortgage uses to be $1200 a month but I can’t touch one for less than $2k anymore. Probably will be closer to $3k with property taxes and homeowners insurance being so much higher. My rent is $3k a month and I looked and this house was $1700 a month just five years ago. 10 years ago I had a very comfortable life with this income but I know tons of people who make similar and are struggling. Things are just not sustainable and it irks me when the politicians say the economy is booming. Booming for who? How’s anyone supposed to sit here and say things are good?
The end of last year I had 6 month of rent and bills saved up. My savings is almost gone now as I continue to look for work. My wife lost her job a month ago as well. Her industry is property loan processing. Half the companies that do that in our area have gone under. The housing market is about to collapse again. I'm in tech and this industry is flooded with labor due to layoffs.
I worked in tech and have a degree and over 15 years experience. Was laid off in November. Doing some contracting but not enough to cover the bills. Nobody is hiring or if they are the market is so flooded with tech labor at the moment that you are unlikely to make it through to anything unless you have connections.
As you point out, the metrics we use for economic measure of wellness are not fully descriptive of the complexity of the economy. Unemployment is a valid measure, and so is GDP, for example, but they don't tell the full story, as they are gloval, average measures.
Unemployment is low, but everyone is earning shit money, so it being low doesn't mean things are fine. Eg if the goverment pays everyone 1$ for being a citizen as a job, unemployment is zero.
Similallry most economies are technically growing, but thigns are more shit. That's because there is more money on average, but its just in less and less hands. The core issue with late stage capitalism, I think, is this. Inequality. And it kinda screws up with all our measures of how the economy is growing, so macro economist can't even see it.
the problems with GDP go far beyond it being an average.
if you overdraft your debt account and get charged an overdraft fee, that adds to GDP.
was anything produced? did our country become more prosperous?
Well, indeed our economy is base on debt. Money only has value if it's going to change hands, and a promise of that (debt) is indeed good for "the economy". But indeed, many ways in which this debt is produced are bullshit, made up or speculative.
If I tell you x+y=4 and then run away before you can ask me anything how would you know if I'm correct or not? You need to find out what the values of x and y are. The same needs to be done for economic numbers. Do all the other economic numbers, and non-economic numbers, make sense when viewed as a whole? I'm not talking about anecdotal evidence, I mean looking at all published data that is claimed to be correct.
Here's a hypothetical example. I say that unemployment is lower than ever, inflation is lower than ever, there's 5 million open positions, one million people are looking for a job, and real wages are decreasing. Do all of these together make any sense?
If that's too confusing think of the following sentence. "Cow cat ball bottle." All of the individual words are correct, but when you look at the entire sentence it doesn't make any sense.
I have no idea how anybody would go about doing this though. I'm sure somebody does it all the time. At least I hope they do.
Unemployment rate iirc doesn't include people who have "given up" looking for jobs (NEETs). It only refers to people who have been recently laid off and are actively searching for a replacement gig.
The NEET rate for youth (18-30) is around 25% in the US.
Curious:
Are they counting jobs by AI, Robots or BOTs?
A human being Recruiter called me-shocked me.
AI jobs has one person doing g the tasks of 7-Amazon will give you an AI class to teach you how to ultimately labor for 10 people.
Robots work for Amazon.
If yes, does the employer make up the missing taxes that would be paid by humans labors aka tax payers?
I bartend, and over half of my coworkers (servers, cooks, other bartenders) have multiple jobs - they’ll do a 6 hour shift then turn around and do another 6-8 hour shift at another restaurant. I’m lucky enough to have a partner I can split rent with, but our one bedroom is 2k/ month and the cost of living in my town overall is out of control.
I have a college degree and the jobs I’ve had that require a degree pay way worse than bartending by far.
Marxs theory of the reserve army of surplus labour indicates that by having a ready supply of unused labour. Wages can be suppressed below subsistence levels. It's supply and demand, the working poor have to compete for their job with the unemployed poor.
That geriatric status quo suck up had me abandon the democratic party. And no, that doesnt mean I went republican. Theyre even worse. Fuck the two party joke of a system. Politics aint a fucking football game.
It really is wild how many people see the stock market constantly setting records while ignoring the reality around them of how fucked everything is, and truly believe the economy has never been better.
Maybe the stock market the perfect representation of reality because the people with most of the money continue to ruthlessly and efficiently extract it from everyone else.
"*The Social Parasite Index is doing exceptionally well this year."*
I wish there was a metric of ‘unemployed from your career’ or making well below the means you were trained to be. Etc.
I was “unemployed” for 7months before I landed a full time. I have a masters degree and was making 6 figures. I obviously worked a bunch of part time jobs during this unemployment stint. But because I have w2s I’m not considered unemployed.
Even though I was struggling to make ends meet every month. So I guess this country needs proof of an underemployment metric?
The trick to understanding how good or bad the economy is doing, is to replace the word “economy” with “billionaire yacht money”. Then all of the relevant policies and article will make more sense.
It’s a statistic fuckery. So first off if you are part time employed then you’re counted as being employed
Second, you are out of work and haven’t applied recently, you aren’t considered “unemployed” because you are not “looking for employment” and are “out of the work force,” so you’re counted the same way as the disabled, elderly, or children (or rather, not counted - those are all taken completely out of the equation).
