Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Not a big fan of Neutron Jack for sure. His comment is off target as demonstrated his lack of knowledge on how the number is accounted from the Dept of Labor, not the White House.
It breaks my heart to see the integrity of the hard working civil servants/statisticians at BLS called into question. I wonder if any of these guys ever bothered to read a monthly report. BLS is very careful to explain the error in the monthly measurements. They even include an example based on the 90% confidence band. The politicians change every few years but BLS is made up of career employees who take an oath, not to the guy in charge, but to the American people and the Constitution. The data the BLS is using is open to the public but I don't recall anyone, including these rich dopes with nothing better to do than protect their estates, bringing a case against the BLS employees for "cooking the books".
If the economy boomed and suddenly a SS Trust Fund report came out that said the fund solvency was improving I guess these leeches would call for the SSA actuaries to be fired.
Nearly all age groups improved their unemployment rates considerably in September.
16 to 17: 25.3%, a whopping 4.0% better than the 29.3% in August. 18 to 19: 22.8%, 0.1% higher than the 22.7% rate in August. 20 to 24: 12.4%, 1.5% lower than the 13.9% in August. 25 to 34: 8.1%, 0.2% lower than the 8.3% rate in August. 35 to 44: 6.3%, 0.3% lower than the 6.6% rate in August. 45 to 54: 6.1%, 0.3% lower than the 6.4% rate in August. 55+ : 5.9%, unchanged from August.
So, looking at the situation by age the drop in unemployment rate is largely due to youth finding temp jobs. This should actually improve further come holiday shopping seasonal hiring picks up. From the news last week, retail is actually hiring more than last year.
Labor Participation Rate is more realistic and less manipulated by shrinking the labor pool. It is not a pretty picture. Shows job creation slower than population growth.
I'm never one to politicize these numbers, but the fact is that REAL jobless numbers are still above 14% due to the large number of people working part-time for economic reasons. Real non-farm numbers were a realistic 114,000, not the crazy 800,000+ from the very volatile household employment phone survey. The month-to-month changes that are announced are not as meaningful to me, since they are always adjusted, and they are subject to political sniping. The IN party is quick to tell us how good the numbers are, while the OUT party says the IN party is clueless. The fact is, we have a LONG ways to go before employment numbers begin to look truly long-term positive.
Old Jack is a senile old fart speaking from position.
As for the numbers, I agree with Anna that the books are not cooked . . . per se. Where there ARE cooked is in how they are reported and what is included - or not, and what formulae are being used.
Real unemployment is over 20% when you include the discouraged and underemployed. Go by demographics and ethnicity and they get positively gruesome.
Reply to @rono: Guess what - They do compute that as U-6. It's 14.7% not 20%. In fact, it has never been 20% in the past 5 years.
Now 14.7% is high but you need to compare it to other U-6 numbers. The highest it has been was Oct 2009 at 17.2%. Even in the best times it is not lower than 7%..
So comparing U-3 to U-3 in other times and U-6 with U-6 in other times makes for fair determination of where we are in job recovery. However, comparing U-3 to U-6 is comparing apples to oranges.
Reply to @johnN: The unemployment figures from week to week, month to month are very volatile and could be revised. That is why it is more useful to look at 3 month moving average. So far the moving average has been trending downward.
Comments
If the economy boomed and suddenly a SS Trust Fund report came out that said the fund solvency was improving I guess these leeches would call for the SSA actuaries to be fired.
More graphs at http://www.floatingpath.com/2012/10/05/u-s-employment-situation-september-2012/
So, looking at the situation by age the drop in unemployment rate is largely due to youth finding temp jobs. This should actually improve further come holiday shopping seasonal hiring picks up. From the news last week, retail is actually hiring more than last year.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Old Jack is a senile old fart speaking from position.
As for the numbers, I agree with Anna that the books are not cooked . . . per se. Where there ARE cooked is in how they are reported and what is included - or not, and what formulae are being used.
Real unemployment is over 20% when you include the discouraged and underemployed. Go by demographics and ethnicity and they get positively gruesome.
peace,
rono
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-jobless-claims-may-not-161730813.html;_ylt=Ag_unvxw2SFM3QjBqyB1VSeiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ4NTdmcnFvBG1pdANDTkJDIFRvcCBTdG9yaWVzBHBrZwNiZGU2NjBhMC1iMTcyLTMwOGEtODM4MS02OTQxMDEzZGQ0NTUEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhQkxpc3RNaXhlZExQQ0FUZW1wBHZlcgM4N2M0N2FjOC0xM2MyLTExZTItYjQ3Zi0zNTViZWU3NTliMzk-;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3
I suspect the state could be the Dem states like cali - probably the chief of that department could be a huge obama fan
Now 14.7% is high but you need to compare it to other U-6 numbers. The highest it has been was Oct 2009 at 17.2%. Even in the best times it is not lower than 7%..
Take a look at http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp
So comparing U-3 to U-3 in other times and U-6 with U-6 in other times makes for fair determination of where we are in job recovery. However, comparing U-3 to U-6 is comparing apples to oranges.