Unemployment stats

[Conan The Librarian]

David Stockman, Reagan's budget man, has a new book out and he's been doing a lot of interviews. I listened to a couple of them. He says that if the unemployment rate were calculated to today the same as it was in 2000, the rate would be about 13.5% instead of 7.6%. He goes on to say that "they're just making it up."


I quit paying attention to the unemployment stat in about 2008 because it was clearly gone higgledy-piggledy. Instead, I pay attention to what Robert Half and similar companies have to say about it.

[spruce]

Figures don't lie, but liars figure - so true.
 
Almost a year before the last election Limbaugh predicted the unemployment rate would drop below 8% before the election.
 
It's mostly a meaningless figure because it doesn't count the people whose benefits have expired or those working poverty level jobs.

[magooch]

The unemployment rate used by the federal government is so convoluted that it is nearly meaningless.  All that should be reported is the number of people employed and compare that to previous months and years.  Another way would be to have a ratio between employed and those on some form of welfare and unemployment benefits.


The unemployment rate actually should represent a figure that shows the number of people who are employed compared to the population that is between the ages of 18 and 65.  Yes, that leaves out a lot of variables, but it would represent a number  that people could understand and that would be harder to rejigger for political expedience.