to show why LISEP's measure of unemployment is problematic. I haven't had chance to look at the methodology for this particular piece but I suspect it's also got few holes/unmentioned bias in there (as so many of these think-tanks do).
BLS also has different measures of unemployment (see: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) and what LISEP is citing as "headline unemployment" is U3. Not all metrics are perfect and I think it's important to understand the methodology and the nuances of how to apply these different metrics.
That reddit comment is itself opinionated. The poster says that you don't want to count people who are disabled or who don't want to work.
I'd argue we should count those people. If someone has failed to find a job they want for a long time, they might give up. That reduces the numerator and denominator each by 1, reducing the calculated unemployment rate. Does that make any sense?
18.7% of West Virginians are on disability, so aren't counted as unemployed. Meanwhile only 10.5% of New Jerseyans are. Are West Virginians really almost twice as likely to be physically disabled as their near-neighbors in NJ?
I was thinking of this article when I wrote my comment, but didn't bother to search for it. Thanks for reading my mind and taking the time to find the article!
Comments
I am not an economist but I do follow economic policies, usually in the form of blogs written by economists such as Noah Smith, Greg Mankiw, et al.
I will leave this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/jd3p0l/axios_...
to show why LISEP's measure of unemployment is problematic. I haven't had chance to look at the methodology for this particular piece but I suspect it's also got few holes/unmentioned bias in there (as so many of these think-tanks do).
BLS also has different measures of unemployment (see: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) and what LISEP is citing as "headline unemployment" is U3. Not all metrics are perfect and I think it's important to understand the methodology and the nuances of how to apply these different metrics.
That reddit comment is itself opinionated. The poster says that you don't want to count people who are disabled or who don't want to work.
I'd argue we should count those people. If someone has failed to find a job they want for a long time, they might give up. That reduces the numerator and denominator each by 1, reducing the calculated unemployment rate. Does that make any sense?
Agreed. Similarly, "who [is] disabled" is far from objective:
https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
18.7% of West Virginians are on disability, so aren't counted as unemployed. Meanwhile only 10.5% of New Jerseyans are. Are West Virginians really almost twice as likely to be physically disabled as their near-neighbors in NJ?
I was thinking of this article when I wrote my comment, but didn't bother to search for it. Thanks for reading my mind and taking the time to find the article!