US unemployment goes down .4%....who cares.

[The Don]

Do you truly believe that a part-time job with no benefits is equal in value to a full-time job with full benefits?

Two separate considerations:

1) Full time vs. part time
2) Benefits vs. no benefits

A job with benefits would appear to me to be better than one without (although being from the UK, benefits are less of a factor due to the universal NHS).

Full vs. part time may be a lifestyle choice. Examples of people who may prefer a part-time job include:

- Retired or partially retired people who are supplementing their pension income
- Parents who want to work the hours their children are at school
- People in full or part time education who only want to work part-time
- People running their own business who want to top-up cashflow for that business

You could also argue that a stable and secure part time job is better than a full time job in jeopardy

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Slight improvements are almost the worst possible news.

Tell that to the 103,000 people who now have jobs. 1.1 million from the beginning of last year, give or take.

I do agree that incremental change is dangerous because it encourages complacency, but we also have to be realistic. Everyone knows that it still sucks. 9.4% is nothing to be proud of, let alone that it really didn't go down due to job creation but people giving up. Sure, the jobless rate went down, and that definitely is a good thing, but I think there's a difference between optimism and saying "See? It's fixed now!"

 

[Meadmaker]

To answer the OP:

0.4% of the population.

 

[WildCat]

Slight improvements allow politicians to do their, "We're on the track to recovery," nonsense (yes, Obama is currently the worst offender), even though this is the major short-term issue in America.

Don't worry, Obama just picked Bill Daley as his CoS, and said that "he possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy".

Apparently, the key to growing the economy and creating jobs is insider deals and corruption.

 

[TraneWreck]

Tell that to the 103,000 people who now have jobs. 1.1 million from the beginning of last year, give or take.

I do agree that incremental change is dangerous because it encourages complacency, but we also have to be realistic. Everyone knows that it still sucks. 9.4% is nothing to be proud of, let alone that it really didn't go down due to job creation but people giving up. Sure, the jobless rate went down, and that definitely is a good thing, but I think there's a difference between optimism and saying "See? It's fixed now!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy those people have jobs. My complaint is one of, "WHY DON'T PEOPLE GET THAT THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM!?!?"

In early 2009, when the stimulus was being debated, would anyone have considered the program a success if two years later there was 9.4% unemployment?

Obviously not.

Now, I'm not arguing the stimulus "didn't work" in the Republican sense (see, government can't ever do anything right ever). I'm pointing out that it wasn't nearly big enough and we really, really NEED to do more.

If we keep up the .4% increase pace every month for a year, we're getting somewhere, but my worry is that our leaders will take this as evidence that we're back on the right track and nothing more need be done.

But yes, you're right, it's great that 100,000 people have jobs who didn't a month ago. It is not good, however, that we aren't going to do anything about the still MASSIVE unemployment.

 

[Thunder]

Of course not, that's absurd. But at the same time, you can't say that only full-time jobs count. That would discount an incredible proportion of our economy. All of a sudden, nearly everyone that works in a restaurant, custodial services, some farm workers, etc. Wouldn't have real jobs. Why should they not count as being employed? Simply because someone else's job is better?

I think we as a nation should strive to have as many workers as possible have full time jobs with at least some benefits.

And no, I am not satisfied with a nation of burger-flippers.

 

[TraneWreck]

Don't worry, Obama just picked Bill Daley as his CoS, and said that "he possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy".

Apparently, the key to growing the economy and creating jobs is insider deals and corruption.

Yeah...but still. Sarah Palin's show sucks.

I've got no answer for that one.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Don't worry, Obama just picked Bill Daley as his CoS, and said that "he possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy".

Apparently, the key to growing the economy and creating jobs is insider deals and corruption.

This is why a lot of liberals want a strong primary challenge to Obama, myself included. Dude's just diet republican on a lot of things, even though he's often portrayed otherwise.

I think we as a nation should strive to have as many workers as possible have full time jobs with at least some benefits.

And no, I am not satisfied with a nation of burger-flippers.

That's admirable and true. It's also extremely unrealistic. My point isn't that we SHOULD have more part-time jobs or what have you, it's just that we shouldn't say "they don't count" when we count our nation's unemployed. That's tacitly endorsing a secondary class.

 

[drkitten]

Two separate considerations:

1) Full time vs. part time
2) Benefits vs. no benefits

A job with benefits would appear to me to be better than one without (although being from the UK, benefits are less of a factor due to the universal NHS).

Not really. Benefits vs. no benefits is simply a question of compensation, which the Labor Department does track; many of the best jobs don't come with benefits because they're rolled into salary instead.

E.g. would you rather that the company paid you $2000 more, or would you rather that the company paid a health insurance company $1500 on your behalf?

Some of the best jobs I've had have come with no benefits -- but they were consultancy gigs that also came with a $200/hour retainer or something like that. I don't need a vision plan when I can work an extra hour and buy a new pair of glasses.