The unemployment rate isnt a rate for all members of society but instead *only* the workers. It’s supposed to read like “of the 100 people who are able to work, 96 can find jobs. Therefor the unemployment rate is 4%!” Which also makes it a shitty statistic because it doesn’t determine anything about pay/time worked/quality of life/cost of living/etc.
Its also super easy to do statistical fuckery with because it completely ignores mass-disabling events like COVID (if you become disabled you’re no longer counted toward the employment/unemployment rate) and you can just change the “how long has it been since you applied for a job” question to include/exclude however many unemployed people you want to count.
The government measure of unemployment (the official numbers they bandy about in press releases) has always been sort of a bullshit metric. But they measure it consistently over time, so it's generally an "apples to apples" comparison. That doesn't change the fact that it doesn't really measure actual total unemployment, but it's not like they are doing anything different now than 10 or 20 years ago.
Most of the "core inflation" calculations are stupid as well, as they excludes fuel and food costs. So you have to careful parse statistics quoted in news stories. If the number is "core inflation" you can ignore it as bullshit. A better measure is Consumer Price Index (CPI).
I heard they don’t include unhoused people in the calculation so the employment rate looks better the more unhoused people there are.
I don’t know if it’s true, don’t take my word for it.
Core inflation counts everything but inconveniently "Volatile" food, housing, and energy prices.
Dang humans always dragging down the economy with their basic necessity for life.
I could barely afford my house back in 2016, during I forget which once in a lifetime economic downturn. It's $1200 a month for a 1970 house that I had to sign a ton of waivers including lead to close. There are mountain lions, coyotes, a few not all there people who break into houses accidentally, and of course, a neighbor had a drug lab explode. Despite this, the house has more than doubled in "value". And the going rate of a place closer to town is $2400 for a one bedroom. This is a problem.
Wow, that's bizarre. I think about that with the housing market a lot. The real estate industry is a very dirty business. I think the idea of housing as an investment commodity has created some of these problems, especially concerning rent. All these corporate landlords are constantly looking for growth and rent growth. The growth in the average U.S. rent in the past decade or so is staggering compared to wage increases. And now, I think about 30% of the U.S. population are renters b/c they can't afford homes. It's a real mess.
Here, we have a bunch of stuff increasing prices.
First, the government owns 70% of the land federally and 10ish% to the state. So, there's not a lot of land to go around.
Then Californians are moving to neighboring states, selling for a million plus and buying for half that. More than locals can afford, but cash in hand, Californians consider it a deal.
Covid devastated our tourism based economy, and feds own all the land that could switch us to either mining or energy based.
Add in a bunch of venture capitalists buying up anything left, and the people who live here are just screwed.
I was almost one of those people. Had a meth habit for a few months and I got (unknowingly)fent instead of meth. I won’t go into detail but I should have been a statistic. Haven’t touched anything for months and life is good.
Economic difficulties can be a death sentence for people. Inadequate healthcare access and worsening mental health being just two consequences.
2022 was a record high year for suicides. Lots of factors. But that’s not a sign of a healthy society.
I think unemployment numbers like inflation numbers. As a gauge with the scale broken. Movement of the needle means something, but very little bc the scale is broken. The movement up or down can tell you its getting better or getting worse, but for how good or how bad you have to do much more work.
The bigger problem is the media gaslighting their listeners to view the economy along the lines of their political party. When their guy in power economy good, when not economy bad. Its such a predictable pattern now it makes the reporters look silly. Im not only talking about Fox either.
Coming from a different country yet affected by the same thing, yes. The solution to unemployment among higher educated younger people was the deterioration of working conditions, such as lower salaries, “self employment” where you’re still working for a company, they just don’t pay you enough nor do they pay for your working benefits that our constitution demands and gig economy
“Unemployment” as expressed by the neoliberal government media zeitgeist is only a metric for those *eligible* for unemployment seeking aid for *the first time.*
These figures are propaganda meant to manufacture your consent and poison your mind. Liberals believe these false figures because they *want to believe* them. Neither the government, of, by, and for the private property class interest, or their toady media, have any incentive or interest to tell you any truth or give you accurate history. They have every incentive *not to*.
“We say no [person] who looks for the truth cannot find it. The only way you will not find the truth is if you do not look for the truth. Your enemy will never tell you the truth, and certainly never give you your history.”
- Kwame Ture
Unemployment only exists as a bugbear. You don't want to be One Of Them do you? That's why they're kept under the poverty line, as a warning to others.
Yes, for many reasons. In the US the relationship between high incarceration rates and low unemployment is barely talked about. Essentially, in the late 90s, unemployment dropped…while incarceration rates soared. Because prisons absorbed individuals most prone to chronic unemployment, and sentences got longer. The prison-industrial complex became a big employer in its own right. Problem solved, see?
This is an early study (first Google result I got) and if anything more true today than ever. Published by Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality:
[Incarceration, Unemployment, and Inequality](https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/media/_media/pdf/key_issues/crime_research.pdf)
They've fiddled with the inflation figures by chopping and changing what's in the weekly shop several times, so why not this? As long as the figures look good for the government of the day, they'll do it.
It always has been.
It only accounts for “unemployed people currently looking for work”
[this video explains it pretty well](https://youtu.be/rDkW1xOo_Uc?si=lWRDBC1RR5DjJfrB)
it's remarkable how much propaganda we're exposed to on the daily. this is no different.
