New York Slimes adds legitimacy to 42% Unemployment rate fantasy

[maxrandb]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/upshot/the-real-jobless-rate-is-42-percent-donald-trump-has-a-point-sort-of.html?ref=business&_r=1

“Don’t believe these phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment,” Mr. Trump said in his victory speech after the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night. “The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”

Mr. Trump might be bombastic, but he’s not entirely wrong. And the ways in which he is wrong are actually useful for anyone who wants to understand how to make sense of economic data.

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No NY Times....the unemployment rate is not 42%, but thanks for contributing to making the American populace more ignorant.

See, the "right-wingnuts" won't go into the minutia of your idiotic "both sides have a point" attempt to legitimize Trump's completely bogus statement...they don't need to.

All they will do is say; "see, even the liberal NY Times says that the unemployment rate is as high as 42%"....lather-rinse-repeat

In other words NY Times......EFF You!!

[jonno99]

1. It's definitely not 42%. The following was gleaned from a quick

Google search of 'bls employment charts u-3 u-6':

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080415/true-unemployment-rate-u6-vs-u3.asp

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0609/what-the-unemployment-rate-doesnt-tell-us.aspx




Even this guy - who seems to be a "govt. statistics doubter", doesn't figure 42%:
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

[maxrandb]

2. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter

all the wingnuts need is to be able to "quote" the liberal New York Times, and viola...before you know it, 60 Minutes is doing a 20 minutes expose on how "The unemployment rate could actually be as high as 42%"

All they need is for someone outside of their echo-chamber to give it even the whiff of "truthiness", and they run with it.

Hell, I can't wait for the next family dinner with my nutbag brother where he will quote the NY Times as saying unemployment is actually 42%.

You'd think that the "liberal" media would catch on to their game, but I guess there's no money in that.

[whatthehey]

3. This silliness comes from the employment population ratio

With an added soupcon of lunacy from the bronze age definition of "labor force".

Essentially if you take the people with jobs and divide them into the entire population over 16, the reciprocal is this nutty 42%. Well actually 40.5% now but it bottomed out around 42%.

Think about that for a moment. To be 0% every retiree, even centenarians would have to be working (note the baby boom is entering retirement years en masse). Every student down to HS Junior or even old sophomores would have to drop out and work. Every disabled person would have to be employed. Every homemaker, trust fund brat, trophy wife and starving "artist" too.

It just means that of every single person over 16, 40%+ of them don't have a job. The vast vast majority of them are either retired or students, with disabled not too far behind. They are unlikely to need, want, or even be able to work.

The highest REAL UE rate is U5, which is currently 6.2%. It includes anyone who has looked for a job, even once, in an entire year. If you can work, and haven't looked once in a year, you simply don't want to work. You are no longer in the labor force, any more than millions of stay at home parents, caregivers, etc. are in the labor force.

U6 is not really unemployment but underemployment, as it includes people working PT (including multiple PT jobs) who would prefer FT. Even that is at 9.9%, and could be construed as the absolute maximum level of people who give a shit about getting a FT job but don't have one. More than unemployment as above, but a worthwhle, and declining, metric.