Full vs. part time may be a lifestyle choice.

And when it isn't, the Department of Labor tracks it. That's the U-6 number. The problem is that the papers don't report everything that the Labor Department publishes, and the U-6 number is one of the things that usually gets left on the cutting room floor.

Basically, Thunder is complaining that no one's spoon-feeding him the information he's too lazy to look for.

 

[thaiboxerken]

You think that's good news?

To those 103K people it certainly is.

 

[drkitten]

My point isn't that we SHOULD have more part-time jobs or what have you, it's just that we shouldn't say "they don't count" when we count our nation's unemployed. That's tacitly endorsing a secondary class.

Well, the BLS doesn't say that they don't count. If you can't be bothered to read the U-6 numbers, that's not their fault.

 

[ZirconBlue]

The figure I've heard several times is that we need to add about 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the rate of new people entering the workforce.

E.g. would you rather that the company paid you $2000 more, or would you rather that the company paid a health insurance company $1500 on your behalf?

Currently, the latter, since I probably wouldn't be able to get that same level of health insurance at even the $2000 price.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Well, the BLS doesn't say that they don't count. If you can't be bothered to read the U-6 numbers, that's not their fault.

I know it doesn't. Thunder has been arguing that the unemployment numbers aren't correct because they include part-time employment, which I in turn have been arguing is an implicit statement that part-time employment shouldn't count and as such is ridiculous.

You know, just in case you can't be bothered to read the thread

 

[drkitten]

Thunder has been arguing that the unemployment numbers aren't correct because they include part-time employment, which I in turn have been arguing is an implicit statement that part-time employment shouldn't count.

Right. And you shouldn't have been doing that. You should have pointed out instead that Thunder is wrong and that unemployment numbers do include part time employment.

 

[kellyb]

Kind of on topic, the Fed estimates of the "natural" unemployment rate is increasing...

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...-inflation-turning-point-fed-doesn-t-say.html

Creeping Up

Even so, their estimates for the longer-run unemployment rate -- a proxy for the natural rate -- have been creeping up. Two participants at the April meeting put it between 6 percent and 6.3 percent; everyone else said it is 5 percent to 5.3 percent, according to the minutes. A year earlier, none of the policy makers projected a rate higher than 5.3 percent, and five forecast it was below 5 percent.

Central bankers may be loathe to keep raising their estimates because it’s politically unpopular to say more Americans should be out of work to create equilibrium in the economy, Maki said.

 

[kellyb]

The figure I've heard several times is that we need to add about 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the rate of new people entering the workforce.

That's how I understand it, too.

 

[lomiller]

I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who thinks full-time jobs with fulle benefits, let alone some benefits, are MUCH better than part-time jobs with no benefits.

Do you truly believe that a part-time job with no benefits is equal in value to a full-time job with full benefits?

Not everyone working part time wants to work full time. Not everyone without a job wants to work, most retired people for example don’t want jobs.

The number of people looking for jobs will have the biggest personal impact because it will determine how competitive the job market is. People who have decided to retire, stop working or simply give up working are not competing for job openings

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Right. And you shouldn't have been doing that. You should have pointed out instead that Thunder is wrong and that unemployment numbers do include part time employment.

His point was that he knew that and that they shouldn't, since part time employment isn't as good as full-time. I'm not sure you were following the argument as closely as you think (which, with Thunder--all due respect--is admittedly hard to do at times).

 

[rjh01]

The 0.4% is just one number. To see how the economy is improving (or otherwise) you need to look at a range of numbers over several years. Is it a part of a trend or is it a statistical blimp? Is it due to people giving up looking for work or is it due to more jobs being created?

 

[drkitten]

His point was that he knew that and that they shouldn't, since part time employment isn't as good as full-time. I'm not sure you were following the argument as closely as you think (which, with Thunder--all due respect--is admittedly hard to do at times).

I'm sorry, but you're misinterpreting both Thunder and me.

The BLS U-6 numbers include part-time employment (for economic reason) as unemployment. Technically speaking, the numbers are of "labor underutilization," available labor that's not being used for a variety of reasons.

If you're someone that in theory could be doing productive labor, and you want to be doing productive labor, but you aren't, then your labor is underutilized.

The U-6 number is the best and most comprehensive measure of labor underutilization that we have. The U-3 number (the most widely cited measure) does not count part-time employment as underutillization. So if you want to know how many involuntary part-time workers there are, take U6 minus U3... and yes, that's a meaningful number, but not especially useful for policy planning purposes.

And he's right. Part-time employment for economic reasons isn't as good as full-time.

Basically, what I get from the thread is that he's saying "we should track involuntary part-time employment as well as actual unemployment, because involuntary part-time employment is a problem." He's right, we should, and it is. He's wrong in thinking that we don't. But that's the only area he's wrong,... and that seems to be the only area that you were agreeing with him.