Well, good like trying to extract that data from the BLS site. Maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing there, but I got frustrated and gave up. That link claims their source is the BLS, and I think the data is good. But if anyone has better data, I’m glad to look at it.
FRED is generally the best source for user-friendly US economic data. This chartfor full-time employed shows the US matched the 2007 peak in 2015 and is now 5 million higher than that. So basically a gigantic downturn in 2008-9 and a steady but not spectacular recovery since then.
I have no idea which number Stockman is talking about.
That’s the exact same curve I linked to.
OK. I clicked on the Trading Economics link but not the Max option which does indeed have the same chart. FRED has a whole bunch of other useful features though, like the ability to check the actual numbers for each month. The link in my previous post doesn’t seem to be working so hereis the correct one.
I wasn’t disparaging FRED. Looks like a good site. I was just noting that we’re showing the same data in this particular case.
Obviously it would be better if there were more full time jobs, but looking at that graph puts things in perspective. We got hit hard by the Great Recession, and it took about 8 years to recover (2015, not 2017).
Now, shall we talk about wages? 
The apparent conflict is coming from the the fact that BLS conducts different surveys when measuring employment. Full-time workers and full-time jobs are two different things.
A full-time worker is a household survey classification, and is someone who works 35 hours a week or more regardless of the number or types of jobs that the person holds; this is the 127 million Full-Time-Workers statistic. For workers with multiple jobs, the CPS survey question is “Do you usually work 35 hours or more per week at all your jobs combined?”. There are currently about 3 million workers who hold multiple jobs that were either all part time or had variable weekly hours.
A full time job is an establishment survey classification, as is mostly whatever the heck an employer defines as full time. Usually, the distinguishing characteristic is that full time employees get benefits. For ACA purposes specifically, a full time employee is anyone who works 30 hours or more at a job.
Again, unsure if a “number of full time jobs” statistics is published, or if it needs to be summarized from the raw data; I suspect the latter. The BLS intermittently conducts a survey (CWS) that is designed to better highlight the full-time vs. part-time characteristics of employment; I don’t know if they’ve done one lately.
OK. Thanks for the information.
Incidentally about wages, they have actually been doing well for the last three years, their best performance since the late 90’s.
Thanks. That was very helpful!
127 million full time workers.
U5 of 5%, U6 of 8%.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
The difference between the U5 and U6 is that both count the unemployed, those marginally attached to the labor force and discouraged workers. But the U6 also includes people who are working part time but want full time work.
The difference between the U5 (5.0%) and U6 (8.0%) is 3%. So right now 3% of the labor force is people working part time who want full time work.
Does the term ‘breadwinner’ have special meaning?
Meaning, when he says there are ‘72.7M breadwinner, full-time jobs’ does he mean some kind of economic cutoff of maybe $40,000 per year income?
I’m sure there are lots of full time jobs that pay less than $20/hr (which is about 40k a year).
Or does he mean that jobs are growing in the public sector and he only counts private sector job?
Or is Stockman just wrong?
What’s the difference between a “full time job” and a “breadwinner, full time job”?
I don’t know. I’m wondering if Stockman associates special meaning to ‘breadwinner’ full time jobs to distinguish them from non-breadwinner jobs.
My first job out of college paid $16/hr. It was full time but it had no benefits. Even though I was working full time, maybe because my job didn’t pay 20+/hr and didn’t include benefits, it didn’t count as a ‘breadwinner full time job’.
That is just a guess though as to what it means.
Given that there are 127M workers working “full time” and only 72M “breadwinner” jobs, I’d say I’m not listening to a thing he says until he defines his terms better. Especially since he seems to be mocking people who manipulate statistics.
Caldazar says that only 3 percent of people say they work more than one job to have full time hours, too. 3% of 127M is not 55M tho so something doesn’t seem right there as well.
Maybe his latest book (Trumped!, from last year) isn’t selling well enough and he wants to get his name out there.
Re–people don’t move to where the jobs are.
Often, there simply is no affordable housing where the jobs are.
Urban housing costs have gone crazy.
And savings are often zero dollars.
Likely, they have no resources to move.
Full employment is a misleading statistic – unless a Republican is in the White House.
I have no idea what Stockman meant, I don’t see his numbers anywhere. More fake news I guess.
He should be toast after that interview.