Posted on 10/14/2004 6:12:13 PM PDT by golfnut
If we lost a net of 1.6 million jobs during the last 3.5 years (according the the Dems), why is the unemployment rate now (5.4%) LOWER than the unemployment rate when Clinton left office (5.7%)
Maybe I am just dumb, but maybe that means one of the stats is simply wrong. I understand the "Household" survey shows a very different net jobs lost due to small business starts that aren't counted in the other survey.
Or maybe it means we have a net loss of population in the US (a little more than 1.6M) during the last 3.5 years.
Can anyone help out this poor confused soul with some data?
Both figures are misleading. The "jobs lost" numbers don't include the self-employed, realtors, people who own their own business.
But the "unemployment rate" doesn't count people who are not receiving unemployment compensation, and since you get kicked off after 24 weeks, that's anyone unemployed longer than six months.
Thank you, papa!
My daughter left her job before she became a first-time mother.
Her husband and her were very frugal for seven years while saving a nice nest egg.
She loves the freedom of being a full time mom.
I'll bet there are hundreds of thousands just like her.
In many cases the wage earner in the family now can make enough to support the family because lower interest rates have enabled homeowners to refinance or get first-time mortgages as less cost, freeing up more money for other purposes.
Other older people have chosen to retire early.
They may have enriched their retirement plans during the stockmarket boom of the 1990s.
On the other hand if they all got jobs, pop 105 M unemployed 5 M, unemployment rate goes down.
Therefore, if population goes up and unemployment rate constant, jobs have to have been created.
Yes! The Democrats would count that as a job loss!!
The other stat is the "Household Survey." This one does get people who work at home, people who work for companies just started up, people who work for themselves, people in the National Guard who have been called up, for example. This is, by far, the more accurate survey of who is and isn't employed in the United States.
The unemployment statistic, which the Democrats DO accept, is based on the Household Survey. So, that explains the answer to your question.
Congressman Billybob
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Unemployment data is based on household survey, not payroll data. Household surveys don't include small businesses, self-employment, etc... and a person might give up working... i.e., many more women are now taking care of children and homeschooling them than before.
Yes, that's true. I forgot to mention the widespread return of mothers to being full-time home mothers.
That's the wonderful thing about the Rats, though. They never let facts get in the way of their arguments.
Get ready for more job losses too.
As the baby boomers start retiring in mass numbers there will be fewer people entering the work force.
IF a Republican is in office the Dumnuts candidate will say, "This Administration has lost more jobs than..." and mislead the public once again.
WHY CAN'T PEOPLE SEE THROUGH THE DUMNUTS AND THEIR TACTICS??
That would be the "Employment Situation Summary." You can find it here. It shows 139,480,000 employed for Septemer 2004.
might have to check the math on that
"And yet, think where we are. Added 1.9 million new jobs in the last 13 months." Excuse me? The new employment numbers came out just before the debate -- 95,000 new jobs last month, not even enough to keep up with the 150,000 newbies who come into the labor market every month. In other words, a net job loss of 55,000 in September, for a grand total of nearly 1 million jobs lost under Bush. How dumb does he think we are?"
Repeat another Freeper, how dumb does she think were are?
Check my #26.
This is, for some reason, a little known fact. I hope some of you pick this up and run with it.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out two different employment reports - the "Non-Farm Payrolls" report and the "Total Employment - Household Survey".
The Non-Farms Report doesn't count farm employment, self-employment, partnerships and small business owners. Because farm employment use to fluctuate around so widely and not consistently even if adjusted for seasonality, the media and financial community has usually concentrated on using this figure as a good snap-shot of what was happening on the employment front.
The Total Employment - Household Survey counts all jobs.
The Non-Farms Payrolls counts about 142 million jobs. The Household Survey counts about 149 million jobs.
But what has happened over the past 5 years or so, is that the two surveys have started to diverge. Maybe more self-employment and small businesses are being created than has traditionally been the case. Some have mentioned that government employment has increased but this has nothing to do with it.
The Non-Farms employment figure fell considerably in 2001 and into 2002 and while 1.9 million new jobs have been created over the past 18 months, it still shows Bush is down on employment by about 600,000 from when he took office.
The Household Survey, however, declined only marginally during the recession and shows that Bush (the economy actually not Bush) has created about 2 million jobs since he took office. It does, however, count total employment.
In its report last week, the BLS even noted that they do not feel the non-farm numbers are accurate anymore and they will be looking at redoing the methodology.
Exactly right.
I left my regular employment, started my own business, incorporated as an S class, and am not counted in anything but the household survey.
To Kerry, I am counted as a "job loss."
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