The labor statistics for January in my local community were just released.
Unemployment dropped from 8.2% to 8%. Woot!
Only problem is we also had a net loss of jobs. We lost 1400 jobs, or -2.3%.
Gotta love statistics! (especially good when mixed with a heavy dose of politics and a cyanide chaser). Uggh.
Statistics without full context are pretty useless. Was there a population number in there somewhere?
My local paper touted how sexual assaults dropped 70% from last year! Uhmm.... sounds like there "might" be a bit of relevant secondary information in there somewhere.
Required reading for all politicians, bureaucracies and news organizations. 
aircooled wrote: Statistics without full context are pretty useless. Was there a population number in there somewhere?
Nope. They conveniently left that out (of course)
60,700 total jobs.
There was also a 60% reduction in new unemployment claims (hence the completely useless unemployment number, but Shhhh- don't tell anyone. If we just tell them the unemployment number, we can get more votes!)
Oh, I forgot...
It was the front page headline article.
aircooled wrote: My local paper touted how sexual assaults dropped 70% from last year! Uhmm.... sounds like there "might" be a bit of relevant secondary information in there somewhere.
So you guys had 10 total and the serial rapist that accounted for the 7 was arrested? 
…the way unemployment is currently calculated, we’ll eventually get to zero percent. Once the last person loses their job, just wait until their unemployment benefits run out and, Ta-Da, zero percent unemployment. The best indicator of actual unemployment is what’s called “labor participation rate” which is currently at a shockingly E36 ME’y 63%.
63%?? What does that mean??
Your link is broken. Please elaborate.
Try this.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Series Id: LNS11300000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate
Labor force status: Civilian labor force participation rate
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over
SVreX wrote: 63%?? What does that mean?? Your link is broken. Please elaborate.
Sorry for the broken link SVreX, I’m on hour four of a nine hour layover after a fifteen hour flight to Hong Kong. And, and, I’m currently at the Emperor’s lounge with bottomless free booze and tipping is strictly forbidden. Yeah baby, I’m one big fat “rasted” American.
Anyway, Labor Participation indicates the percent of people that want to work that are working. So, 37% of people that want to work aren’t working.
I for one am hopeful that will change.
In reply to RX Reven':
That seems about on par with what I'm seeing locally.
The BLS unemployment numbers are so far from the truth that they are nothing but laughable propaganda. It takes no more than a few minutes to come to the conclusion that the agency is nothing other than a propaganda organization. Over 10 million people have supposedly found the economy so good, they have decided that they no longer need to work and thus the unemployment rate keeps dropping despite the economy getting worse.
The official inflation numbers are even more misleading and faked.
Is there a statistic for people who are working, but don't want to work? My guess would be close to %100, but I could be wrong. I'd find it more interesting the amount of people that took a pay cut just to get off unemployment.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Mark Twain *
*(usually attributed to Mark Twain)
T.J. wrote: The BLS unemployment numbers are so far from the truth that they are nothing but laughable propaganda. It takes no more than a few minutes to come to the conclusion that the agency is nothing other than a propaganda organization. Over 10 million people have supposedly found the economy so good, they have decided that they no longer need to work and thus the unemployment rate keeps dropping despite the economy getting worse.
some people are working cash jobs to get by now, which means they don't really show up in any statistics because they are technically neither "employed" or "unemployed"..
In reply to novaderrik:
True but it shouldn't be one third of the workforce.
Toyman01 wrote: Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey Series Id: LNS11300000 Seasonally Adjusted Series title: (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate Labor force status: Civilian labor force participation rate Type of data: Percent or rate Age: 16 years and over
I have to note (although I know it was not intentional) the graph above is a great example of potentially deceptive visual statistics. Note how the range is only from 67 to 67 and yet implies an extreme drop. Also note how is starts showing a generally flat line. A zoomed out (time wise) view give a different picture:
This graph seems to imply less of a disaster currently and more of a boom in the 90's (70's even). Or, what the hell was the deal prior to 1970!? It also shows the general downward trend not shown in the above chart. And still note, this graph only goes from 57.5 to 67.5. Still hard to say though, some of the variation may be the result of how it was reported / measured. What is "normal"? I don't know.
Lesson: NEVER truly trust any statistical information you hear or see. As with most things, there is NO simple answer, there are almost always many variables involved.
In reply to aircooled:
I get your point.
But a 10 year downward trend is still a 10 year downward trend.
It could also be said that your graph is deceptive. By using a 66 year time period (which is a period that is not standard to anything), you minimized facts which show...
...a 10 year downward trend.
66 years is too long to be a cycle for ANYTHING.
The answer to your question about what the deal was prior to 1970 is probably, that the graph represented a fundamentally different society- more agrarian based, more family business, so there was therefore a smaller percentage of people looking for "jobs". (Though I can't be sure).
That's why 66 years is too long a cycle period. You have no idea what you are looking at, but it is a guarantee that you are NOT comparing apples to apples.
Toyman01 wrote: Or, what the hell was the deal prior to 1970!?
My guess is that the 70's is when women started to work outside the home in large numbers.
Also women didn't factor too much into the formal workforce.
Edit: d'oh! Beat me to it.
SVreX wrote: ...By using a 66 year time period (which is a period that is not standard to anything), you minimized facts which show... ...a 10 year downward trend. 66 years is too long to be a cycle for ANYTHING.
Actually, the full 66 year view shows the 10 year trend. The original chart only shows a 5 year trend. I am not sure why a "standard" time is relevant. We are not comparing this chart to another, so I don't know why some standard time frame is useful.
I am also not sure what "cycle" you are referring to. Is there an expected cycle in employment data? I would think if anything there would be an expected / ideal level.
To say 66 years is too long for anything is clearly on overstatement / misstatement (geology etc). Perhaps you meant to say 66 years of employment data can be hard to imply a trend from because of societal changes. I agree with that in general, but it still give some very interesting information and at least adds some context to the first chart.
I do wish the chart went back farther though. It would be nice to see the effect WWII had. It had to be a big jump (being in the military is considered working right?). I am sure there was also a pretty good drop just after (when the chart starts).
Inflation. Since the value of the dollar continually erodes, over time families couldn't get by like they had for the previous decades (typical wages never go up at the same rate as inflation) and to make ends meet, these families by and large had to send the women off to work. Then, when Nixon closed the gold window and our country was bankrupt and we allowed the private banking cartel to just print up as much money as they wanted out of thin air we started seeing even higher inflation. That is why the increase seen on the chart from the mid 60's through early 2000's.
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