Gallup Poll CEO tells truth about U.S. unemployment

[Mountain Man]

That's true but the Baby Boomers have been retiring since Carter. That would throw the stat off a tad...

Actually, baby boomers aren't retiring. The problem is that people of prime working age -- 18 to 50 -- are having trouble finding work.

[phank]

they are considered in the Labor Participation Rate that MM was talking about. But not in the unemployment statics. Not the same stat.

No, I don't think so. Once retired, they no longer participate in any labor statistics at all. Read here:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/...pationrate.asp

The participation rate refers to the number of people who are either employed or are actively looking for work. The number of people who are no longer actively searching for work would not be included in the participation rate.

[Joel]

Another difficulty is that unemployment rates are not necessarily related to how easy it is to find a job. There can be times where it is easy for most unemployed people to get a job and there is high turnover and the unemployment rate is high. Likewise there may be times when the unemployment rate is lower, but it is difficult for anyone out of work to find a job. A person looking for a job doesn't really care what the unemployment rate is. They care how easily they can find a job.


Also WWII did not stimulate the economy. WWII pushed the depression even deeper. Private production fell further, living standards fell further. The reason people think WWII was a stimulus is because GDP increased, and that was only because military consumption is counted as GDP. Recovery didn't come until WWII ended.

[phank]

Another difficulty is that unemployment rates are not necessarily related to how easy it is to find a job. There can be times where it is easy for most unemployed people to get a job and there is high turnover and the unemployment rate is high. Likewise there may be times when the unemployment rate is lower, but it is difficult for anyone out of work to find a job. A person looking for a job doesn't really care what the unemployment rate is. They care how easily they can find a job.

No, this does not happen. When unemployment is high, turnover is so low that employers double the workload without any increase in pay, and people work double the hours because they know they are lucky to have a job. When unemployment is high, turnover is ALWAYS low.

How easy it is to find a job is a direct function of how many job openings there are.

Also WWII did not stimulate the economy. WWII pushed the depression even deeper. Private production fell further, living standards fell further. The reason people think WWII was a stimulus is because GDP increased, and that was only because military consumption is counted as GDP. Recovery didn't come until WWII ended.

Geesh! Private production decreased because all able bodied men were sent overseas, and all able bodied women were working in defense industries. Whether or not we consider government industry as distinct from private industry, the fact remains that wars generally preceed economic booms.

[Mountain Man]

Hey! let's raise the minimum wage! That should fix everything!

I know you're being tongue in cheek, but I'll go ahead and point out that raising the minimum wage actually makes unemployment worse because it forces businesses to cut jobs, and it prices the uneducated and unskilled out of the market. If McDonald's started paying $15/hour to flip hamburgers then they wouldn't waste that salary on a high school (or even a college) kid with little or no work experience. They'd want a seasoned veteran of the fast-food industry.

Source: USA Today

CBO examined the budget impacts of raising the minimum wage to $9 and $10.10. The report concluded that a $9 increase would lift 300,000 workers above the poverty line, but cost 100,000 new jobs as employers are expected to reduce workforces to make up for higher wages. A $10.10 increase would lift 900,000 workers above the poverty line, but cost 500,000 jobs.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...-jobs/5582779/

© Copyright Original Source

Source: Breitbart

The new research found that the higher minimum wages on their own lowered the employment-to-population ratio of working adults by 0.7 percentage points. This is a 14% employment decline, throwing 1.4 million workers out of jobs. It is important to remember these adults have the least skills and will have a difficult time rejoining the labor force.

Minimum wage hikes remain popular with politicians and most of the public, largely because they involve relatively few people, and their effects are hard to see. An increase in self-checkout lanes in many stores doesn’t advertise itself as a consequence of higher minimum wages, for example. Even if jobs don’t disappear, higher minimum wages attract workers with higher skill and education levels, many the second- or third-earner in a family, and crowd out those with less education or fewer skills.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...illed-workers/

© Copyright Original Source

And there's this beautifully ironic quote from a story about a local bookstore that was forced to close because of a recent minimum wage increase:

Source: Breitbart

“You know, I voted for the measure as well, the minimum wage measure,” customer Edward Vallecillo lamented. “It’s not something that I thought would affect certain specific small businesses. I feel sad.”

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...um-wage-hikes/

© Copyright Original Source

It's like those idiots who say, "I didn't vote for Obama to raise my taxes, I voted for him to raise your taxes, so why is he raising my taxes!"

[Joel]

No, this does not happen. When unemployment is high, turnover is so low that employers double the workload without any increase in pay, and people work double the hours because they know they are lucky to have a job. When unemployment is high, turnover is ALWAYS low.

How easy it is to find a job is a direct function of how many job openings there are.

See for example the chart in this article:
http://mises.ca/posts/articles/measu...ment-take-two/
There you can see a period of time where unemployment was falling and it was also becoming more difficult to find a job.
You can also see that the ease of finding a job began to increase before unemployment reached its peak of about 10%.


But it also stands to reason that high turnover would cause unemployment numbers to be higher than otherwise.
And how many job openings there are is not a direct function of the unemployment rate.

Geesh! Private production decreased because all able bodied men were sent overseas, and all able bodied women were working in defense industries.

And because the military was consuming vast quantities of non-human resources too. Yes, those are all reasons why WWII was an economic depressant.

Whether or not we consider government industry as distinct from private industry, the fact remains that wars generally preceed economic booms.

I'm not sure that's true. And "post hoc" doesn't imply "propter hoc".
But it's not too crazy to expect a rebound after a huge depressant is suddenly lifted.

[One Bad Pig]

No, this does not happen. When unemployment is high, turnover is so low that employers double the workload without any increase in pay, and people work double the hours because they know they are lucky to have a job. When unemployment is high, turnover is ALWAYS low.

How easy it is to find a job is a direct function of how many job openings there are.

Generally, yes. It also depends on how well the skills of those looking for work match up to the skills required for available jobs.

Geesh! Private production decreased because all able bodied men were sent overseas, and all able bodied women were working in defense industries.

This is not even close to true. At its peak, there were about 12 million service members. There were about 45 million men registered with the Selective Service.