I understand the US economy is experiencing some… troubled times. However, 4.4% unemployment rate, while that’s an increase, sounds really low compared to other countries. Am I missing something?
I understand the US economy is experiencing some… troubled times. However, 4.4% unemployment rate, while that’s an increase, sounds really low compared to other countries. Am I missing something?
4.4% is the headline number, but there are other measures of unemployment [1] that show we are closer to 8% when you include people that are discouraged from even looking and those working part-time but would prefer a full time job.
There's also a stagnation of salaries relative to inflation and a slow hiring market that has people locked into a job when they'd like to find something better. The K-shaped recoveries have people slipping out of the middle class. Combine with housing increasing faster than inflation, future generations having a lower quality of life than their parents.
The wealthy are doing what they can to try to direct the narrative elsewhere, by controlling media sources, blaming immigrants, blaming China, and blaming the government. But we really have far too much wealth concentration to be sustainable, not unlike the ending of a game of monopoly. If a more stable solution isn't found soon, I fear things will get much worse than they already are.
[1]: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
You can also look at the prime-age employment-population numbers, which show ages 25 to 54.
It shows nearly 20% unemployment rates.
I think this is a better number, personally, than the 4.4% one that conveniently skips out on so many. It's always felt like an "optics" number to me. Like asking themselves how much can they possibly massage the data to look as good as possible.
I think it's meaningful to consider the amount of people who are unemployed even if they're not looking for work or can't work. It better highlights that there are societal level problems that are preventing a lot of these people from working when I imagine most of them would like to be - they just can't because of childcare needs, disability, incarceration, lack of access to opportunities, domestic abuse, etc.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060
US economy is robust, the problem is that people don’t have the same safety nets when out of work.
No job means no healthcare or reduced coverage for many people for example, so it is a bigger deal to have unemployment.
Which means a Finnish or Spanish level unemployment would be much more catastrophic, however anyone expecting the demise of USA will have to keep waiting as the country is very rich and developed and as a result they will re-group and be fine - eventually.
The worst case for the US is a USSR style splintering. Many of the individual constituent states may come out the other end fine or better with time, but that doesn't make "the US" fine.
The U-3 rate does not include those that drove for Uber one hour in the month. The gold standard metric is labor participation rate of white men over 20, and that's not looking good: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300028
>The gold standard metric is labor participation rate of white men over 20
"gold standard"... according to whom? Economists? Internet commentators? White nationalists?
Economists, of course - the confounder of discrimination is absent here. Recall: if something appears weird in the US, it's usually due to slavery.
>Economists, of course
For what? "labor participation rate" or "labor participation rate of white men over 20"? The former is regularly cited, but the latter seems like a contrived statistic to make a point.
It’s not a contrived statistic. It’s a way to look at the fundamentals of the economy in a way that’s not confounded by the distinct effects of immigration, etc.
But it is confounded by demographic changes… namely the aging population.
That's skewed by the number of retirees, which naturally increases in an aging population like white US men.
That's because there are fewer white men because white men (and women) are the ones that are returning from the Baby Boomer era. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1T9dv&heig...
The concern may be for the direction rather than the position. Obviously nothing is certain at this point.
From TFA: "The fall was led by a drop in healthcare employment following widespread strikes by medical workers in New York, California and Hawaii"
You’re absolutely right. The labor market is still quite strong. All the doom and gloom from places like HN is coming from the many layoff announcements and fear of AI.
I didn’t say the market is strong
Or the reality, which is that the numbers are royally fudged and the statistic is a farce.
It's not that numbers are a farce but different industry segments are doing better or worse than other.
HN being a tech forum that now increasingly skews East and Midwest (heck, it's not even 7am yet in the West, but look at the degree of engagement on here) means most HNers are impacted by a slowdown in tech hiring, which exacerbates the sense of pessimism.
And tbf, if you aren't working in a tech hub like the Bay or NYC, you are going to be screwed if you are laid off - employers increasingly restrict remote work to those employees who have proven internal track records, and inshoring hubs like in RTP, Denver, Atlanta, etc are on the chopping block.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47277727
None of those are tech