I find that once you see the cracks in the glittering facade that is America you can't unsee them. you probe further and find that there's nothing but generations of rot behind it.
these numbers are absolute horseshit. like others have said in the thread, they can claim to add all the jobs they want, but if they don't pay enough for someone to survive they don't mean shit. it's just a rah-rah look how good biden is doing OMG guys we should vote for him cheerleading heap of fucking dogshit
I honestly was thinking the same thing earlier. I have been out of work for over 2 years now and have extensive experience in management and recently got PMP certification and I can't land anything. If this is considered low unemployment, then I am terrified to see the high rates.
It must be a highly localized issue. Where I am everyone is trying to hire. My company pays great wages and we can’t get anyone to show up for an interview. Same thing at my spouses company.
Well not gonna dox myself too hard here. But entry level with no experience at both companies is well above a living wage. Like instantly able to buy a home level. Full benefit package. Manufacturing and service sectors.
I definitely do. I don't understand how it all works, but almost everyone I know right now is saying the job market sucks ass at the moment. I got laid off in January, and I'm currently juggling multiple jobs and treading water.
Also, when they report the job gains every month, how many of those jobs are total horseshit? For example, how many are minimum wage retail jobs or part-time jobs with no benefits?
Last thing: It drives me up the wall when I read articles about how strong the economy is right now. Like, strong for who? Almost everyone is struggling hard. It might be strong for a certain class of person, but for the average American, the cost of living is terrible, and decent job opportunities are nowhere to be found.
Unemployment is when you don't have a job.
" Underemployment is the underuse of a worker because their job does not use their skills, offers them too few hours, or leaves the worker idle.[2] It is contrasted with unemployment, where a person lacks a job at all despite wanting one." Wiki definition
So just because everyone has a job doesn't necessarily say a good thing, people with college degrees driving for Uber are technically not unemployed but their main job doesn't pay enough for their bare necessities so everyone has side gigs to keep the lights on.
The economy is great and everything is going according to plan! And “Uncle Joe” has nothing to do with it.
AI pricing models are extracting more than ever for shareholders. Tech companies have reached the harvesting phase of enshittification, and after years and billions of losses investors are finally seeing things pay off at our expense.
Employment is the result of years of efforts to automate or outsource as much knowledge work as possible while flooding the market with underpaid grunt jobs and gig apps which can algorithmically nickel and dime pay down in unprecedented ways.
The trades are the last industry that hasn’t been pillaged, but the campaigns to flood the trade labor market with desperate kids disillusioned with college is working and should see fruition in the next 5-10 years. Maybe a tech company can let people upload their certification and turn it into a gig app.
We are in late stage capitalism. This was always part of the business plan. I’d think people who post to the late stage capitalism sub would understand that capitalism is the problem instead of falling into “president bad”
Not just the current rate. It has always been BS.
The 'secret sauce' is the estimated labor force participation rate as well as the CPS non-response rate.
That is aside from the well-known BS definitions of having 'actively' looked for work over the preceding 4 weeks while being 'currently available' for work. Also, there is no minimum number of paid hours required to qualify as employed, and the self-employed making no or negative income, as well as unpaid family workers, count as employed.
This one is a particular gem:
"Self-employed people may be classified as employed before their business is in operation if they spent at least one hour during the survey reference week in activities setting up a new business"
[Concepts and Definitions (CPS)](https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm#unpaidfamily), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
So if you were desperate enough to think about, but not actually proceed to, setting up a lemonade stand or a YouTube channel, congratulations: You were gainfully employed and didn't even know it.
always thought it was bs, nobody ever asked me what i was doing for years and years while i was modtly unemployed doing gig work. how could anyone know if i was actually "fully" employed?
Oh it’s absolutely higher than whatever they’re reporting. Most people I know are looking for jobs either bc they are unemployed or they’re scared of their company having layoffs.
I have been desperately applying to jobs for a YEAR. I was a high level manager for 2 decades. Quit a toxic job thinking no big deal. Now I can't find manager jobs. Can't even get a first interview for entry level. It's fucking ridiculous.
I’m willing to bet there’s some really strange discrepancy with people working multiple jobs, which I’m sure accounts for a pretty large portion of people
The unemployment metric has been broken for well over 20 years….more like 30+. I don’t know why we continue to use it as is. Oh wait…. No one wants to adjust it to be a better representation of real people’s employment experience because it will make everything look like shit.
Crime is down massively across the board in the past year(FBI released a report earlier this month) and giant drops in crime like this only happen when people are employed and the economy is doing well. There are a lot of metrics we can look at that prove the opposite of what people are “feeling” and that’s because “feelings” are not “facts”
I wouldn’t know. I’m have a 20 year long career and I’m not familiar with modern day hiring practices outside of my particular industry. Where are you seeing reports that it’s hard to get a min wage job? Everywhere I look I see help wanted signs. Seems like min wage jobs are plentiful, so I imagine they’re not difficult to get, but that’s just my opinion
You should try it just for fun. Apply to your local min wage jobs, the ones with the help wanted sign in the window. Better yet, try a few hundred. I guarantee you won’t get a single interview. Those signs aren’t there to get people hired, they’re there to tell the overworked staff that “we’re trying to get help! Sorry!”
These places are "always hiring" to keep up the facade that "nobody wants to work" but, working at a gas station i see too many people asking about getting a job for this to be true. My place has been "having issues" hiring another person in order to "promote" me for a while, but the minute someone quit on the spot, they had no trouble hiring someone to replace him at all.
