# Unemployment figures **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 7, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830 "2003-11-07T04:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/41 "2003-11-10T10:52:48Z")
**Airman Doors** , I’m one of the stats. A year ago, I was counted in the unemployment statistics because I was collecting an unemployment check. 7 months ago, I finally found a job, but instead of being a programmer, I’m now an administrative assistant who makes significantly less than I was a year and a half ago. My job got, I’m told, over 100 applicants. When we hired a sales rep recently, we got over 200 applicants. At my old employer, towards the end, we’d get 300 applicants per job. At my current income, I’m very close to not being able to make ends meet. I live pretty frugally, but I’m aware it may not be enough, and I have only bare bones benefits. Even sick leave and vacation don’t kick in until after I’ve worked for this company for a year. Several years ago, I worked for a small manufacturing plant in my home town. It paid a decent wage and had good benefits. That plant is now shut down and the lead frames we made there are now being made in Malaysia. The next town over added a Wal-Mart and we were told this was a good thing because it was creating jobs. I’d love to see figures comparing the wages, benefits, number of full and part time people employed at the two places. I took my current job because I was desperate. I don’t have another person to support me (although I’m grateful I don’t have someone else to support), and I believe in taking actions to change things. The thing is, in this economy, there are limits to what I can change. I work hard, and I work well. I used the education benefits at that manufacturing plant to go back to school and get a degree in computer programming, and honed my skills to where I’m a damn good programmer. The thing is, when you’re screening through a couple of hundred applications, an Associate’s Degree doesn’t look as good as a Masters. That’s why in a couple of hours I’ll be answering phones and doing data entry rather than building a beautiful, efficient, easy-to-use database. I’m not intending to whine. I’m just saying that for those of us who are out there looking for work, trying to keep a roof over our head and food on the table, things are bad. Right now, I feel frustrated because I played by the rules, took advantages of the opportunities I had, and am a good employee, and I’m still struggling and I can’t see an end to the struggle. I believe in the American Dream, but right now, it feels like a lie. CJ ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/42 "2003-11-10T14:03:49Z")
What I see happening is this: America’s wealthy elite is cannabalizing the middle class in order to maintain and expand its wealth. That is, when someone like Seige loses a job and takes another, lower-paying job with greatly diminished career options, it’s because some megabucks CEO has said, “Let’s move these jobs overseas and save the money we’d pay in wages to people like Seige.” The wealthy elite don’t give a rat’s ass if the people making them wealthy are American or Malaysian. They don’t have to. Conservative ideologues have hoodwinked a lot of Americans into believing that it doesn’t make a difference. So we see millions of Americans who had a good job and got devalued into Americans with crummy jobs, and if anyone dares point that out, the conservatives call “class warfare.” It’s like a scout at the fort saying, “The soldiers of those rich guys are shooting at us,” and some of the soldiers there crying, “Pointing out that we’re being shot at by rich guys’ soldiers is class warfare!” So if you find that a good job has been shot out from under you, well, now at least you know where the bullets are coming from. It ain’t the janitor who’s firing you and your buddies. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/43 "2003-11-10T14:40:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Siege \* > \*\*I’m just saying that for those of us who are out there looking for work, trying to keep a roof over our head and food on the table, things are bad. Right now, I feel frustrated because I played by the rules, took advantages of the opportunities I had, and am a good employee, and I’m still struggling and I can’t see an end to the struggle. I believe in the American Dream, but right now, it feels like a lie. \*\* Tell me about it. I’m out looking for a second job so Robin can focus on school rather than worrying about money. Which, again, is why I don’t have too much sympathy for people who claim that they can’t find a job. I’m struggling too, and I’m still gonna get it done. **Evil Captor** , if you had the option of having me build your house for $250,000 or having someone else build it for $150,000, which would you choose? That’s the consequence of unionization and globalization. Unions price themselves out of the game and companies can simply give the jobs to someone else who is willing to work for less. How can you really fault someone for making such an obvious economic decision? ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/44 "2003-11-10T14:54:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Reagan took over just as a recession was getting started, and it was obvious at that time that that recession was partially a result of a bit of overstimulus applied during the election year to goose the economy. Huh? That recession was in full swing under Jimmy Carter and was probably a result of Jimmy’s deregulation of gas and oil prices (although he had good intentions and did that out of a very current concern - U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Carter was attempting to stimulate alternative energy research). The so-called _misery index_ - the sum of the unemployment and inflation rates - measured a whopping 18 in 1979, well before Reagan assumed office. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/45 "2003-11-10T14:56:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Evil Captor, if you had the option of having me build your house for $250,000 or having someone else build it for $150,000, which would you choose? That’s the consequence of unionization and globalization. Unions price themselves out of the game and companies can simply give the jobs to someone else who is willing to work for less. How can you really fault someone for making such an obvious economic decision? Because eventually that leads to the Bangladeshization of the US, where skilled workers will work for peanuts because that’s all they can get. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/46 "2003-11-10T15:01:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > \*\* **Evil Captor** , if you had the option of having me build your house for $250,000 or having someone else build it for $150,000, which would you choose? \*\* That’s not as easy of a question as it sounds. You could be buying yourself a 150K lemon. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/47 "2003-11-10T15:08:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > \*\ ***Evil Captor** , if you had the option of having me build your house for $250,000 or having someone else build it for $150,000, which would you choose? That’s the consequence of unionization and globalization. Unions price themselves out of the game and companies can simply give the jobs to someone else who is willing to work for less. How can you really fault someone for making such an obvious economic decision? \*\* How can YOU really fault someone for wanting to keep a good job? ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/48 "2003-11-10T15:11:54Z")
