[ClearCase_guy]

The unemployment rate fell in large part because the labor force participation rate fell...

Do I need more coffee, or does this make absolutely no sense?

[null and void]

Do I need more coffee, or does this make absolutely no sense?

They are U-3s.

People who have given up looking for a job are 'non-persons' and therefore aren't unemployed people...

[alloysteel]

No more coffee for you!

The current “unemployment rate” figures make absolutely no sense whatsoever. The number of “employable but not working” in this country is nearing 100 million, and still growing. The bean counters crow about “creating” 178,000 jobs, but meanwhile some 400,000 are either dropping out of the labor market altogether, or never entering with the first job.

I do not care how the bookkeeping is done, that is still a net loss of people employed out of the existing pool of potential workers. And it is a cumulative and GROWING number. If the unemployment rate were being honestly reported, we are at Depression levels of economic stagnation.

[freedumb2003]

>>Do I need more coffee, or does this make absolutely no sense?<<

No, it explains the obozo no-recovery recovery. When the labor participation rate falls, the number of people lookong for work falls so unemployment goes DOWN.

If you have 10 people looking for work and 6 are employed you have 40% unemployment. But if you have 8 people looking for work (since 2 have left the labor participation pool) and 6 are employed you have 25% emmployment — thus the rate falls with no additional employment.

[HarleyD]

It sounds like the “experts” from the last eight years. It will take something stronger than coffee to make sense of this article.

[Redleg Duke]

No, if you magically recatergorize the unemployed as non-participating, the unemployment rate drops!

The Magic Negro’s Accounting Principles!

[babble-on]

fractions are tough in the morning

[Flavious_Maximus]

Fewer and fewer people are working because it is to easy to just go on welfare.

Obama is importing hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly Muslimbs, every single year.

These refugees are completely unemployable. They have ZERO job skills for the twentieth century. They are a total drag on the economy. They produce nothing and take everything. They bring in all types of diseases and crime and they are not included in the unemployment rate.

Now you know the rest of the story.

[elpadre]

None of this data makes sense.

How can there be such low unemployment when there are 96 million out of work. The DOL needs a lot of upgrading.

You do know that for many years, the DOL has been staffed from members of the AFL-CIO’

[elpadre]

None of this data makes sense.

How can there be such low unemployment when there are 96 million out of work. The DOL needs a lot of upgrading.

You do know that for many years, the DOL has been staffed from members of the AFL-CIO’

[elpadre]

None of this data makes sense.

How can there be such low unemployment when there are 96 million out of work. The DOL needs a lot of upgrading.

You do know that for many years, the DOL has been staffed from members of the AFL-CIO’

[elpadre]

None of this data makes sense.

How can there be such low unemployment when there are 96 million out of work. The DOL needs a lot of upgrading.

You do know that for many years, the DOL has been staffed from members of the AFL-CIO’

[RainMan]

No, it makes perfect sense, go get some coffee and I will explain.

Unemployment nowadays is not mitigated by job growth, but rather by drops in the workforce participation rate. In short, the way the government counts unemployment is based on whether someone is getting unemployment benefits. Once they no longer qualify for benefits, they are no longer unemployed, they are classified as no longer participating in the workforce. Ergo, when the workforce participation number goes down, it means that more people exhausted their unemployment benefits and now have officially left the workforce (according to the government). Woo hoo, the government gets to tout a rosy statistic that the unemployment number dropped, but it is all smoke and mirrors, because it really didn't.

My personal opinion is that Trump should dump the unemployment rate ... it has been gamed for so long that nobody actually believes it as meaning anything anymore. Instead, he should set a number like 75% for workforce participation, and then track progress against that. The other metric I would love to see reported on a weekly basis is taxable income (tax basis for government). That going up and down would tell real data about wages in the country ... whether people were getting good paying career type jobs or burger flipping jobs.

[weezel]

In 2007 with the same unemployment number, labor participation was 66%, compared to 62% now.