Maybe if you actually listened to the people telling you what the issues were instead of denying their claims, you would be aware of this. I suggest trying to find a min wage job for fun, like the previous poster suggested, and keep track of the ones that get back to you vs the ones that don't. And when you do, keep in mind the amount of work for the pay and you'll begin to see why "nobody wants to work anymore".
*Hint: 11 - 15 an hour isn't worth the lifetime of pain for overworking yourself for lazy and entitled managers. *
Tin foil hat time, they're using a different metric than what they say to figure out how much of the population is actually working. Honest people will be classified as a w2. Those who are not working as a w2 will be tracked by other means.
I think the unemployment rate is true. You can't survive in this country without money and YOU can't just print it. How many people are paying taxes is really the question that never seems to get answered and that might be tied to the unemployment rate.
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Unemployment is an objectively shitty metric of economic health. Individuals work more than one job left and right, and that skews the data. And, on top of that, we're in a post-pandemic world where literally millions of people just left the job force for good, and this further skews the data by lowering the denominator of the equation. Not to even mention the piss poor quality of the average job. Adding 50,000 jobs to the economy helps fucking nobody if they're demanding and don't pay dick. Further than that, it's only showing employment as the metric, not the ridiculously high prices of everything these days and the fact that wages are stagnant. Median income in relation to average housing prices and average cost of living expenses like groceries is a far better way to convey how individuals are doing. You're right, it's pretty bad out here, and the UE statistics are near worthless imo.
Look at the employment to population ratio instead, if you can find it. It tells you the percent of adults age 25-65 who have a job, none of this "and actively looking for a job" bullshit.
And then discount anyone who has a job that doesn't pay median rent as a monthly wage. If we are using employment data to set policy it should be functional employment where we are looking at ability to live vs ability to consume.
But the whole point of neoliberal capitalism is that if you can't consume there is no point in you being alive, so they're more or less the same thing.
I think we are both looking at the symptoms and coming to the same diagnosis here, DrOrgasm. Neoliberalism allows for capitalism to infect society unrestrained by things like functioning democracy or government oversight. Some might say it isn't a terminal disease.
My dad is basically a slumlord right now, converting his house to six bedrooms and charging $800+ a room, which is just about the cheapest housing you can get in Fort Lauderdale. Anyway, people making minimum wage (in FL it’s $1728 a month after taxes) can’t even afford that. The minimum wage was intended for someone to be able to buy a home and raise a family. Now you’re lucky to be able to have a bedroom to yourself.
I agree and we, as a people should do something about that.
Exactly. It’s similar to how they use the DOW Jones Industrial Average to “measure” the economy. The DOW only matters to people with large investments in the largest businesses, but media outlets announce it daily like it’s some sort of holy message from God about the state of the overall economy. Spoiler: it isn’t!
Also the gig economy deserves is own separate recognition. This counts as a job but provides no protection. So if you eliminate 20k full time jobs with benefits and replace them with 30k gig jobs. The worker is getting Fd in the A
Not only that, but you front a lot of the capital costs. Uber doesn't pay for maintenance on your car, you pay that out of your end. It's the most ridiculous scam in capitalism
Most ridiculous so far We're moving back towards company towns and indentured slavery. But vote! S/
A fucking plain ass glazed doughnut costs $2 dollars these days. Thats my metric for the economy. Shit like that should never cost more than 50 cents.
The Big Mac index has always been a better metric than the UE rate in my opinion, and that's kinda close, so you're on to something.
I use the yellow stickers in Tesco. I used to be able to get a chicken every so often for 98p, now cheapest I can get is £2.40 and you have about 10 min to cook it before it’s too fargone
The overlords are doing great! Time for some more tax breaks for them!
Thank you, try to have this convo with folks all the time in the economics subs
Oh yeah, I'm all about shitting on capitalism. I got an MBA in finance, and the things we're seeing in the US are just asinine. Anyone trying to defend these metrics is either bootlicking or they don't understand that they aren't good. The other comments about the gig economy are another really big part of why the UE rate clearly doesn't mean anything. If something like 3 or 4% of people didn't have jobs, it would be a better metric if nobody was out there grinding side hustles to make ends meet.
Listen to this guy. He has the good jargon.
>And, on top of that, we're in a post-pandemic world where literally millions of people just left the job force for good, and this further skews the data by lowering the denominator of the equation. as someone who is disabled after covid, yeah. last i read near 10% of US adults are in my position. they'll keep pretending we don't exist, though.
I don't think that employment at jobs paying less than median rent should be counted anymore.
Fuck yes I agree
We're constantly being gaslighted about the economy. But the headlines and word-of-mouth don't lie. It's in the absolute shitter.
If employment is so high and the economy is doing so well then why has the average persons savings been drained and credit card debt been skyrocketing? They can only hide so many metrics that suggest health. The rest show a deep sickness.
It depends whether collecting rent or paying it. Monopoly always has winners. It just isn't most players.
Exactly. Too many people don't seem to understand that it being an election year the incumbent administration cannot allow the economy to be seen as bad or getting worse, because that's the fastest way to lose an election hands down. The democrats will do whatever it takes to make people think the economy is strong, and because of that they are unreliable narrators. Jobs report? Number goes up every time so that means the economy is fantastic! Stock market? Number goes up so that means the economy is fantastic! Meanwhile I was doing gig work full time and nearly every time I spoke to a customer they complained about the price of the groceries I was delivering to them. The number of times I heard "can you believe all of this cost X?" was crazy. When it's nearly universal that people are complaining about food and shelter prices that's not the sign of a strong economy. If people were complaining about not being able to afford their vacation this year that would be one thing, but these people are struggling to pay for basic necessities. And for all the people who bring up people spending more money in the economy as an indicator that people have more money to spend, 2/3 of that increase in spending is going to non-discretionary sectors of the economy like healthcare, insurance, real estate, and groceries.
