US Economic Recovery

[AxlisOld]

COMBO BREAKER!!!

[magisme]

You do know that deficit and debt are not the same thing, right?

Yeah, sorry, I meant to say the rate of federal debt expansion is slowing down. And considering the GDP is clipping along between 4 and 5 percent, the overall effect has been a decrease in federal public debt as a percentage of the overall economy.

We'll see about that 4-5%.

[Roush]

The New York Stock Exchange is divorced from economic reality, and is reaching astronomical new heights through Quantitative Easing. That phrase may appear benign if not a wee bit technocratic. It was intentionally designed to appear that way. QE is a euphemism for the elite enriching themselves via federal spending.

Granted, China and Europe are also divorced from reality. The ECB recently stated (I'm paraphrasing) "deflation was not a possibility". Two months later, the statement is redacted and a new one states to expect (and I'm not kidding) periods of "negative inflation".

[Lio]

Granted, China and Europe are also divorced from reality. The ECB recently stated (I'm paraphrasing) "deflation was not a possibility". Two months later, the statement is redacted and a new one states to expect (and I'm not kidding) periods of "negative inflation".

Yes, it's true. I've heard quite a few people say: The defla...um... negative inflation blabla.

No deflation here, only negative inflation.

[magisme]

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

[magisme]

First estimate of Q4 annualized GDP: 2.6%

Whocouldaknowed?

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2015/pdf/gdp4q14_adv.pdf

[magisme]

January payrolls. Someone fucked up.

[downzy]

Over 250k jobs created last month, with over a million jobs created over the past three months (first time that's happened since I believe 1997).

Moreover, wages increased by .5 percent last month. Over the past year, wages are up 2.2 percent.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-report-u-s-adds-257-000-jobs-unemployment-ticks-up-to-5-7-1423229564

[magisme]

And yet the unemployment rate went up. Baffle with bullshit.

[magisme]

According to Gallup, only 44% of American adults have jobs that employ them for more than 30 hours per week. Not all jobs are created equal.

And of course there continues to be this:

[downzy]

And yet the unemployment rate went up. Baffle with bullshit.

Unemployment insurance ran out for a lot of people, which means they're now counted in the unemployment rate (since more people are more likely actively looking for a job); plus with more jobs created more people are beginning to look for work again.

According to Gallup, only 44% of American adults have jobs that employ them for more than 30 hours per week. Not all jobs are created equal.

And of course there continues to be this:

It's a four percent drop, not insignificant, but not as large as this graph is making the decline appear to be.

Moreover, it's natural that a large recession will have an effect on labour rates. But this graph doesn't include much context as to why it hasn't returned to pre-financial crisis levels. Most of it can be explained by the stock market roaring back, which allowed many baby boomers to retire rather than having to return back to work. More people are retiring as the baby boom generation reaches 65 and older.

It's as much a demographic issue versus an economic-policy issue. See here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-baby-boomers-retirement-means-for-the-u-s-economy/

[AxlisOld]

It is that large given the stability over the years preceding it and the years following the plunge.

I believe that people receiving unemployment are counted in the unemployment rate. People that have exhausted their benefits are generally the ones not counted because they're considered discouraged or something and no longer searching.

[downzy]

It is that large given the stability over the years preceding it and the years following the plunge.

I believe that people receiving unemployment are counted in the unemployment rate. People that have exhausted their benefits are generally the ones not counted because they're considered discouraged or something and no longer searching.

I may be wrong, but it's my understanding that people who are receiving unemployment benefits are not necessarily counted directly when factoring the official unemployment rate. It's done by random sampling.

See here: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/10/unemployment-rate-get-real.asp

[magisme]

And yet the unemployment rate went up. Baffle with bullshit.

Unemployment insurance ran out for a lot of people, which means they're now counted in the unemployment rate (since more people are more likely actively looking for a job); plus with more jobs created more people are beginning to look for work again.