Well, my best friend could go take a job as a cashier or something, but that would leave very little money after daycare expenses. She and her husband have been living off his paycheck and her severance, but the severance is soon coming to an end. It doesn’t make sense to go work for very little money when you have a baby who would have to go to daycare for $150 a week. She’s better off collecting unemployment than wasting her time and being away from her child. Sometimes just taking “anything” isn’t an option. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/49 "2003-11-10T15:12:37Z")
I don’t and I haven’t. I’ve faulted people for blaming their lack of employment on the government or big business, when every time I look there are thousands of jobs just waiting to be filled. There’s no lack of jobs. They just don’t pay what people think they are entitled to make, so nobody wants to fill them. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/50 "2003-11-10T15:17:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > What I see happening is this: America’s wealthy elite is cannabalizing the middle class in order to maintain and expand its wealth. That is, when someone like Seige loses a job and takes another, lower-paying job with greatly diminished career options, it’s because some megabucks CEO has said, “Let’s move these jobs overseas and save the money we’d pay in wages to people like Seige.” This is partly true, but you are oversimplifying by assuming the will of the CEO is synonymous with the direction of the OEM. First, it’s actually the habits of the very people loosing their jobs that originally started the shift toward overseas manufacture. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Well, unlike markets that display more protectionism or traditionalist tendencies, it’s relatively easy to bring a low cost product into the US and capture market share. Take Apex for example. No advertising, no design, no R&D – but these Chinese manufactured DVD players have captured the lion’s share of the N. American market. Hell, the Apex headquarters in CA does nothing more than coordinate with the Chinese ODM who both designs and manufactures players for anyone wishing to slap on a name plate and sell them. And Americans love $50 DVD players – even those sophisticated enough to understand that there is a hidden price in terms of trade deficit and jobs. How can a more traditional OEM compete? Follow the leader. Trust me, RCA would love to be selling $350 pro-logic systems made in Indiana. The fact is: they can’t. But couldn’t RCA eschew the price war and sell a smaller volume of high end players? Nope. Again the public won’t let them, but this time we are talking about investors. The CEO and the board of a public company are beholden to investor reaction. Failure to post not only profits, but ever increasing profits over the previous year can have a detrimental effect on the value of a company. Sun Microsystems is making money and maintains gross margins in excess of 40% - but their actual profits are well down from their numbers of a year ago. Not coincidently their stock trades at a woefully undervalued $4.00 a share. It was $45.00 less than 2 years ago. Sun Microsystems is _not_ worth 1/10 as much as it once was, but investor reaction can be cold and cruel. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/51 "2003-11-10T22:52:46Z")
rjung - The only thing Airman Doors has demonstrated with his ‘angry man on a soap box in Washington Square’ analysis is that he is an ignorant and ill-informed as you are: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > I would like to see a breakdown on that, including the percentage of people who made their pile and don’t have to work, 0% - Unemployment figures only include people in the work force who are actively seeking work. It does not include retireees, minors or “discouraged” jobseekers who have stoped looking. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > the people who think that working three bitch jobs to pay the bills is beneath them so they don’t work, and the people who prefer not to work because it’s easier to leech off of mommy and daddy. Once again - 0% > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > Unemployment statistics, for that very reason, are absurd. Either you work or you don’t, and if you don’t for whatever reason, that’s a check in the unemployed box. So the statistics are skewed from the outset. It’s also foolish to assume that unemployment will ever hit zero, for the reasons stated above. > \*\* You’re absurd. The relevant unemployment statistic is the number of people who are seeking work and can’t find it. If you are retired, a student, or living off a trust fund then who cares if you aren’t working? The purpose of the statistic is to measure the relative strength of the job market, not the level of idleness of the country. And unemployment will never hit 0% because there will always be frictional unemployment - people changing jobs for one reason or another. A rate of 4-5% is generally considered ideal. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > But, now that you mention it, give me one very good compelling reason why people can’t get jobs. Where are all these magic jobs? For every job you see in the want ads, a thousand people probably apply! And that’s assuming these jobs even exist. How many bartenders, waitresses or Starbucks clerks do you think the economy can absorb? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Siege \* > From my point of view, I was never, repeat never unemployed from the age of twenty-one on. I never drew an unemployment check until I was sixty-one, and I didn’t expect to ever have to do so. From my perspective, the big growth industry for my peer group (educated professionals age 25-35) is getting laid off or graduating into a dismal job market moving back home with your parents, waiting tables and using $405 a week in unemployment checks to become a raging alchoholic. