tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098432983500045934.post645059298410501075..comments2024-03-12T22:19:32.339-04:00Comments on The New Arthurian Economics: Notes on the Measurement of UnemploymentThe Arthurianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16501331051089400601noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098432983500045934.post-49177856716125749402017-03-18T20:04:18.419-04:002017-03-18T20:04:18.419-04:00I think this is the article I remember reading. By...I think this is the article I remember reading. By Bob Herbert.<br /><br />NY Times February 23, 1994: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/23/opinion/in-america-counting-the-jobless.html" rel="nofollow">In America; Counting the Jobless</a><br /><br />"The Government has changed the way it determines the national unemployment rate, which has resulted in a number that is marginally higher. But the new and supposedly improved methodology does not provide anything close to an accurate picture of a devastating jobs crisis that is becoming ever more entrenched.<br />...<br />Inevitably the official rates of unemployment are much lower than the true rates. The Government is not concealing the real numbers. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does a remarkable job of documenting those who are working and those who are not. But the raw numbers get whittled down by the complex procedures and definitions used to arrive at the official statistics.<br /><br />For example, discouraged workers -- people who have given up looking for a job -- are not counted as unemployed. The bureau will readily tell you how many people fall into the discouraged category, but that number will not be factored into the official unemployment rate.<br /><br />And even the discouraged category is being shrunk by the bureaucracy. Under the bureau's new rules, a discouraged worker who has not looked for a job for a year is no longer considered discouraged. That worker falls off the statistical charts. Actually, there were a lot of them. Before the change, the bureau counted 1.1 million discouraged workers. After the change, 600,000. <br /><br />There are endless examples of people who are out of work but not counted as unemployed. Laid-off workers have traditionally been considered unemployed, even though there was a time when they could reasonably expect their jobs to return. Now laid off pretty much means fired. But during the survey that is used to determine the unemployment rate, laid-off workers are asked how active they have been in looking for a new job. If the answer is that they have simply been checking the want ads, they are not counted as unemployed. They sure are out of work, but officially they're not unemployed. <br />...<br />The official unemployment rate for January was 6.7 percent. The more we focus on it, the less we understand the extent of the problem. A better indicator of prevailing conditions would be a statistic that showed the number of people who wanted a job but could not find one. That number would be astonishingly high."<br /><br />The Arthurianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16501331051089400601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2098432983500045934.post-59725888067034846952017-03-18T19:43:55.478-04:002017-03-18T19:43:55.478-04:00NY Times February 5, 1994: Unemployment Is Put at ...NY Times February 5, 1994: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/05/business/unemployment-is-put-at-6.7-by-new-method.html" rel="nofollow">Unemployment Is Put at 6.7% By New Method</a><br /><br />"The unemployment rate in December was 6.4 percent, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics stressed that the number could not be compared with the January rate because of a major revamping of the population survey on which it is based. The January report was the first to use the new method, which had been under development since the Reagan Administration."<br />The Arthurianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16501331051089400601noreply@blogger.com