I scanned through the report and saw the downward revisions of the previous 2 months. . Hope we can get a turnaround of this trend.

I have revised my comments to highlight that.

Thank you for pointing that out, and thanks for the thanks. Neither snow nor rain nor traffic jam....

and I saw they stuck that stat down at the very end of the report!

economic goals before even optimistic economists said it could be done. Not to mention saving a fearful nation from what looked like near certain economic collapse.

All hail President Romney!*

*please change name of President as deemed appropriate by the mass media to celebrate. Or not.

This release shows up about a half-hour after the release of the jobs report. The charts are not in a form that permits cutting and pasting. In a few minutes, The Wall Street Journal. will publish them in a form that does permit cutting and pasting.

Chillax a while, and I'll have that link too.

Charting the labor market: Data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) October 2, 2015

This isn't it: September Jobs Report - The Numbers

ETA, 11:49: Here it is:

The September Jobs Report in 11 Charts

equal to my trust of the government's COLA numbers. If they don't want to pay more in Social Security benefits, they simply change the formula used to determine COLA increases until it says what they want it to say. No one believes these employment numbers either.

I aim to please. I do not work for BLS, but I will try to assist if I can.

Point of Contact for Complaints Concerning Information Quality

my complaint. I'm sure their digital round files are chock full of such missives. Some clerks toil 40 hours per week, printing and filing complaints that are then placed in archival binders, recorded and sent to storage, never to see the light of day again. BLS management yawns and utters "whatever" - except when TV cameras show up, then they pretend to care.

Filing complaints with your congressional representative would be more productive, in my opinion. That said, Congress has questioned the validity of BLS numbers for decades.

http://shadowstats.com produces more realistic numbers, in my opinion.

The calculations that produce the COLA are publicly available. Which one are you saying they did wrong?

http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/media/press-release/social-security-cola-change-would-cut-benefits-betray-seniors-and-families-exper

Epic fail. That's a change that didn't get made.

inflation. Energy costs rise? Remove them from the calculations. Housing costs rise? Remove them from the calculation. It's not a "conspiracy", it's simply government manipulation of stats. It's nothing new.

For something you claim to care so much about you don't really seem to know much about how they do it.

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/ss-cola-2011-09.pdf

They didn't change the CPI.

CPI for all items rises 0.2% as gasoline and shelter prices rise; food prices decline

There is something that doesn't seem to be a gummint thing, assembled by the Council for Community and Economic Research, called the cost-of-living index. They say:

The Cost of Living Index consists of six major categories: grocery items, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous goods and services. These major categories in turn are composed of subcategories, each of which is represented by one or more items in the Index. Separate component indexes are published for each of the six major categories. We’re not concerned with the extent to which consumers actually purchase the individual items in the Index. The 60 items have been chosen solely to show interarea price differences in the categories they represent. What’s important, in calculating the Index, is the ratio of an urban area’s average price to the average price of the same item nationwide. When we use a pound of whole frying chicken to represent poultry products, we’re assuming that if an area’s price for this item is 10% above the nationwide average, its prices for poultry products as a whole also are about 10% above the nationwide average.

The gummint puts out a cost-of-living index too. That's done by the Census Bureau: Prices: Consumer Price Indexes, Cost of Living Index. I looked at the .pdf version of Item 728 - Cost of Living Index--Selected Urban Areas. It lists grocery items and transportations as things it takes into consideration. There's a spreadsheet too.

What the BLS puts out is a consumer price index. There's an explanation of that at Cost-of-living index:

Application to price index theory

The United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a price index that is based on the idea of a cost-of-living index. The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) explains the difference:

"The CPI frequently is called a cost-of-living index, but it differs in important ways from a complete cost-of-living measure. BLS has for some time used a cost-of-living framework in making practical decisions about questions that arise in constructing the CPI. A cost-of-living index is a conceptual measurement goal, however, not a straightforward alternative to the CPI. A cost-of-living index would measure changes over time in the amount that consumers need to spend to reach a certain utility level or standard of living. Both the CPI and a cost-of-living index would reflect changes in the prices of goods and services, such as food and clothing that are directly purchased in the marketplace; but a complete cost-of-living index would go beyond this to also take into account changes in other governmental or environmental factors that affect consumers' well-being. It is very difficult to determine the proper treatment of public goods, such as safety and education, and other broad concerns, such as health, water quality, and crime that would constitute a complete cost-of-living framework."

