Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Payroll employment increases by 228,000 in November; unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1% [View all]ProfessorGAC
(65,042 posts)9. Huh?
Did they forget to exclude people who retired in November or something?
If 228k jobs were added, that is 0.07% of the entire population of the United States.
Since only a reasonably large fraction of the population is in the workforce, the proportion increases by about 1.7, to 0.119%.
Hence UE should have gone down by that, which is statistically significant.
Of course, the population could have increased by 380,000 people but that would be 4.5 million a year, which is a population growth rate of 1.37% per year. That seems high.
But, how can 6.6 million people unemployed be the same percentage if the population in the workforce went up?
This is pretty straightforward algebra and the numbers aren't squaring in this report.
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
37 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations
Payroll employment increases by 228,000 in November; unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1% [View all]
mahatmakanejeeves
Dec 2017
OP
It was on the TV news, too. It looked pretty impressive for San Antonio.
mahatmakanejeeves
Dec 2017
#17
Trump always said to ADD 6% to those unemployment numbers--when OBAMA was Pres.
Bengus81
Dec 2017
#5
Yes, Obama halved the unemployment rate so Shitler lied. Now he is OK with the number.
Fred Sanders
Dec 2017
#12
If you feel the Bureau of Labor Statistics is handing out bunk, start here:
mahatmakanejeeves
Dec 2017
#11
90% chance that the unemployment change is within +/- 300,000 of the stated value
progree
Dec 2017
#22
The mind-numbing rant, based on a version posted on the first Friday in September 2016:
mahatmakanejeeves
Dec 2017
#10
word. i think a lot of people are in denial about the true state of our economy. nt
TheFrenchRazor
Dec 2017
#34
Inflation adjusted weekly earnings has been increasing since 1993, but still well below 1970's level
progree
Dec 2017
#27
"average" wages don't tell you a lot. a few good jobs and a lot of crappy ones average out to
TheFrenchRazor
Dec 2017
#33
Its the average for production and non-supervisory workers, which is why I use it
progree
Dec 2017
#35
great; too bad most of them don't pay a living wage. the "average" wage doesn't tell anything.
TheFrenchRazor
Dec 2017
#32