Get Ready for 14 Percent Unemployment

[rabagley]

Originally Posted by sierratangofoxtrotunion

The IRS and the various states' revenue collection agencies should be able to very easily get a snapshot at any given time of how many people are collecting a paycheck. I don't see, *EVEN DURING GOOD TIMES WHEN THERES NO NEED TO FUDGE THE NUMBERS,* why they don't use this data.

I've seen that called the employment to population ratio. The biggest issue with employment numbers is that they mix any reason why a person might not have a job (retired, playboy, wants to be home with kids, going to school, seeking work, on welfare, etc.) into the "non-employed" side.

The real issue is that there is no "one number" that captures a true count of the unemployed. There are too many categories of people who want to be working but aren't. The unemployment number that gets tossed around is a reasonable proxy for the health of the employment market (current reading: bad) but shouldn't be interpreted literally since most of us know people who are doing something other the job they were educated for so they can pay the bills. Know people who've been unemployed long enough that unemployment has long since run out.

Luckily, that number isn't really necessary. The official unemployment number published by the government is a reasonably useful tool for comparing the health of the employment market to recent times. Can't go too far back because it used to be counted differently. Can't go overseas because they have different stats entirely. Can only compare it to recent history. Within those limits, it is a very useful number, but it isn't the number that lay people think it is or should be.

[Aegis]

This seems to be an old article, but the actual unemployment rate in California is way past 14%.