Unemployment falls below 9%

BenBurch said:
There is a chapter in here about having the axes measuring different things at different scales... It's a lie no matter who does it
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No, ben. If the axes are correctly labeled, it's definitely not a lie. It can be deceptive, but it can also be useful for legitimate purposes. If you want to argue that it's deceptive here, you've got to be able to describe why it's deceptive, what wrong impression it creates, and why that's relevant to the argument. You have failed to do any of these things. Furthermore, the argument has long-since moved on from just that graph. My argument doesn't depend on that graph. I have presented the raw data on labor participation. What does the data itself say, ben? You have been curiously silent on that issue.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Why would you ignore workers under 25 - those most likely to be trying to enter the workforce for the first time?
Is it because, like Ziggy said earlier, those workers are having a particularly hard time finding work in Obama's economy?
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No, like I said earlier, it's because labor participation rates includes those who don't want to work and aren't trying to find a job. Large numbers below age 25 are in high school and college and wouldn't be expected to be in the workforce yet lower the labor participation rate. The largest decrease in labor participation rate is among high school aged teenagers and coincides with a higher high school graduation rate. The next largest decrease in labor participation rate is among college aged kids, and coincides with a higher college enrollment rate.

-Bri
 
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Bri said:
No, like I said earlier, it's because labor participation rates includes those who don't want to work and aren't trying to find a job. Large numbers below age 25 are in high school and college and wouldn't be expected to be in the workforce yet lower the labor participation rate. Most of the decrease in labor participation rates is among high school aged teenagers and coincides with a higher high school graduation rate.
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That group is indeed experiencing the biggest drop. But they're a small fraction of the total population. Even excluding them, the labor force participation rate has still dropped a lot, and is not yet recovering.
 
Ziggurat said:
That group is indeed experiencing the biggest drop. But they're a small fraction of the total population. Even excluding them, the labor force participation rate has still dropped a lot, and is not yet recovering.
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If you don't include them, as I said, the drop is much smaller (and there has actually been an increase in the labor participation rate in the last few months).

If your point is that it's possible that the unemployment rate drop might be because people have given up looking for jobs, that's true.

Unfortunately, there's no good way to tease that variable out of the unemployment data. Nonetheless, the labor participation data includes people who don't want to work or are out of the workforce for other reasons (disability, caring for an elderly parent, in school, etc), and therefore nearly every economist agrees that the unemployment data is the best indicator of employment.

-Bri
 
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Bri said:
If you don't include them, as I said, the drop is much smaller (and there has actually been an increase in the labor participation rate in the last few months).
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That's simply not true. Here's the data for everyone 16 and over:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

Here's the data for everyone 20 and over:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300024

Both show about a 2% drop since the beginning of 2008, and both show a decrease between Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012. Excluding the 16-20 age bracket changes little, and the last few months show continued decrease. Feel free to tell us what data series you've been using (I gave the necessary links), but so far, I don't see any basis for your claim.

ETA: changing to 25 and older doesn't make a lot of difference either. The drop is less, but not that much less, and it's still continuing to decline.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300048

So from Jan. 2008 to Jan 2012, the drop is 2.7% for everyone 16+, 2.2% for everyone 20+, and 2.0% for everyone 25+. Even if every single additional person under 25 who ins now out of the work force is out because they choose to stay in school (a very unlikely scenario), the problem doesn't go away.
 
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Ziggurat said:
No, ben. If the axes are correctly labeled, it's definitely not a lie. It can be deceptive, but it can also be useful for legitimate purposes. If you want to argue that it's deceptive here, you've got to be able to describe why it's deceptive, what wrong impression it creates, and why that's relevant to the argument.
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I've already done so. It allows you to put two lines that cross each other so that visually it seems as if one is now lower than the other, when in fact it's not so.

I've also pointed out the problem of not having the zero: it greatly exaggerates a very tiny change.

These are both deceptive. (As is referring to people up to 16-54 as "younger workers"! Heck, even referring to people as "workers" when the very measure is about labor participation is misleading. As has been pointed out, the youngest people in that age range are more accurately described as "students".)

And again, I guarantee you most voters will be paying attention to the regular reported unemployment figure and will not be trying to puzzle out what this chart means.

The fact is, the economy is in a very slow recovery. GOP proposals to put more cash in the hands of the "job creators" won't be very popular, IMO. And it will be tough for them to refer to policies supported by the Obama administration as "job killing".

Maybe it's time for them to stop trying to criticize the Obama administration on the economy and focus on foreign relations. Woops! That won't work either.

Oh well, they can always run on gun control and abortion.
 
And frankly, I don't buy the argument that the unemployed themselves are going to vote against Obama, blaming him for their inability to find work. Not if they realize how hard Obama fought to get their unemployment benefits extended, and how hard the GOP fought to prevent it.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I've also pointed out the problem of not having the zero: it greatly exaggerates a very tiny change.
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But it's not a tiny change. We're talking around 4%. Is a 4% change in unemployment small? No, it isn't. It's huge. Well, it's not small for labor participation rates either. In fact, given that the rise in unemployment due to the recession was large, and that this rise is going to be reflected directly in the labor force participation rates, it's absurd to argue that the changes here aren't large. Readers should always be mindful of any offset, but the idea that using an offset invalidates a graph is pure nonsense. Using a zero offset can be used to hide the significance of a change just as much as a nonzero offset can be used to exagerate it.