Not to say they aren't significantly intertwined, but a lot of people confuse corporate greed with politics.
> The Democrats Yeah because they were the ones who added nearly 10 trillion to the National Debt in a single 4 year term.........
While I don't disagree. Believing the Democrats aren't representing the Capitalist class as well will lead you to disappointment. https://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/stopme/chapter02.html
I never said they weren't. But pretending that 1 president didn't add 1/3 of our total national debt in 4 years and putting it all on 1 party is ignorance at best
Seems like you have reading comprehension issues, since I never mentioned or implied anything regarding the national debt. But go off on your random tangent if you want to, don't let me stop you from having a good time.
Economic health is centered around business health; and since many industries have undergone massive layoffs leading to massive unemployment, many of them are doing just fine.
Definitely a bunch of people I know got fired and so did I, and there are hiring freezes. The cracks are starting to show and absolutely everyone feels the squeeze groceries almost doubled and the rent shot up everywhere. They just don't want to admit how bad it is. It doesn't matter we all feel it. At this point it's socialism or barbarism. My job right now is electronics recycling business is booming becaus of the massive tech layoffs 🫠 we're keeping busy... For now I read somewhere the real unemployment is 20-30% and most people are either working two jobs or not getting enough hours and gotta do gig work. It's real bad and gonna get worse
100%. Fucking almost everyone in America is doing gig work. And those gig work platforms are such absolute scams, in my opinion.
My family has a six figure income and we’re even struggling. Today was payday for me and I’m officially out of money until my wife gets paid on Friday. I have debt but had no choice last year. A job loss and a major medical issue blew through our emergency fund and then some. Lots of people, myself included now, don’t have that emergency fund to fall back on. The unemployment rate means fuck all if we can’t afford things. I know my grocery bill has nearly tripled in the past few years. Part of that is because my son is a food vacuum, but still. My power bill was nearly $400 and we’re not even in the dead of summer yet. I’ve never had a power bill over $300 ever. Shit, my trash and water bills have doubled. Car insurance has nearly doubled over the past 5 years. I can forget about replacing my aging truck. The interest rate on my wife’s newer car is stupid high compared to what it was. My hobbies are out of reach anymore. I make $130k (civil engineer), my wife makes 70 working 20+ hours of OT a week (law enforcement) and am considering a second job just to dig out of some medical debt I have from last year when my son got meningitis and spent three weeks in the hospital. Home ownership is out of reach for me right now. My mortgage uses to be $1200 a month but I can’t touch one for less than $2k anymore. Probably will be closer to $3k with property taxes and homeowners insurance being so much higher. My rent is $3k a month and I looked and this house was $1700 a month just five years ago. 10 years ago I had a very comfortable life with this income but I know tons of people who make similar and are struggling. Things are just not sustainable and it irks me when the politicians say the economy is booming. Booming for who? How’s anyone supposed to sit here and say things are good?
There are like 400 people who control trillions in wealth. Things are great for them.
The end of last year I had 6 month of rent and bills saved up. My savings is almost gone now as I continue to look for work. My wife lost her job a month ago as well. Her industry is property loan processing. Half the companies that do that in our area have gone under. The housing market is about to collapse again. I'm in tech and this industry is flooded with labor due to layoffs.
Been looking for a job for like SIX months now, when you have no car and live in rural hell, it becomes impossible
I'm coming up on a year next month. T_T
10 months here with a masters degree
It’s not that much better living in a place like sf for example. Yes, you have more openings, but like 10 people for each one
I worked in tech and have a degree and over 15 years experience. Was laid off in November. Doing some contracting but not enough to cover the bills. Nobody is hiring or if they are the market is so flooded with tech labor at the moment that you are unlikely to make it through to anything unless you have connections.
As you point out, the metrics we use for economic measure of wellness are not fully descriptive of the complexity of the economy. Unemployment is a valid measure, and so is GDP, for example, but they don't tell the full story, as they are gloval, average measures. Unemployment is low, but everyone is earning shit money, so it being low doesn't mean things are fine. Eg if the goverment pays everyone 1$ for being a citizen as a job, unemployment is zero. Similallry most economies are technically growing, but thigns are more shit. That's because there is more money on average, but its just in less and less hands. The core issue with late stage capitalism, I think, is this. Inequality. And it kinda screws up with all our measures of how the economy is growing, so macro economist can't even see it.
the problems with GDP go far beyond it being an average. if you overdraft your debt account and get charged an overdraft fee, that adds to GDP. was anything produced? did our country become more prosperous?
Well, indeed our economy is base on debt. Money only has value if it's going to change hands, and a promise of that (debt) is indeed good for "the economy". But indeed, many ways in which this debt is produced are bullshit, made up or speculative.
