What IS the Unemployment Rate? I've been wondering

Lots of words. But at least here are the facts for a change.
Fairbssays...

median income is up, but unfortunately all of the gains (for the last 40 years) have gone straight to the top; don't worry though the molester in chief is sure to fix this with his goldman sachs and exxon buddies

RedSkysays...

At the end of the day, both the unemployment rate (U-3) and the participation rate have pitfalls and you need to subjectively control for other factors to get a true picture of how employment relates to the economy. Naturally, this makes the topic ripe for politicians to pick and choose the statistics that suit their talking points.

RFlaggsays...

Seems U-4 is the number one should normally look at, since discouraged workers wanting work, but not looking is a valid number. U-5 I don't get, if you are taking care of family or are in school so not actively looking, but would take a job if a good one came... just seems to be a meh number.

I don't get how U-6, which seems to be the underemployed number, is a indicator of potential job growth. If the jobs aren't here, or they don't have the skills, etc... then that number doesn't represent potential growth. It would be one thing if you have somebody who could be in a great job, that job is around, but they haven't found it, but I'd guess that most of those are unskilled, or underskilled, or those jobs just no longer exist or at the very least are being phased out. Automation is going to become a bigger and bigger issue, and seems to be the thing people, especially those on the far right, seem to ignore... and neither side is really looking at guaranteed basic income yet as a serious issue, which really needs to be discussed in detail. Too many people are becoming unemployable and that is a problem we don't seem ready to seriously discuss in political circles.

bobknight33says...

We don't know what the "molester in chief"will do.

But we know that the current/past presidents have done very well for the top.

For the last 8 years our POTUS of socially minded champion , fighter of the people has done little to help Joe and Jane Lunchbucket.

Fairbssaid:

median income is up, but unfortunately all of the gains (for the last 40 years) have gone straight to the top; don't worry though the molester in chief is sure to fix this with his goldman sachs and exxon buddies

Fairbssays...

for the most part I agree; Obama did sunset some of the bush W trickle down economics which is code for more money to the rich and that did help some; the molester has promised more of the same with tax cuts to the rich; I'd like to see it go back to the 70s where capital gains were taxed at 40%

bobknight33said:

We don't know what the "molester in chief"will do.

But we know that the current/past presidents have done very well for the top.

For the last 8 years our POTUS of socially minded champion , fighter of the people has done little to help Joe and Jane Lunchbucket.

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