Exactly the opposite is true. You are NOT counted as officially unemployed once your unemployment insurance runs out. That's why the unemployment rate has appeared to go down so dramatically when anyone who actually lives in the real world in the US and looks around and speaks to people knows the number is bullshit.

It is that large given the stability over the years preceding it and the years following the plunge.

Clearly. And the larger point is that there hasn't really been any recovery to speak of. We've been "muddling through", as they say.

[downzy]

And yet the unemployment rate went up. Baffle with bullshit.

Unemployment insurance ran out for a lot of people, which means they're now counted in the unemployment rate (since more people are more likely actively looking for a job); plus with more jobs created more people are beginning to look for work again.

Exactly the opposite is true. You are NOT counted as officially unemployed once your unemployment insurance runs out. That's why the unemployment rate has appeared to go down so dramatically when anyone who actually lives in the real world in the US and looks around and speaks to people knows the number is bullshit.

It is that large given the stability over the years preceding it and the years following the plunge.

Clearly. And the larger point is that there hasn't really been any recovery to speak of. We've been "muddling through", as they say.

Again, no. That's not how unemployment statistics are formulated. The key factor is "seeking employment." If a person is unemployed and seeking employment, they boost the unemployment rate. If they are unemployed but not seeking employment, they are considered not part of the labour pool, and hence not included in the official unemployment rate. It does not matter whether that person is collecting unemployment benefits or not. Now, most states assume or require that people collecting UI are seeking a job, but those responsible for formulating the official unemployment statistic do not just count up the number of people collecting benefits to determine the monthly unemployment rate. Again, read the link I provided above. It's done by random sampling, and the two questions that matter are: i) are you currently unemployed; ii) if not, are you actively seeking employment. Whether they're on UI is irrelevant.

You can't just point to labour participation rates as the key metric for economic performance. As I explained before, demographics can play a large role in such statistics. If a given population grows older (which is happening now), a fewer number of people will be actively employed. When more people retire, the metric you're pointing trends downward. It can also descend as a result of a recession, but the lack of improvement doesn't prove a lack of an economic recovery.

[AxlisOld]

Well every person receiving benefits is required to be actively searching for work. So random sampling would make no sense.

[magisme]

Holy shit, dude. You first said that people were running out of unemployment insurance and therefore WERE counted as unemployed, and now you're saying that the insurance has no bearing. You don't know what you're talking about. Just admit it. Like AxlisOld says, unemployment insurance requires you to search for work, and statistics show that a large percentage of those people who run out of benefits either give up or take menial part time work, either of which takes them off the unemployed roll. That is why unemployment figures tend to go down when large numbers of people run out of benefits. FFS.

And if it's demographics regarding the labor participation rate, then why is percentage of seniors working going through the roof while percentage of younger workers is going down?

I give up. I'll just continue to post the downward trends. You keep believing we're recovering. Tell, me though, how many years will we be "recovering"? Eventually we'd be recovered, right?

[downzy]

Holy shit, dude. You first said that people were running out of unemployment insurance and therefore WERE counted as unemployed, and now you're saying that the insurance has no bearing. You don't know what you're talking about. Just admit it. Like AxlisOld says, unemployment insurance requires you to search for work, and statistics show that a large percentage of those people who run out of benefits either give up or take menial part time work, either of which takes them off the unemployed roll. That is why unemployment figures tend to go down when large numbers of people run out of benefits. FFS.

And if it's demographics regarding the labor participation rate, then why is percentage of seniors working going through the roof while percentage of younger workers is going down?

I give up. I'll just continue to post the downward trends. You keep believing we're recovering. Tell, me though, how many years will we be "recovering"? Eventually we'd be recovered, right?

Once again, that is not how the rate of unemployed is tabulated. You can draw parallels all you want, but how the Bureau of Labor Statistics and data compiles the rate is through random sampling, not by considering the number of people collecting UI.