In the OP, the BLS says:

Increases in the energy and shelter indexes more than offset a decline in the food index and were the main factors in the rise of the seasonally adjusted all items index. The energy index rose 1.1 percent as advances in the gasoline and fuel oil indexes outweighed declines in the electricity and natural gas indexes. In contrast, the food index declined 0.2 percent, with the food at home index posting its largest decline since April 2009.

So it seems that both the CPI and the COLI take food and fuel/transportation into consideration.

HTH.

And gas prices are way down, too. In my part of California, our gas is now in the $2.70's. Notice how Obama doesn't get credit for this, but he gets slammed when gas prices go up? You know...because it's "his fault" and all.

Republicans are such motherfuckers.

The number of people not in the labor force increased by 579,000 to a new record high. No increase in wages. We're heading into a recession and you want to thank Obama?

and the gains are STILL going to 1%

WAKE THE F*** UP

10/2/15 - Crummy jobs report this month, at least relative to the last several months 142,000 net new payroll employment in September. July and August were revised down by a combined 59,000. So we have only 83,000 more payroll employees than we did in last month's report (142 - 59 = 83).

Over the past 3 months, employment gains have averaged 167,000 per month. Over the past year, payroll employment has increased by 2,752,000 (an average of 229,000/month). And since the jobs recovery began in March 2010, payroll employment increased by 12,722,000.

The numbers in the below paragraphs come from the Household Survey, which is different from the Establishment Survey that produces the payroll employment number.

(Monthly change figures in the Household Survey are probably best ignored due to volatility caused by statistical noise. That's true in both "good" months and in "bad" months. However, over longer periods of time like a year or more, the monthly zigs and zags will have somewhat averaged out and a more statistically valid trend will emerge.

In particular, year-over-year (12 months) figures should be much better statistically because the current month is being compared to the same month last year, e.g. September vs. September of a year before, and therefore there should be much less error in the seasonal adjustment process -- as both will be adjusted by the same seasonal adjustment factor, and so will cancel out in the comparison. )

[font color = brown] ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Table A-1 and other tables can be found at the all-tables full jobs report at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf, or gotten one-at-a-time from the bottom section of http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm. For example, Table A-9 alone is at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm )
----------------------------------------------------------------------[/font]


A Couple of Household Survey numbers were good or improved in September

Part-time workers who want full time work (aka Part Time For Economic Reasons, Table A-8) fell by 447,000. (This, like all the Household Survey statistics, is very volatile from month to month). Part-time workers who want full-time work has fallen by 1,022,000 over the past 12 months

BLS's broadest measure of unemployment -- U-6 -- decreased by 0.3% to 10.0%. It includes in its version of the "labor force" everyone who has looked for a job in the last 12 months (even if just once). And it includes part-timers wanting full-time work. So this is just plain good news. (Unlike the official unemployment rate -- which counts only those who have looked for work in the last 4 weeks as unemployed).

Most or all of the improvement in U-6 in September was driven by the large decrease in part-time workers who want full time work.

Also kind of good is that the unemployment rate (5.1%) didn't go up despite poor job creation.

Some Household Survey numbers were not-so-good or bad in September

The Employed DEcreased 236,000 in September. (LNS12000000) (Remember this is the Household Survey, a separate survey from the Establishment survey that produced the +142,000 payroll employment figure. The Household Survey is much more volatile and less reliable than the Establishment survey). Anyhoo, the Employed has increase by 2,193,000 over the last 12 months.

The employment to population ratio DEcreased by 0.2% in September. Over the past 12 months it has increased by 0.2%. And since the jobs recovery began, it has increased by 0.7%.

Full-time workers DEcreased by 185,000 in September. This is a volatile data series. We are certain to see threads about this on DU soon. (Note you did not see any threads about the 536,000 increase in July or the 435,000 increase in August. The right-wingers and their DU allies only post about this in months when it goes down or makes a weak gain. I post about it every frickin month regardless of whether it goes up, down, or sideways).

Over the past 12 months, full-time workers increased by 2,529,000 (211,000/mo average). And since the jobs recovery began, it has increased by 11,061,000.

The labor force fell 350,000 -- consisting of 236,000 fewer employed and 114,000 fewer unemployed. (Remember the official definition of unemployed is jobless people who have looked for work over the past 4 weeks; its not all jobless people who want a job). But over the past 12 months the labor force has grown by 870,000. (LNS11000000). No, that's not very good, that's only a 72,500 / month average increase.