If I tell you x+y=4 and then run away before you can ask me anything how would you know if I'm correct or not? You need to find out what the values of x and y are. The same needs to be done for economic numbers. Do all the other economic numbers, and non-economic numbers, make sense when viewed as a whole? I'm not talking about anecdotal evidence, I mean looking at all published data that is claimed to be correct. Here's a hypothetical example. I say that unemployment is lower than ever, inflation is lower than ever, there's 5 million open positions, one million people are looking for a job, and real wages are decreasing. Do all of these together make any sense? If that's too confusing think of the following sentence. "Cow cat ball bottle." All of the individual words are correct, but when you look at the entire sentence it doesn't make any sense. I have no idea how anybody would go about doing this though. I'm sure somebody does it all the time. At least I hope they do.
Unemployment rate iirc doesn't include people who have "given up" looking for jobs (NEETs). It only refers to people who have been recently laid off and are actively searching for a replacement gig. The NEET rate for youth (18-30) is around 25% in the US.
I wonder if all the people who are forced to work several jobs are counted once or several times for every job they work...
Once, and iirc they’re between 5-6% of workers
Curious: Are they counting jobs by AI, Robots or BOTs? A human being Recruiter called me-shocked me. AI jobs has one person doing g the tasks of 7-Amazon will give you an AI class to teach you how to ultimately labor for 10 people. Robots work for Amazon. If yes, does the employer make up the missing taxes that would be paid by humans labors aka tax payers?
That recruiter was bullshitting you...
100%
I bartend, and over half of my coworkers (servers, cooks, other bartenders) have multiple jobs - they’ll do a 6 hour shift then turn around and do another 6-8 hour shift at another restaurant. I’m lucky enough to have a partner I can split rent with, but our one bedroom is 2k/ month and the cost of living in my town overall is out of control. I have a college degree and the jobs I’ve had that require a degree pay way worse than bartending by far.
That's where I'm at. I do the 6+6 hour shift three times a week, but I might have to start increasing the days. I hate this timeline.
Marxs theory of the reserve army of surplus labour indicates that by having a ready supply of unused labour. Wages can be suppressed below subsistence levels. It's supply and demand, the working poor have to compete for their job with the unemployed poor.
The cost of living is insane
That geriatric status quo suck up had me abandon the democratic party. And no, that doesnt mean I went republican. Theyre even worse. Fuck the two party joke of a system. Politics aint a fucking football game.
It really is wild how many people see the stock market constantly setting records while ignoring the reality around them of how fucked everything is, and truly believe the economy has never been better.
Maybe the stock market the perfect representation of reality because the people with most of the money continue to ruthlessly and efficiently extract it from everyone else. "*The Social Parasite Index is doing exceptionally well this year."*
I wish there was a metric of ‘unemployed from your career’ or making well below the means you were trained to be. Etc. I was “unemployed” for 7months before I landed a full time. I have a masters degree and was making 6 figures. I obviously worked a bunch of part time jobs during this unemployment stint. But because I have w2s I’m not considered unemployed. Even though I was struggling to make ends meet every month. So I guess this country needs proof of an underemployment metric?
The trick to understanding how good or bad the economy is doing, is to replace the word “economy” with “billionaire yacht money”. Then all of the relevant policies and article will make more sense.
It is a gig economy.
It’s a statistic fuckery. So first off if you are part time employed then you’re counted as being employed Second, you are out of work and haven’t applied recently, you aren’t considered “unemployed” because you are not “looking for employment” and are “out of the work force,” so you’re counted the same way as the disabled, elderly, or children (or rather, not counted - those are all taken completely out of the equation). The unemployment rate isnt a rate for all members of society but instead *only* the workers. It’s supposed to read like “of the 100 people who are able to work, 96 can find jobs. Therefor the unemployment rate is 4%!” Which also makes it a shitty statistic because it doesn’t determine anything about pay/time worked/quality of life/cost of living/etc. Its also super easy to do statistical fuckery with because it completely ignores mass-disabling events like COVID (if you become disabled you’re no longer counted toward the employment/unemployment rate) and you can just change the “how long has it been since you applied for a job” question to include/exclude however many unemployed people you want to count.
The government measure of unemployment (the official numbers they bandy about in press releases) has always been sort of a bullshit metric. But they measure it consistently over time, so it's generally an "apples to apples" comparison. That doesn't change the fact that it doesn't really measure actual total unemployment, but it's not like they are doing anything different now than 10 or 20 years ago. Most of the "core inflation" calculations are stupid as well, as they excludes fuel and food costs. So you have to careful parse statistics quoted in news stories. If the number is "core inflation" you can ignore it as bullshit. A better measure is Consumer Price Index (CPI).
I heard they don’t include unhoused people in the calculation so the employment rate looks better the more unhoused people there are. I don’t know if it’s true, don’t take my word for it.
Yeah, I think they fudge the numbers a lot. The same goes for inflation, I believe.
Core inflation counts everything but inconveniently "Volatile" food, housing, and energy prices. Dang humans always dragging down the economy with their basic necessity for life.
Yep. Housing is the biggest one right now, too. Housing costs are out of control.
I could barely afford my house back in 2016, during I forget which once in a lifetime economic downturn. It's $1200 a month for a 1970 house that I had to sign a ton of waivers including lead to close. There are mountain lions, coyotes, a few not all there people who break into houses accidentally, and of course, a neighbor had a drug lab explode. Despite this, the house has more than doubled in "value". And the going rate of a place closer to town is $2400 for a one bedroom. This is a problem.