These are both deceptive. (As is referring to people up to 16-54 as "younger workers"!
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The data for other age groups has been presented. If you ever had a point, you don't any more.

And again, I guarantee you most voters will be paying attention to the regular reported unemployment figure and will not be trying to puzzle out what this chart means.
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So... you're pinning your hopes on voter ignorance. Good strategy. Might even work.

The fact is, the economy is in a very slow recovery.
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Not everyone is satisfied with "slow".
 
Ziggurat said:
But it's not a tiny change. We're talking around 4%. Is a 4% change in unemployment small? No, it isn't.
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But we're not talking about a 4% change in unemployment. You chart was about labor force participation, not unemployment.

In fact, unemployment is decreasing.


Readers should always be mindful of any offset, but the idea that using an offset invalidates a graph is pure nonsense.
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Strawman. I never claimed it invalidates anything. I clearly said the chart is misleading. And I stand by that claim.


Not everyone is satisfied with "slow".
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And the GOP is betting on them being willing to shift more of the tax burden off the wealthy in hopes that will help the recovery?

I still say as long as the numbers continue to improve, Obama will win a second term.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
But we're not talking about a 4% change in unemployment. You chart was about labor force participation, not unemployment.
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Let me ask you: is a 4% change in the labor force participation fewer people or more people than a 4% change in the unemployment rate? Because the answer, the right answer, will tell us whether or not a 4% change is big or not.

In fact, unemployment is decreasing.
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Yes, but why? It's not because a larger portion of the population has jobs. That's the point of the labor participation figures, a point which you have not addressed.
 
Ziggurat said:
Let me ask you: is a 4% change in the labor force participation fewer people or more people than a 4% change in the unemployment rate? Because the answer, the right answer, will tell us whether or not a 4% change is big or not.
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My point is that it's a different value. You were conflating the two as if it were one and the same.

Labor force participation is a ratio of the sum of the employed and unemployed to the total of that cohort in the population.

It's not the measure we usually use to assess unemployment.

As has been pointed out, a decrease in labor force participation among the actual young (say 16-22) could be in part due to a combination of better education opportunities and lower high school drop out rates.

The fact is, the unemployment rate--the one we always have used, and the one most often reported in the media and debated by politicians--is very slowly decreasing.
 
Ziggurat said:
JoeTheJuggler said:
In fact, unemployment is decreasing.
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Yes, but why? It's not because a larger portion of the population has jobs. That's the point of the labor participation figures, a point which you have not addressed.
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Actually, in the short term, yes--a very slightly larger portion of the population now has jobs. In January, the economy added a net of roughly a quarter of a million jobs.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
My point is that it's a different value. You were conflating the two as if it were one and the same.
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I was doing nothing of the sort. I was using unemployment as a comparison.

I note that you didn't answer my question, so I'll answer it for you. A 4% change in labor force participation is more people than a 4% change in unemployment. So if a 4% change in unemployment is big, then under what logic is a 4% change in labor force participation, which is more people, somehow NOT big? Your position on this topic makes absolutely no sense.

As has been pointed out, a decrease in labor force participation among the actual young (say 16-22) could be a combination of better education opportunities and lower high school drop out rates.
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Possibly, but the labor force participation has dropped even if you exclude them.

The fact is, the unemployment rate--the one we always have used, and the one most often reported in the media and debated by politicians--is very slowly decreasing.
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And unemployment can drop because people give up looking for a job even though they still want one. But you only want to examine alternative explanations to certain statistics. The statistics you like? They receive no scrutiny, but should be accepted at face value.

Or perhaps I'm mistaken about your point. Perhaps you're merely saying that the truth doesn't matter, only appearances do.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Actually, in the short term, yes--a very slightly larger portion of the population now has jobs. In January, the economy added a net of roughly a quarter of a million jobs.
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Yet the labor force participation rate still went down. Part of the difference is population growth. We need new jobs just to stand still. The rest of the difference may just be noise in the data, in which case we shouldn't trust it with more than that precision.

ETA: Over the last 10 years, we've been adding something like 215 thousand people per month over the age of 16. So with the current labor force participation rate of about 64%, we would need about 137,000 new jobs per month to NOT keep dropping. 120,000 jobs on top of that (to get your quarter million) will make a difference of a whopping... 0.05% change in labor force participation. And you tried to argue that a 4% change wasn't big, but now we're supposed to be impressed by an 0.05% change?
 
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Tricky said:
Now I see the Dow has hit a four-year high. Boy, that Obama sure has screwed up the economy.
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The stock market has long since ceased to have any relation to the real economy in terms of it's health. In fact, Dow gains are inevitably the result of companies doing things that HURT the real economy, such as massive layoffs/outsourcing/offshoring that improves the corporate profit/loss statement, but destroys the ability to consume for 10s of 1000s of formerly well-paid American workers.
 
Bri said:
Also, the unemployment rate is probably more meaningful than the labor participation rate because it doesn't include people who aren't seeking employment, such as those in school, those caring for children full-time, those who are disabled, etc.

-Bri
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Nor should it, but including people OTHER than those who actively choose to leave the workforce who otherwise WOULD like to work artificially lowers the UE rate, making a situation that is at best marginally stable look much better than it is.

here's an excellent explanation of the real facts:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32997.html
 
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