The labor force participation rate fell 0.2% to 62.4%, yet another new multi-decade low, and its lowest level since the mid-1970's. ( LNS11300000 ) (The last official explanation I've seen is that half the drop in this rate from 2000 is due to boomer retirements, 1/4 of the drop is due to the still poor economy -- that analysis was written about a year ago -- and 1/4 of the drop is a puzzler).

Here's something recent (August 6), I haven't looked at it yet: "Trends in Labor Force Participation", 8/6/15

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/20150806_labor_force_participation_retirement_research_consortium.pdf )

===========================================

Some key numbers from the Household Survey (note the Household Survey is different from the Establishment Survey that produces the payroll employment of the first paragraph). See below, and see Table A-1 for the main Household Survey numbers - http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Exception: the payroll employment numbers and the inflation-adjusted weekly earnings come from the Establishment Survey. I don't include the over-the-last-month figure for inflation-adjusted weekly earnings, because the CPI data needed for the inflation adjustment is not available until later in the month; but I do include them for the longer periods (over the last year and since the payroll employment recovery began)

In the below tables, all "%" ones are percentage point changes, *not* percent increases or decreases. FOR EXAMPLE, when you see something like this:

+0.1% Unemployment rate

It means that the unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points (this EXAMPLE is from May 2015 when the unemployment rate rose from 5.4% to 5.5%). This is an increase of 0.1 percentage points, *not* a 0.1% increase. The corresponding percent increase is (5.5-5.4)/5.4 X 100% = +1.9%, i.e. a 1.9% increase. So in summary, IN THIS EXAMPLE, the unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points, and also increased 1.9%.


[font color=blue]OVER THE LAST MONTH[/font]:
== ESTABLISHMENT SURVEY ==
+142,000 Nonfarm Payroll Employment ( CES0000000001 )
== HOUSEHOLD SURVEY (warning: this survey's monthly change figures are very statistically noisy) ==
-350,000 Labor Force (employed + jobless people who have looked for work sometime in the last 4 weeks)
-236,000 Employed
-114,000 Unemployed (jobless people who have looked for work sometime in the last 4 weeks)
-0.2% Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate (it's at 59.2%)
-0.2% LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate) (at 62.4%)
+0.0% Unemployment rate (still at 5.1%). Is Unemployed (as defined above) / Labor Force [N864.HM].
-0.3% U-6 unemployment rate (to 10.0%) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13327709
-447,000 Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons)
+53,000 Part-Time Workers (Table A-9)
-185,000 Full-Time Workers (Table A-9)

^--Monthly change figures in the Household Survey are probably best ignored due to volatility caused by statistical noise. That's true in both "bad" months and in "good" months

[font color=blue]OVER THE LAST YEAR (last 12 months)[/font]:
==== ESTABLISHMENT SURVEY ====
+2,752,000 Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey, CES0000000001)
+2.29% INFLATION ADJUSTED Weekly Earnings of Production and Non-Supervisory Workers ( CES0500000031 )
......... the weekly earnings percentage is 11 months thru August because no CPI data for September yet
==== HOUSEHOLD SURVEY ========
+870,000 Labor Force
+2,193,000 Employed
-1,322,000 Unemployed
+0.2% Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate
-0.3% LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate)
-0.8% Unemployment rate
-1.7% U-6 unemployment rate (fabulous. it includes anyone that looked for work even once in the past year)
-1,022,000 Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons)
-378,000 Part-Time Workers (Table A-9)
+2,529,000 Full-Time Workers (Table A-9)

The reason there's no data for September yet for the Weekly Earnings is because the CPI inflation adjustment number for September is not yet available.

All the "over the last year" numbers are really good numbers except the Labor Force Participation Rate shows a 0.3% decrease. Interesting though that there was a 0.2% percentage point increase in the Employment To Population Ratio. The Population being talked about is the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over, yes, including all elderly people, even centenarians.

Seems to me that there is too much discussion in the media of the Labor Force Participation Rate (the employed plus the jobless people who have looked for work in the last 4 weeks, all divided by the population), and not enough attention to what seemingly matters more -- the Employment to Population Ratio. Why aren't we celebrating the increase in the percentage of the population that is employed (the employment to population ratio)-- a figure that has been slowly moving up since the job market bottom, despite the growing wave of baby boomer retirements?