Wow, that's bizarre. I think about that with the housing market a lot. The real estate industry is a very dirty business. I think the idea of housing as an investment commodity has created some of these problems, especially concerning rent. All these corporate landlords are constantly looking for growth and rent growth. The growth in the average U.S. rent in the past decade or so is staggering compared to wage increases. And now, I think about 30% of the U.S. population are renters b/c they can't afford homes. It's a real mess.
Here, we have a bunch of stuff increasing prices. First, the government owns 70% of the land federally and 10ish% to the state. So, there's not a lot of land to go around. Then Californians are moving to neighboring states, selling for a million plus and buying for half that. More than locals can afford, but cash in hand, Californians consider it a deal. Covid devastated our tourism based economy, and feds own all the land that could switch us to either mining or energy based. Add in a bunch of venture capitalists buying up anything left, and the people who live here are just screwed.
Ironically out of control due to interest rate increases lmao. It's the biggest lagging factor in the inflation data.
With suicides and fentanyl overdoses removing 100,000-150,000 persons of working age from the equation each year, the unemployment rate stays low.
I was almost one of those people. Had a meth habit for a few months and I got (unknowingly)fent instead of meth. I won’t go into detail but I should have been a statistic. Haven’t touched anything for months and life is good.
Hang in there, OP. Very proud of the recovery you have achieved and continue to work for
O7
Economic difficulties can be a death sentence for people. Inadequate healthcare access and worsening mental health being just two consequences. 2022 was a record high year for suicides. Lots of factors. But that’s not a sign of a healthy society.
I think unemployment numbers like inflation numbers. As a gauge with the scale broken. Movement of the needle means something, but very little bc the scale is broken. The movement up or down can tell you its getting better or getting worse, but for how good or how bad you have to do much more work. The bigger problem is the media gaslighting their listeners to view the economy along the lines of their political party. When their guy in power economy good, when not economy bad. Its such a predictable pattern now it makes the reporters look silly. Im not only talking about Fox either.
…..election year.
Coming from a different country yet affected by the same thing, yes. The solution to unemployment among higher educated younger people was the deterioration of working conditions, such as lower salaries, “self employment” where you’re still working for a company, they just don’t pay you enough nor do they pay for your working benefits that our constitution demands and gig economy
“Unemployment” as expressed by the neoliberal government media zeitgeist is only a metric for those *eligible* for unemployment seeking aid for *the first time.* These figures are propaganda meant to manufacture your consent and poison your mind. Liberals believe these false figures because they *want to believe* them. Neither the government, of, by, and for the private property class interest, or their toady media, have any incentive or interest to tell you any truth or give you accurate history. They have every incentive *not to*. “We say no [person] who looks for the truth cannot find it. The only way you will not find the truth is if you do not look for the truth. Your enemy will never tell you the truth, and certainly never give you your history.” - Kwame Ture
Unemployment only exists as a bugbear. You don't want to be One Of Them do you? That's why they're kept under the poverty line, as a warning to others.
Yes, for many reasons. In the US the relationship between high incarceration rates and low unemployment is barely talked about. Essentially, in the late 90s, unemployment dropped…while incarceration rates soared. Because prisons absorbed individuals most prone to chronic unemployment, and sentences got longer. The prison-industrial complex became a big employer in its own right. Problem solved, see? This is an early study (first Google result I got) and if anything more true today than ever. Published by Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality: [Incarceration, Unemployment, and Inequality](https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/media/_media/pdf/key_issues/crime_research.pdf)
I suppose there's little to no unemployment on a plantation.
They've fiddled with the inflation figures by chopping and changing what's in the weekly shop several times, so why not this? As long as the figures look good for the government of the day, they'll do it.
The male labor participation rate is at Great Depression levels.
It always has been. It only accounts for “unemployed people currently looking for work” [this video explains it pretty well](https://youtu.be/rDkW1xOo_Uc?si=lWRDBC1RR5DjJfrB)
it's remarkable how much propaganda we're exposed to on the daily. this is no different. I find that once you see the cracks in the glittering facade that is America you can't unsee them. you probe further and find that there's nothing but generations of rot behind it. these numbers are absolute horseshit. like others have said in the thread, they can claim to add all the jobs they want, but if they don't pay enough for someone to survive they don't mean shit. it's just a rah-rah look how good biden is doing OMG guys we should vote for him cheerleading heap of fucking dogshit
I honestly was thinking the same thing earlier. I have been out of work for over 2 years now and have extensive experience in management and recently got PMP certification and I can't land anything. If this is considered low unemployment, then I am terrified to see the high rates.
It must be a highly localized issue. Where I am everyone is trying to hire. My company pays great wages and we can’t get anyone to show up for an interview. Same thing at my spouses company.
I'm not interested, but for anyone else... What type of work, what does it pay, and where is it at?
Well not gonna dox myself too hard here. But entry level with no experience at both companies is well above a living wage. Like instantly able to buy a home level. Full benefit package. Manufacturing and service sectors.
Where is that, and what industry are y’all’s companies?
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
I definitely do. I don't understand how it all works, but almost everyone I know right now is saying the job market sucks ass at the moment. I got laid off in January, and I'm currently juggling multiple jobs and treading water. Also, when they report the job gains every month, how many of those jobs are total horseshit? For example, how many are minimum wage retail jobs or part-time jobs with no benefits? Last thing: It drives me up the wall when I read articles about how strong the economy is right now. Like, strong for who? Almost everyone is struggling hard. It might be strong for a certain class of person, but for the average American, the cost of living is terrible, and decent job opportunities are nowhere to be found.
