Employment stats are very misleading. There are lots of people with full time jobs who can't even afford housing. Sure they have jobs, but they are still in a really bad situation.
That's an excellent point and one people should consider deeply, unemployment in the US is generally measured by % of population claiming unemployment benefits. It says nothing about people moving to retirement benefits, disability benefits, becoming opioid dependent and being hospitalized or jailed, or getting a job that is effectively continuing the cycle of holding them in very near destitution. Folks are right when they say automation isn't really the major problem. It is indeed just the icing on the cake.
It's never been measured like this anywhere, ever. Don't make things up, especially some intuition that purposely makes another party seem foolish when it is actually quite the opposite. Even people who declare themselves as "job-seeking" are considered in the unemployment rate[1].
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1. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
"Each month, highly trained and experienced Census Bureau employees contact the 60,000 eligible sample households and ask about the labor force activities (jobholding and job seeking) or non-labor force status of the members of these households during the survey reference week (usually the week that includes the 12th of the month). These are live interviews conducted either in person or over the phone. "
Don’t “make things up” (omit important information) the other way either. People give up (lose hope) seeking a job and can end up not “unemployed” but jobless. They’re at least caught in the labor force participation rate, but grouped in with retirees and children and other people who don’t conceivably need jobs.
You're right, this report serves as an input to the total calculation.: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf - and my point should simply have been made made directly about this input (original thoughts around this data point remain) and not the calculation as a whole. My bad.
No it doesn't. BLS acknowledges and discredits this misconception. This data is not relevant to your claims, instead it shows unemployment insurance claims reducing over 2017-2018.
It's still relevant, though, as a rough measure of employee leverage vs employer leverage. Periods with low unemployment tend to see rising wages and benefits, high unemployment, stagnant or lowering.
Isn't Labour Force Participation Rate a better indicator? Plenty of people opt-out of the job market by going on e.g. disability benefits, getting financial support from family and/or working extra "on the black" (without any trace for tax authorities).
It provides no more accurate of a view IMO, as it lumps together both groups of (a) people who don’t have jobs and need them and (b) people who don’t have jobs and don’t need them. I prefer looking at that figure more than “unemployment” rate, but it overcorrects on the pessimistic side. Maybe that’s why some of us like it.
Of employee leverage (and hence wage growth)? I don't think so, because those employees who opt out aren't competing for jobs with those other employees. I'm not an economist, though.
It might be a better indicator of "how well is the economy serving the needs of the people", depending on what you value.
I am not commenting on the well-being of people working in fast food. Just on the availability of work. Whether such individuals can afford housing is totally beside the point of my comment.
Unemployment numbers also aren’t low because the economy is producing tons of new jobs; notice the record numbers of homeless on the streets? It’s the labor participation rate. People are only counted towards unemployment stats while they are actively seeking employment; after awhile they give up and drop out of the labor force completely.
Of course much of that drop is also demographics; the baby boomers are starting to retire en masse.
Still, the illusion of job abundance does not hold.
> Unemployment numbers also aren’t low because the economy is producing tons of new jobs
In fact the unemployment rate is low because the economy has produced an extraordinarily vast number of jobs. In May alone the US economy nearly produced a million new full-time jobs (solidly contracting the part-time count). The full-time job count is at an all-time record high. The US economy has produced 14 million full-time jobs in just the last six years. [1] And the median full-time income in the US is about $50,000, among the highest on earth.
> notice the record numbers of homeless on the streets?
The US homeless rate per capita has plunged dramatically and is at an all-time record low. [2] You're entirely fabricating your claims, both about jobs and homelessness.
The total homeless count has declined by roughly 27% in just 13 years. From ~760,000 in 2005, to less than 550,000 for 2018. The US added about 10% to its population over that time simultaneously.
How is that possible? Everyone knows the US sucks and has no safety net or support systems. Except, that's a lie. The US welfare state is now more generous than either the Canadian or Australian welfare states. [3]
Don't bother, for some, no matter what is true they'd prefer to live with some adverse abstraction to overcome; it provides unity, purpose, and a sense of importance.
I'm a boomer at 64 and will work at least 3 more years. I have friends my age that are retiring and ones that are working. I don't even know what "retire en masse" means.
And I'm highlighting how that type of argument contributes to the misunderstanding that job availability and high employment rates are a good thing just by themselves. What good is for people to dedicate their lives to shitty jobs (which are the only ones they can get), just so they can scrape by and live on the streets?
The answer to that’s isn’t more shitty jobs though. It’s adjustments to our system of capital distribution and ultimately what the minimum standards of living we are prepared to accept is as a society.
You are right about shitty jobs not being the solution.
About the last part of your statement though: society has already implicitly accepted the crappy minimum living standards (at least in the US) that it's willing to accept. That doesn't make it right for the people stuck having to live according to that minimum.
If you're giving the majority of your time (that you are awake) to someone else and can't afford housing you're not "working", you're being enslaved.
Like c'mon. Working for less than a livable wage is just called making America worse. It would be much more productive to kill yourself and reduce the leverage employers have over the proletariat.