[font color=blue]SINCE THE PAYROLL EMPLOYMENT RECOVERY BEGAN -- Last 67 months thru Sept 30, 2015: 9'15 - 2'10[/font]:
(This is the period from when continuous growth of payroll employment began, thru Sept. 30, 2015)
==== ESTABLISHMENT SURVEY ====
+12,722,000 Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey, CES0000000001)
+3.88% INFLATION ADJUSTED Weekly Earnings of Production and Non-Supervisory Workers ( CES0500000031 )
......... the weekly earnings percentage is thru July 2015 because no CPI data for August yet
==== HOUSEHOLD SURVEY ====
+3,021,000 Labor Force
+10,219,000 Employed
-7,198,000 Unemployed
+0.7% Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate (woo hoo!)
-2.5% LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate) (ughh)
-4.7% Unemployment rate
-7.0% U-6 unemployment rate
-2,900,000 Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons)
-658,000 Part-Time Workers (Table A-9)
+11,061,000 Full-Time Workers (Table A-9)


[font color=blue]Part-Time Workers Who Want Full Time Jobs, as % of All Employed[/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]Sep'14 Jun'15 Aug'15 Sep'15
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]4.8% 4.4% 4.3% 4.1%

A graph of part-time and full-time workers (this is through June 2015)

CLARIFICATION: in the above, these are part-time workers and full-time workers, not part-time jobs and full-time jobs.

This excellent post from early July show two perspectives of the trends in part-time workers and full-time workers (not part-time jobs and full-time jobs). Thanks mahatmakanejeeves
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141134306#post12


The links to the data above
# Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
# INFLATION ADJUSTED Weekly Earnings of Production and Non-Supervisory Workers http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031
# Labor Force http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11000000
# Employed http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000
# Unemployed http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13000000
# Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
# LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
# Unemployment rate http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
# U-6 unemployment rate http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13327709
# Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12032194
# Part-Time Workers (Table A-9) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12600000
# Full-Time Workers (Table A-9) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12500000

########################################################################
FFI on the most recent jobs report, straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age (household survey) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Several graphs of the key economic stats -- http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps_charts.pdf

The whole enchilada -- including all 16 "A" tables (the household survey) and all 9 "B" tables (the establishment survey) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

[font color = brown] ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Table A-1 and other tables can be found at the all-tables full jobs report at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf, or gotten one-at-a-time from the bottom section of http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm . For example, Table A-9 alone is at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm )
----------------------------------------------------------------------[/font]

BLS Commissioner's Statement on The Employment Situation http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jec.nr0.htm

The Council of Economic Advisors' Take on the Jobs Report
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/10/02/employment-situation-september
. . (find this at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea and look for the last "The Employment Situation in" post). Or Google what's in between the {}'s: {site:whitehouse.gov employment situation in September}

Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner's Corner: http://beta.bls.gov/labs/blogs/ Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BLS_gov

Last edited Mon Oct 5, 2015, 12:00 PM - Edit history (8)

Some people just won't let the old people retire or the young people complete their education.

The "Not in Labor Force" number of 94.610 million includes everybody age 16+, including old people, old old people, and yes, even centenarians. And of course at the other end of the age spectrum, some high school and college students.

What matters quite a bit more is the "Not In Labor Force, Wants Job Now" statistic: 5.955 million. Note this is only 6.3% of the 94.610 million "Not In The Labor Force" that so many enjoy posting, without providing any context.

As a reminder, the officially unemployed (those counted in the headline unemployment rate statistic, U-3) are considered to be IN the labor force because they want a job and have looked for work in the past 4 weeks.

People not in the labor force, the 94.610 million, are people who have NOT looked for work in the past 4 weeks.

Another clarification is that all of the above -- the officially unemployed, and those who are not in the labor force -- are all jobless people. These two groups sum to the total of all jobless people.

As for trends in the "Not In Labor Force, Wants Job Now" (namely those who want a job but haven't looked in the last 4 weeks):

# Increased 23,000 in the past month (sad, but not surprising, given the poor job creation in the past 2 months).
# DEcreased 121,000 in the past 3 months
# DEcreased 430,000 in the past year
# DEcreased 854,000 in the past 3 years
# DEcreased 143,000 since the jobs market bottom in Feb 2010, 5.6 years ago

How does it compare to the Bush years?

First, I absolutely refuse to compare anything to the Bush peak years of 2006-2007 because that was the height of the wildly unsustainable housing bubble, where people were using their houses as ATM machines, collectively to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And when anyone who could fog a mirror could get a mortgage and any other kind of loan.

