Unemployment numbers- The ugly truth

[RCG Trader]

Quote from pspr:

Nobody cares about your constant attacks. You just show up and start calling people names and trying to piss them off. You should just stay away if you have nothing resonable to contribute. What's wrong with you?

Gawd, as if you do?

 

[LEAPup]

Quote from pspr:

What's wrong with you?

We'd be all day on that one. I'll start with lunatic, however.

 

[Ricter]

Quote from PiggyBank:

While that's true ricter, clubber lang is right. The participation rate continues to drop. And before you say it's because of the boomers retiring, I think denner was correct and you were not (last time we had this argument). A little stat straight from the BLS, is that the participation rate of people aged 65 and older has increased since 2008, and the participation rate of everyone else 16-64 continues to decline. Looks like the old folks are not in such good shape to be retiring, never mind early.

Iirc, the last time we had this chat I pointed out that the country is still feeding everyone and exporting food. Perhaps the belief that the LFPR "should" be higher needs to be examined in light of productivity growth.

 

[PiggyBank]

Quote from Ricter:

Iirc, the last time we had this chat I pointed out that the country is still feeding everyone and exporting food. Perhaps the belief that the LFPR "should" be higher needs to be examined in light of productivity growth.

naw.. in that last thread you said the participation rate is dropping because the boomers are retiring early.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...2956&highlight=participation+rate#post3742956

 

[Ricter]

Quote from PiggyBank:

naw.. in that last thread you said the participation rate is dropping because the boomers are retiring early.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showt...2956&highlight=participation+rate#post3742956

What I actually said was, "That some boomers are staying in the labor market, or even that some are returning, does not necessarily mean that on net there are not more boomers leaving it."

My use of "does not necessarily mean" indicates I was presenting a logic argument, logic which holds true whatever is happening with the boomer population. At any rate, 64 is the cut off for the LFPR.

 

[PiggyBank]

Quote from Ricter:

What I actually said was, "That some boomers are staying in the labor market, or even that some are returning, does not necessarily mean that on net there are not more boomers leaving it."

My use of "does not necessarily mean" indicates I was presenting a logic argument, logic which holds true whatever is happening with the boomer population. At any rate, 64 is the cut off for the LFPR.

That bit of logic doesn't mean you are correct. If people over the retirement age are returning to work, that doesn't bode well for your argument that people who can't even receive retirement benefits, are retiring early. I would like to see some evidence to support your statement.

 

[Ricter]

Quote from PiggyBank:

That bit of logic doesn't mean you are correct. If people over the retirement age are returning to work, that doesn't bode well for your argument that people who can't even receive retirement benefits, are retiring early. I would like to see some evidence to support your statement.

I didn't make that argument, though. I made a logical assertion, that B does not necessarily follow A. B very well might follow A, but not necessarily.

 

[PiggyBank]

Quote from Ricter:

I didn't make that argument, though. I made a logical assertion, that B does not necessarily follow A. B very well might A, but not necessarily.

Dude, it seems to me you were arguing early boomer retirement as the reason for the slide in the participation rate. This was my post:

Quote from PiggyBank:

1) 800,000 jobs were lost all of ONE month.. please stop repeating this obvious lie.

2) the 35 months of job 'creation' haven't even kept up with pop growth, which is why the participation rate is STILL lower than when obama took office AND it declined to it's lowest points after all of his bs job creation policies. lol

and you quoting me:

Quote from Ricter:

Actually, there are other big demographic changes underway, which have nothing to do with Obama.

 

[tomdavis]

There are millions of unemployed who aren't even counted.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/artic...why-the-country-is-unhappy-under-obama?page=2


If you are on disability, you are not considered to be in the labor force either. As of April, we have added 5.5 million people to the disability rolls since the beginning of 2009, several million above the previous trend. There are now roughly 9 million people on disability. In 1992, there was one person on disability for every 35 workers. It is now about one for every 16 workers. It is hard to believe that so many people have become disabled; disability has literally become another fallback position for people out of work. If disability had stayed at the pre-recession growth rate, unemployment would be at least one percentage point higher, leading to a true unemployment rate much closer to 10 percent and perhaps significantly more.

 

[Ricter]

Quote from tomdavis:

There are millions of unemployed who aren't even counted.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/artic...why-the-country-is-unhappy-under-obama?page=2


If you are on disability, you are not considered to be in the labor force either. As of April, we have added 5.5 million people to the disability rolls since the beginning of 2009, several million above the previous trend. There are now roughly 9 million people on disability. In 1992, there was one person on disability for every 35 workers. It is now about one for every 16 workers. It is hard to believe that so many people have become disabled; disability has literally become another fallback position for people out of work. If disability had stayed at the pre-recession growth rate, unemployment would be at least one percentage point higher, leading to a true unemployment rate much closer to 10 percent and perhaps significantly more.

All that's a wash in terms of today's report, ie. it would also be true if the report was negative.

Today's report is good news. Period.