Is the California True Unemployment Rate at 18.47 Percent?

[ensho]

http://www.mybudget360.com/finances-of-california-employment-situation-unemployment-industries/


Is the California True Unemployment Rate at 18.47 Percent? The 10.1% Headline Number is the Highest Rate in Over a Quarter Century. 1.8 Million Workers Unemployed in one State. How Many are Partially Employed or Have Given up Looking for Work?


-a long article with many graphs, etc., not conducive to snipping and posting-


the graphs are worth keeping a check on.

[LooseWilly]

1. Make that 1,800,001 unemployed in CA

I've been self-employed until recently. No unemployment to apply for... hence no way I show up on the books.

I suppose I'm not alone though... so 18.47 makes sense to me.

[TahitiNut]

4. Wrong! You DO "show up in the books" and the URBAN MYTH of ...

... the unemployment rate being dependent upon being able to collect unemployment insurance is a FALSEHOOD. The unemployment rate is based upon a HOUSEHOLD SURVEY. It is NOT based upon unemployment benefits.

[MadHound]

6. A mighty damned skewed household survey

A survey that is done by phone, which leaves out the poor who often have had to give up phones, namely land line phones,which leaves out those millions who are cell phone only. Furthermore, have you looked at the questions and how the answers are scored. Haven't looked for work this week, poof, you're a discouraged worker and don't go in the unemployed category.

The unemployment numbers have been massaged for decades in order to extract the most valuable political outcome, accuracy be damned. I've read a number of articles that state that current official unemployment numbers are about half of what the true numbers are.

[TahitiNut]

11. Oh, horseshit.

There are arguments to be made regarding the statistical assumptions and sampling methodologies at the lower levels of measures (region, industry) but the sophomoric shit you're posting isn't related to reality.

Try reading/studying: http://www.bls.gov/CPS/

[geckosfeet]

9. !

Who does the survey? When and how often? What towns, cities and areas?

[TahitiNut]

12. The CPS is performed by the Bureau of the Census on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Read: http://www.bls.gov/CPS/

[geckosfeet]

13. Is this the ten year census? Or yearly?

Yearly would be better, since the data would at least be current for the year. But things change very quickly in the course of year.

Or, are they put there every day compiling household stats?

I just question the accuracy of that method of collecting data.

[TahitiNut]

14. The VERY FIRST sentence at the link I provided you says:

"The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of households conducted by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "

I lose patience with people who refuse to read and make arrogant, pretentious remarks like "I question...". Sorry, but there's no apparent validity in a "question" that's devoid of the most fundamental familiarity of the subject.

:shrug:

[geckosfeet]

17. Well OK. So monthly, these folks hit every house in California.

That's a mean trick considering they have the rest of the country to worry about.

Again, I question the accuracy.

[ananda]

2. at least

In fact, my rule of thumb is that any
unemployment statistics I see, I double
in order to factor in the intangibles,
people still unemployed but not filed
or receiving benefits any more; people
working temporary and part time jobs
that don't pay enough or provide
benefits; people receiving small
retirement checks that don't pay nearly
enough... etc.

[MadHound]

3. Hell, that might be the true unemployment rate for the entire US

Politicians have been screwing around with the unemployment numbers in order to lower the unemployment rate, and make themselves look good, for almost thirty years now. I always assumed, with backing from most honest economists, that the true unemployment rate is roughly double the official number. So 18.47 actually sounds a little low to me, more like the rate for the entire country.

[Kip Humphrey]

5. Check it out...

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

[MadHound]

7. Yep, Enron accounting, gotta love it

NOT:eyes:

They been massaging the books for decades now, started under Reagan and has continued ever since.

[haele]

8. In my middleclass block in San Diego, there are about four houses out of the 24 (or so)

where someone lost his or her job as the primary wage earner for the household. There are another three families that I know of where someone's hours had been cut back - probably more; my disabled stay-at-home husband says he sees a lot more of many of the neighbors during the day. Three households are now renting out rooms (that's pretty much every house that had "upgraded" and expanded amongst the cluster of 1940's 2/1 houses that were built on this neighborhood. The "five bedroom/five bath" upgrade next door now has 6 adults and two children living there full-time, instead of the original three young adults (with a boyfriend and one child as occasional visitors) who rented it two years ago from the original owner who had to move to follow her job.

Average household income on my block (we are below end of the average and are barely hanging on) is 80K a year. These are teachers, government workers, a few people in the film industry, nurses, a few doctors, accountants and master-tradesmen who have worked their way up the food chain.

At least 1 of 4 households on this block have lost or lowered income. And we're all in average, supposedly successful, relatively safe middle class jobs.

Haele

[Cleita]

10. But you need your jobs for your well being.

Some here at DU equate salary with wealth. It's not true. If those people were wealthy, losing their jobs would not be a trauma because the dividend checks would still be coming in.

[haele]

15. Not all jobs have salary or "dividends" -

(mine just has health care) And the concept of "wealth" actually depends on the ability to support one's standard of living through downturns as well as upturns. Lots of people think they are wealthy when they're just temporarily well-off.
People who think they are wealthy because they have a steady income through a pension or dividends have never lived through a major inflationary period, or have forgotten what it was like in the late 70's/early 80's - the last time we saw major inflation.
If you live in the cities, the crowded suburbs or are dependant on your job to survive, you're screwed during an inflationary period - there's no way to supplement your necessities - you can't "dig a well" or build a cistern for your water, convert to a septic system for your waste, run a windmill, plant a sustainable plot of land for supplemental garden, raise chickens or goats, have a workshop to do your own repairs and crafts (homespun, anyone?), etc, etc, etc, that you could do in a rural area on even half an acre, or as your grandparents used to survive in most of the cities during "the great depression" if they lived in a house with a yard instead of in a flat or apartment.
Too many people are a few paycheck - or internet links - away from losing everything they think of as wealth. Just as many people are willing to jump up and down in self-righteousness when those people hit the economic pothole and are hit with the bill they didn't expect or plan for. (The old roads need a lot of repair in this supposedly "genteel" part of the city...)

Instead of expanding our awarenesses to everyone as we go through life trying to make things better for ourselves, too often we wall ourselves in to our particular little enclaves.

A few of our neighbors have been asking Jeff how we get by, and I've been seeing a lot more signs that the conservatives around here are beginning to doubt their way of living in the world of their own making as the world the way it is intrudes on their insular existence. Probably too little, too late, but at least they're discovering what other people's problems have on their supposedly safe, "conservative" interests and investments.

Haele

[Cleita]

16. People with good professional jobs that pay well are not wealthy until

they accumulate enough outside of their wages to be able to live comfortably off dividends, interest and rents even if they lose their jobs. What you are describing is an upper middle class neighborhood of high wage earners, but who probably would find themselves in dire straits without the jobs that provide the wages.