I'll pick January 2005 as representing the height of the "sane" sustainable Bush economy -- just to pick a point midway between the dot-com crash of 2000-2001, but still before the unsustainable housing bubble 2007 peak.

Actually I'm being generous calling January 2005 a "sane sustainable" economic point, as 2005 was crazy too -- the height of the housing construction boom was summer of 2005.

But I don't want to push my "sane sustainable" Bush timepoint back much further because, for example, the peak unemployment rate following the dot com crash was in June 2003 ( 6.3% ). So if I pushed my "sane sustainable peak Bush timepoint" back into 2004 or 2003, people would accuse me of comparing today's numbers with Bush's dot-com bust aftermath numbers.

Anyway, "Not in Labor Force, Wants Job Now" was 4.992 million in January 2005. So its up 5.955/4.992 = 19% in those 10 1/2 years (up is bad for this number of course).

(The total U.S. population is up by 8.9% during the same period, so yes, we're still worse than the 2005 levels by about 10% even if we normalize this number using total U.S. population size -- http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table )

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15026639

Not In Labor Force, Wants Job Now, Thousands ( LNS15026639 )


COUNTING EVERYONE WHO SAYS THEY WANT A JOB, regardless of whether they have looked for work or not recently or in a long time or whatever -- the officially unemployed PLUS "not in labor force, wants job now" PLUS part-timers who say they want a full-time job:

In percentage terms [font color = red]{1}[/font], EVERYONE who says they want a job (including part-timers who want full time work) has declined from 13.98% a year ago to 12.24% in September (this is essentially Paul Solman's "U-7" number, which I duplicate closely but don't match exactly -- his September number is 12.18%, 0.06 percentage points lower than mine http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/disappointing-numbers-septembers-jobs-report/ ).

It was 18.87% at the bottom of the jobs market in February 2010. So we've come a long way since then.

It was 11.22% in January 2005 (the "sane sustainable peak Bush timepoint" -- see above), so today's 12.24% number is still not as good as then. (BTW, the official unemployment rate then was 5.3%). In fact, today's 12.24% number is virtually the same as the June 2003 number (12.25%) at the worst point (peak unemployment rate) of the jobs market bottom in the aftermath of the dot com crash [font color = red]{2}[/font]

Anyway, if you see, as I have, a gloomergasmic claim that "38% of the workforce is jobless", you know they are full of crap. They are counting as part of the "workforce" everyone age 16+ no matter how old, including, yes, even centenarians. And regardless of whether they want a job or not.

[font color = red]10/4 516p CT - Edited to add footnote {1} whose main purpose is to explain what is in the denominator of the U-7 figure, and why. As well as the paragraph above [/font]

[div style="background-color: #CEF6FE;"]{1} Generally speaking, the unemployment rate is:

[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] the unemployed
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]-----------------------------
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]the employed + the unemployed

This is the definition used by the U-3 (official unemployment rate), where the "unemployed" is all jobless people who want a job and have looked for work in the past 4 weeks.

It is also the definition used by the BLS's expanded alternative unemployment rates (U-4 thru U-6), where "the unemployed" in the numerator and denominator is some expanded definition of the unemployed.

In U-7, the "unemployed" is an expanded definition that includes every jobless person who says they want a job, plus all part-timers who say they want full time work. Specifically, the "unemployed" in the numerator is the officially unemployed + those not in the labor force who want a job + part-timers who want full time work.

There is one wrinkle, however -- in the denominator, the "unemployed" does not include part-timers who want full-time work, because they are already included in the denominator (they are part of "the employed"; we don't want to double count them in the denominator).

Note that the BLS definition of U-6 at http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm handles part-timers who want full-time work the same way.

Anyway, if I included part-timers who want full-time work in "the unemployed" in the denominator -- thus counting them twice in the denominator -- it would bring the calculated U-7 rate DOWN by about 0.44 percentage points, to 11.80% in September).


[font color = red]10/5 840a CT - Edited to add footnote {2} which compares today's U-3 and U-7 to several points in the Bush administration. Finding today's U-7 to be higher by about one percentage point than during the post-dot-com-crash Bush months when the official U-3 unemployment rate was about the same.[/font]


[div style="background-color: #CEFEEE;"]{2} The U-7 unemployment rate and the official U-3 unemployment rate at various times during the G.W. Bush administration, and compared to today (September 2015).