This all started by you pointing out that the rate of unemployment increased despite a jump in jobs created. My response was that this was a result of more people having their UI cut off, which would cause more people to look for work. Hence, when those responsible for figuring out the official rate of unemployment call a random number of people, they're likely to find more people actively looking for work as they can no longer rely on UI to get them through being unemployed.

This is how it works. You haven't presented anything other than theories that do not hold up to scrutiny. You can write FFS all you want, but until you actually know what you're talking about and at least acknowledge how things work, you might want to save those for yourself because it looks ridiculous.

Again, here's the same thing I've been writing but said by another publication:

The unemployment rate rose last month to 5.7 percent from 5.6 percent. But that occurred for a good reason: More than 700,000 Americans — the most in six years — began looking for jobs. Not all of them found work, which swelled the number of unemployed. The influx of job hunters suggested that Americans have grown more confident about their prospects.

With fewer people claiming UI, and more people reaching their time limit on benefits, more and more people are looking for work. You claimed that people who no longer receive UI but still find themselves as unemployed are no longer considered in unemployment statistics. And that is unequivocally NOT true. The primary litmus for being considered unemployed by the BSL is whether a person is out of work and whether they're actively looking for a job. That's it. My argument, and the argument of others, is that with more Americans running out of UI while the economy is producing more jobs, more and more Americans will return looking for work. And that explains the uptick in the unemployment rate despite vast job creation over the past three months.

[downzy]

The percentage of senior workers isn't going through the roof. The average age of retirement has grown by a year or so, but considering that such a large cohort of the population is moving into the 50 - 70 age bracket, it would make sense that as a whole the percentage of employed individuals would drop as more people reached retiring age (even if the average age rises by a year or two).

Second, an explanation for younger workers is that they're staying in school longer. A far greater number of 16-19 year olds (and older) are enrolling in higher education, which would have a dampening effect on the overall labour participation rate:

A third trend is that overall rate for the middle cohort (25-45 year olds) has long been in play before the great recession of 2008-2009. It's not just a recent development, but one that has been trending for quite some time.

So again, context matters.

[AxlisOld]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discouraged_worker

Downzy you need to familiarize yourself with this.

[downzy]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discouraged_worker

Downzy you need to familiarize yourself with this.

Yes, I'm well aware of what a discouraged worker is and how they relate (or don't) to the official unemployment rate. But it doesn't relate the conversation we're having here.

The official unemployment rate considers those actively looking for work. Discouraged workers are long-term unemployed individuals who have looked for worked at some point over the last twelve months, regardless of whether their UI has run out or not. As noted in the article I posted above, there was an increase of 700,000 people actively looking for work last month, many likely long-term unemployed or formerly discouraged workers. As news of more jobs being created and UI running out for many, it's forcing more and more Americans to seek work, hence pushing up the unemployment rate despite impressive number of jobs created over the last three months.

[AxlisOld]

And I'm telling you, that legally, every person receiving UI benefits HAS to be actively searching for work. No one has been unemployed for 5 years, not looking, and all of a sudden said, "Dammit, today is the day I look again."

[downzy]

And I'm telling you, that legally, every person receiving UI benefits HAS to be actively searching for work. No one has been unemployed for 5 years, not looking, and all of a sudden said, "Dammit, today is the day I look again."

I'm not disputing that. But once again, the BLS does not use UI claimants to determine its official unemployment rate. For sure, it's a bellwether indicator, as an increase in the number of people claiming UI is not a good sign for the economy. But again, the BLS does not use the number of UI claims to determine the unemployment rate. It uses random sampling.

And yes, broad economic improvements can lead to many who have held off from actively looking for a job due to frustration or whatnot to perhaps actively look again. If you've been unemployed for a long time and news breaks out that the economy produced a million jobs over the past three months, you might be a little more hopeful that efforts to land a job might prove successful. Same goes with losing one's UI. No longer being able to hold out until something better comes a long, people will often pursue broader opportunities if they can no longer count on a by-weekly UI stipend.

[magisme]

Soooooo recovered.

[magisme]

Recovering like a motherfucker.