Payroll employment rises by 223,000 in June; unemployment rate declines to 5.3%

[progree]

46. Talking of cheap shots, wow. What about misleading your fellow progressives?

Last edited Thu Jul 30, 2015, 02:01 AM - Edit history (6)

[font color = blue]>>In short, BLS uses reported payroll jobs, not accurate, actual numbers of living, breathing employees. <<[/font]

Sorry, it says "All Employees, Thousands", not "All Jobs, Thousands"

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth

Show me anywhere where the BLS says they are counting "jobs" not employees in the Establishment Survey.
http://bls.gov/ces

Likewise the Household Survey. http://bls.gov/cps

I believe the BLS over what some blogger on the Internet says that the righties love to quote. Unless given any reason to do so otherwise.

Every article I've read from any source says the Establishment Survey is much more accurate than the Household Survey (with the lone exception of your excerpt from Williams). And given the month to month volatility in the Household Survey results -- does any economist really believe that employment bounces around like this (from post #29) :

As an example of the month to month volatility, consider the month-to-month changes in the Household Survey's count of the Employed over the last 2 1/2 years:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000
[font face = "courier new"]
Thousands of employed, change from the previous month:
2013: 48 101 -55 291 225 135 250 13 9 -844 1037 181
2014: 535 95 495 -72 144 379 154 50 156 653 71 111
2015: 759 96 34 192 272 -56
January and February numbers are affected by changes in population controls.[/font]

And these are seasonally adjusted numbers! The unadjusted numbers are even more rocky.

This is far more volatile than the much more reliable Establishment Survey that produces the payroll employment:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
[font face = "courier new"]
Thousands of payroll employees, change from the previous month:
2013: 205 314 115 187 219 127 164 256 150 225 317 109
2014: 166 188 225 330 236 286 249 213 250 221 423 329
2015: 201 266 119 187 254 223
The last 2 months are preliminary[/font]

They make huge annual adjustments to the Household Survey numbers too, by the way.

As for right-wingers, they love peddling the aberrantly bad statistic or two of the month from the highly volatile Household Survey and making it out like it’s the whole history of the Obama administration. I've caught many of their DU allies (intentional or not) picking this stuff up like from Peter Morici and regurgitating it.

John Williams is being extremely dishonest when he peddles a negative one month change in Household Survey as being much more than statistical noise. (The same would be true if he were touting positive change numbers) I would believe him, and you much more if he gave us a little context -- like how things have been going in the last 6 months or a year. And how much the numbers bounce around from month to month. And no mention that the bad numbers of the month, e.g. full-time workers were preceded by the great numbers in the preceding month or so.

I know it is not only right-wingers that are peddling the bad numbers of the month, without context, and never peddling the same numbers in months when they were good. For some reason, some people who think of themselves as "progressives" just like to immerse themselves in a pity pot and tell their fellow progressives a deliberately one-sided view of the economy. Like telling us that 85% of jobs are "McJobs".

The pity-pot brigade that spread the right-wing memes like "most of the new jobs since the so-called recovery are part-time" on DU (without checking the facts out themselves or not even being interested about what the facts are) probably are not all or mostly right-wingers, but they are doing their work for them. (Despite that since the jobs recovery began in March 2010, part-time workers have increased by 40,000 and full-time workers have increased by 10,275,000).

By the way, I never accused you or Williams of being right-wingers. But I do point out the fact that it is a right-wing meme that most of the Obama - era net new jobs are part-time, and that they are indeed happily spread around by some DU-ers. Who are acting as their allies whether intentionally or not.

Especially a few months before an election (like in 2012 and 2014) where they really pour it on about how miserable the Obama economy is (people who believe that are more likely to sit at home (if progressives), or to vote Republican (if they are independent or leaning rightward) ). By citing deliberately and grossly misleading half-truths. (If it was honestly presented information, they have the right and even the responsibility to post it here and everywhere else).

You never told me what was wrong with Paul Solman's U-7 -- percent who say they want a job, period (no matter how long ago it was that they last looked for a job). 12.73% in June.

[font color = red]Edited to Add: Well, I get a slightly higher number, using June 2015 numbers from Table A-1 and Table A-8, namely 13.3%:[/font]

## Unemployment rate: 5.3% (Table A-1) - the official unemployment rate

## Unemployed: 8,299,000 (Table A-1) -- these are officially unemployed because they are jobless and looked for work sometime in the past 4 weeks

## Persons not in labor force but who currently want a job: 6,076,000 (Table A-1) - these are not counted among the officially unemployed because they haven't looked for work sometime in the past 4 weeks

## Part time for economic reasons: 6,506,000 (Table A-8) -- these are people who are working part-time who want a full-time job

## Labor force: 157,037,000 -- the employed + officially unemployed

## So, if you add those who currently want a job (but aren't counted as officially Unemployed) to the officially Unemployed, plus those working part-time who want full-time work, the total unemployed/underemployed would be 8,299,000 + 6,076,000 + 6,506,000 = 20,881,000. Including them in the unemployment rate would increase it to 5.3% * 20,881,000/8,299,000 = 13.3%

## ON EDIT: however, when the BLS calculates expanded measures of unemployment, they also add in the newly added unemployed groups to the labor force (denominator) as well as the numerator:

The expanded labor force = 157,037,000 + 6,076,000 = 163,113,000 {1}

The new unemployment rate: 20,881,000/163,113,000 = 12.80% -- very close to Solman's number of 12.73%

A far cry from Williams magic 23.1% figure. Is he counting those who say they don't want a job but, in William's estimation, really do?

{1} The part-timers who want full time work are not added to the denominator because they are already in the denominator -- they are counted as part of the official labor force (as employed workers). This is consistent with how the BLS calculates U-6 - which also includes part-timers who want full time work.

As for who the guests are, it is the Public Broadcasting System's Newshour, and they present multiple viewpoints in their opinion / analysis segments. Shame on them for that, right?

I don't consider people to be progressives who mislead their fellow progressives by telling us only about the aberrant bad numbers of the month from the extremely volatile Household Survey, And do so without any context.

Like did you make a big hoo hah when the BLS reported that full-time workers increased by 427,000 in December, 777,000 in January, and 630,000 in May? Or just when the numbers are bad? Did you tell us that despite the big reported 349,000 drop in full-time workers in June, that full-time employment over the past year has increased by 2,801,000, or 233,000/month on average? (More than twice what the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta jobs calculator says is needed to stay in place)

I report the numbers every month, all the main ones, good or bad. And I don't shy away from pointing out a negative trend, such as the average increase over the last 5 months of full-time workers being only 68,000/month. Like in the post you just answered, #44. Or in #15.