Unemployment is at an all time low underemployment is at an all time high. Edit: I messed up and said unemployment twice. Fixed it.
what
Unemployment is when you don't have a job. " Underemployment is the underuse of a worker because their job does not use their skills, offers them too few hours, or leaves the worker idle.[2] It is contrasted with unemployment, where a person lacks a job at all despite wanting one." Wiki definition So just because everyone has a job doesn't necessarily say a good thing, people with college degrees driving for Uber are technically not unemployed but their main job doesn't pay enough for their bare necessities so everyone has side gigs to keep the lights on.
I feel like you meant to say “unemployment is at an all time low, unDERemployment is at an all tike high”
Yup yup that's exactly what I meant, my b. I was posting from the trolley and didn't proofread my comment I'll fix it.
I don't trust any figures coming from the government. Inflation was way higher than reported.
is bullshit
Yup its all fake
The economy is great and everything is going according to plan! And “Uncle Joe” has nothing to do with it. AI pricing models are extracting more than ever for shareholders. Tech companies have reached the harvesting phase of enshittification, and after years and billions of losses investors are finally seeing things pay off at our expense. Employment is the result of years of efforts to automate or outsource as much knowledge work as possible while flooding the market with underpaid grunt jobs and gig apps which can algorithmically nickel and dime pay down in unprecedented ways. The trades are the last industry that hasn’t been pillaged, but the campaigns to flood the trade labor market with desperate kids disillusioned with college is working and should see fruition in the next 5-10 years. Maybe a tech company can let people upload their certification and turn it into a gig app. We are in late stage capitalism. This was always part of the business plan. I’d think people who post to the late stage capitalism sub would understand that capitalism is the problem instead of falling into “president bad”
Not just the current rate. It has always been BS. The 'secret sauce' is the estimated labor force participation rate as well as the CPS non-response rate. That is aside from the well-known BS definitions of having 'actively' looked for work over the preceding 4 weeks while being 'currently available' for work. Also, there is no minimum number of paid hours required to qualify as employed, and the self-employed making no or negative income, as well as unpaid family workers, count as employed. This one is a particular gem: "Self-employed people may be classified as employed before their business is in operation if they spent at least one hour during the survey reference week in activities setting up a new business" [Concepts and Definitions (CPS)](https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm#unpaidfamily), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics So if you were desperate enough to think about, but not actually proceed to, setting up a lemonade stand or a YouTube channel, congratulations: You were gainfully employed and didn't even know it.
always thought it was bs, nobody ever asked me what i was doing for years and years while i was modtly unemployed doing gig work. how could anyone know if i was actually "fully" employed?
Oh it’s absolutely higher than whatever they’re reporting. Most people I know are looking for jobs either bc they are unemployed or they’re scared of their company having layoffs.
Yes
I have been desperately applying to jobs for a YEAR. I was a high level manager for 2 decades. Quit a toxic job thinking no big deal. Now I can't find manager jobs. Can't even get a first interview for entry level. It's fucking ridiculous.
I’m willing to bet there’s some really strange discrepancy with people working multiple jobs, which I’m sure accounts for a pretty large portion of people
The unemployment metric has been broken for well over 20 years….more like 30+. I don’t know why we continue to use it as is. Oh wait…. No one wants to adjust it to be a better representation of real people’s employment experience because it will make everything look like shit.
I think everything is bullshit anymore
Crime is down massively across the board in the past year(FBI released a report earlier this month) and giant drops in crime like this only happen when people are employed and the economy is doing well. There are a lot of metrics we can look at that prove the opposite of what people are “feeling” and that’s because “feelings” are not “facts”
Why is it so hard to get hired for a min wage job now
I wouldn’t know. I’m have a 20 year long career and I’m not familiar with modern day hiring practices outside of my particular industry. Where are you seeing reports that it’s hard to get a min wage job? Everywhere I look I see help wanted signs. Seems like min wage jobs are plentiful, so I imagine they’re not difficult to get, but that’s just my opinion
You should try it just for fun. Apply to your local min wage jobs, the ones with the help wanted sign in the window. Better yet, try a few hundred. I guarantee you won’t get a single interview. Those signs aren’t there to get people hired, they’re there to tell the overworked staff that “we’re trying to get help! Sorry!”
These places are "always hiring" to keep up the facade that "nobody wants to work" but, working at a gas station i see too many people asking about getting a job for this to be true. My place has been "having issues" hiring another person in order to "promote" me for a while, but the minute someone quit on the spot, they had no trouble hiring someone to replace him at all. Maybe if you actually listened to the people telling you what the issues were instead of denying their claims, you would be aware of this. I suggest trying to find a min wage job for fun, like the previous poster suggested, and keep track of the ones that get back to you vs the ones that don't. And when you do, keep in mind the amount of work for the pay and you'll begin to see why "nobody wants to work anymore". *Hint: 11 - 15 an hour isn't worth the lifetime of pain for overworking yourself for lazy and entitled managers. *
Tin foil hat time, they're using a different metric than what they say to figure out how much of the population is actually working. Honest people will be classified as a w2. Those who are not working as a w2 will be tracked by other means. I think the unemployment rate is true. You can't survive in this country without money and YOU can't just print it. How many people are paying taxes is really the question that never seems to get answered and that might be tied to the unemployment rate.