June 2003 is the worst point of the post-dot-com labor market (when the official unemployment rate was highest). What follows are January 2004, June 2004, January 2005, and June 2005 -- 4 points during the recovery from the dot-com crash but still before the housing market went completely insane. Actually, June 2005 was about the height of the construction boom, so the economy was well into the housing bubble then. (Housing prices peaked a year later in the summer of '06).

After the "##" is the latest -- September 2015 -- numbers.

It is interesting that today's U-3 official unemployment rate of 5.1% is about where it was during early-mid 2005, whereas the U-7 unemployment rate is about a percentage point higher than it was back then.

And that today's U-7 about matches where it was at the worst point (peak official unemployment rate) in the dot-com-crash aftermath in June 2003, but the official unemployment rate today is 1.2 percentage points less (6.3% then, 5.1% now).


[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]Jun'03 Jan'04 Jun'04 Jan'05 Jun'05 ## Sep'15
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]12.25% 11.77% 11.42% 11.22% 11.12% ## 12.24% U-7 unemployment rate
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] 6.3% 5.7% 5.6% 5.3% 5.0% ## 5.1% U-3 official unemployment rate

The U-7 unemployment rate numbers are my numbers which very closely match (within 0.06 percentage points) the Paul Solman U-7 numbers recently (unfortunately he doesn't calculate these before about January 2011, and he doesn't update his older figures for annual revisions to the Household Survey numbers. Which is why I have to resort to my calculations).

U-7 counts as "unemployed" every jobless person who says they want a job, no matter how long it has been since they looked for one; plus part-timers who say they want full-time work. (In contrast, the official unemployment rate U-3 only counts those who have looked for work in the past 4 weeks, and counts part-timers the same as full-timers, i.e. as "employed".)

BLS's U-6 counts as unemployed those jobless people who say they want an job and have looked for work in the past 12 months, plus part-timers who want full-time work.

U-7 is the same as U-6 except that it gets rid of the 12 months restriction; in U-7 it doesn't matter how long its been since the person has looked for work.

also greatly rewriting the

section in #21 above.

Last edited Mon Oct 5, 2015, 12:35 PM - Edit history (3)

Added Footnote {2} (the green box) which compares today's U-3 and U-7 to several points in the Bush administration during the recovery from the dot-com crash, and before the housing market went completely insane.

Finding that today's U-7 (the unemployment rate that counts EVERYONE who says they want a job regardless of how long it has been since they looked for work; plus part-timers who want full-time work) to be higher by about one percentage point than during the post-dot-com-crash Bush months when the official U-3 unemployment rate was about the same.

What is the point of such a comparison?

Well, very often I see and hear comparisons of the present economy to the "pre-recession peak", December 2007 or some other closeby month. And lamentations that, nearly 8 years later, we still aren't "recovered" because we haven't reached those great levels in most of our economic statistics.

Well, that peak was also the peak of the manic unsustainable housing bubble where people collectively used their houses as ATM machines to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And when anyone who could fog a mirror could get a mortgage or any other type of loan.

So that is an unsuitable point in time to compare to. We don't want to return to a bubble top, so we should stop whining about not being there.

So, the question is, what should we compare to that isn't too far distant in the past? Like how about sometime in the Bush administration before the housing bubble years, but not all the way back to the dot-com crash or its immediate aftermath.

Anyway footnote (2) (the green box) is U-3 and U-7 for several points between the dot-com crash and the peak housing bubble years that can be a basis of comparison for today's economy. Enjoy.

Another comparison that might be worthwhile is to the Clinton economy around 1995 or 1996 or so -- after recovering from the Bush I recession, but before the unsustainable dot-com frenzy of the late 1990s. Stay tuned.

[font color = red]10/5 1130a CT Edited to Add:[/font]

In August 1996, the official unemployment rate was 5.1% -- the same as today (September 2015). But U-7 in August 1996 was 11.78%, or 0.46 percentage points less than today's 12.24%.

So yes, the spread between U-3 and U-7 today is 0.46 percentage points larger than it was back in August 1996. So yes, there seems to be, proportionately speaking, more people who have given up looking for work now then back then.

But not that many more, at least nothing to support the gloomergasmic rhetoric about this economy being so much more horrible now than the economy back then in terms of people who want a job but have given up the job hunt in despair (which U-7 includes).

Linked via the BLS Twitter feed. Released last Friday. I just didn't see the tweet until now.

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