[ranci]

More than 37% of the country does not have a job according to labor participation rate. The unemployment rate has been massaged and manipulated to the point where you need to stop citing it as a serious measurement of anything other than the scope to which otherwise intelligent people can be deluded.

[rory096]

You're spouting a conspiracy theory. U6 unemployment is at historic lows and has at no point diverged from the trend in U3.

Unless you plan on conscripting children, students, the disabled, stay-at-home parents, and the elderly into jobs (like Steve King[0]), we're at the long run full employment rate.

[0] https://twitter.com/stevekingia/status/967477703011119104

[odbol]

The problem is underemployment, not unemployment. People work but can't get enough money from their work—even when they are working 2-3 jobs to try to support their family.

[ranci]

What I said is backed up by facts. How is it a conspiracy? The labor participation rate is 62.x. That means that 37% of the US is not employed. Fact, not a conspiracy.

The unemployment rate has been manipulated for various reasons and in various ways for years by politicians whos reputation is directly linked to the number. Again, fact, not a conspiracy.

[rndmize]

Your statement is worthless without context. The US has never had more than a 68% labor participation rate. To say that 37% of the US is unemployed, without qualifying that that percentage includes anyone over 16 (students, retirees, stay at home parents - in short massive numbers of people that are not seeking work) is to be deceptive.

A reasonable statement would note that the labor participation rate was at about 59% from 1950 to 1965, rose over several decades and peaked around 67% in the 90s as women entered the workforce in droves, fell 1% in the 00s and 3% following the recession. It would further be worth noting that the recent fall could be a result of a variety of factors - poor wage growth (might change the calculus of stay-at-home parenting), increasing numbers of young men that prefer to live with their parents and absorb themselves in entertainment rather than "getting ahead" (possibly also affected by the prior wage issue), or baby boomers retiring in increasing numbers, causing a bump in people moving out of the work force.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

[rory096]

>How is it a conspiracy?

>The unemployment rate has been massaged and manipulated to the point where you need to stop citing it as a serious measurement of anything other than the scope to which otherwise intelligent people can be deluded.

>The unemployment rate has been manipulated for various reasons and in various ways for years by politicians whos reputation is directly linked to the number.

Uh huh.

In any case, you might want to take a look at the 25-54 LFP. It currently sits at 82%, the same as the rate during the 2000s and two points shy of the all-time high during the height of the dot-com bubble. Prior to 1986 it had never reached this level.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

[ranci]

"Uh huh"? It would be a conspiracy to say that the unemployment rate does not have basically arbitrary rules built into it to discount people who are actually looking for work.

[rory096]

Which "people who are actually looking for work" are not included in U6 unemployment?

[hueving]

Elderly people are included in the ~35% you are talking about and most are not "actually looking for work".

[dragonwriter]

There are a variety of alternative unemployment measures besides the headline rate and the are uses for which way of them is more appropriate than the headline rate, but using the LFPP as if it were (1 - unemployment) is silly, unless your ideal is that everyone should be working at wage labor from 16 to death.