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > The alternative is to collect unemployment, which is a net drain on society and serves to exacerbate the situation by taking money better used elsewhere to assist in the recovery. > > Petulantly saying that you’re not going to work because it’s “beneath you”, IMHO, is uncool. Everybody knows that guy on unemployment who milks it as long as he can because he can’t find the killer job that pays what he thinks he deserves. Well, that guy is collecting your tax dollars and providing no services at all. Do you think that’s cool? I sure don’t. Then call me “uncool”. Not that I wouldn’t love an easy job where I could just stand around renting out videos or serving coffee, but how does someone with tens of thousands of dollars of school loans pay them off making Blockbuster money? They can’t. They need a real professional job with a real salary. And what’s wrong with sponging off your parents? Isn’t it better some other guy who has no other options and really needs it take that “bitch-job” instead of someone who can borrow from his folks for a few months? And not accepting unemployment out of some misguided sense of pride is just plain stupid. That is what the money is there for. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/52 "2003-11-10T23:24:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Siege > From my point of view, I was never, repeat never unemployed from the age of twenty-one on. I never drew an unemployment check until I was sixty-one, and I didn’t expect to ever have to do so. Uhm, I’m pretty sure that must have been posted by **LouisB** , not me. I’ll admit to facing a birthday in next month or so, but you’ve just added over 20 years to my age! :o CJ ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/53 "2003-11-11T03:21:54Z")
First of all, for **Airman** : if you’ve been paying attention at all, you may have noticed that a large part of the problem comes from the availability of cheap overseas substitutes. The way to begin to solve this without resort to outright protectionism is to lower the value of the currency to make our goods and services more competitive on the international market. Given our large trade deficit, this should have happened naturally, but hasn’t to the extent justified by the truly massive size of the deficit due to Asian nations propping up the dollar so that they can continue to export their goods here at cheap prices. As this article points out, Japan, one of the prime offenders here, spent 5.11 trillion yen for currency market intervention in September, a record amount for any one month ever. The previous record was 3.98 trillion yen back in May of this year. Juicy quote for you: > [@](#): > > According to ministry data, interventions were carried out on 21 separate days between July 3 and Sept. 30, and the entire amount was used to sell the yen for the dollar. Link: [http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20031111a1.htm](http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20031111a1.htm) The trade and current account deficit was the principal economic problem that Bush inherited from Clinton. Unlike Clinton, who set about the task of solving the problem of the fiscal deficit he inherited from Bush I practically from the day he took office, Bush II until recently didn’t seem to even know he had a trade deficit problem. And as you can see from the above, his bumbling attempts at trying to fix it have met with exactly zero results from our supposed allies. It would behoove him to use diplomacy not for personal vendettas against dictators his Daddy didn’t like, but to address the problems we have with recalcitrant members of the international community like Japan who are causing us to lose out in international competition by rigging the markets. And it would behoove you to actually learn something before you post foolish thoughts. **Uncle Beer** : I went out to [nber.org](http://nber.org), the guys who “officially” decide when recessions occur, over here : [http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html](http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html), and according to them the recession under Carter started in January and ended in July of 1980. Of course like you I remember the entire four years as being pretty miserable, and the next two after weren’t so hot either. For the record there was another recession from July 1981 to November 1982, which was the period when unemployment shot to the moon. I’ve always thought of that as the period when we paid for the stimulation we got in the latter half of 1980, just in time for the election. We could probably spend forever trying to figure out that time period, but “miserable” does describe it pretty well. Not something I’d want to live through again. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/54 "2003-11-11T03:28:15Z")
Hmm. That link to nber didn’t work. Let’s try again: [http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html](http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/55 "2003-11-11T07:14:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > Unemployment statistics, for that very reason, are absurd. Either you work or you don’t, and if you don’t for whatever reason, that’s a check in the unemployed box. So the statistics are skewed from the outset. CITE? Folks, could we please not simply _assume_ that we know how the unemployment stats are constructed? As **mssmith** and others have pointed out, the Unemployment statisticis come out of a monthly telephone survey. If you are both out of work and have spent time looking for work (doing any job search activity other than looking through the help wanted ads) during a given “reference week” then you are “unemployed”. If you lack a job but have not searched you are considered “out of the labor force”. (If you are “out of the labor force” but did not search because you believe there are no jobs available, you are classified as a “discouraged worker”). Incidentally, if you don’t like the BLS’s definitions, breakdowns of their survey are available so that you can construct your own measure of unemployment. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/56 "2003-11-11T07:26:47Z")
**Airman Doors** Getting to your main point: I agree that pushing personal responsibility is a good thing. However… … the fact remains that when excess capacity in the economy is at moderate levels, it’s easier for the skilled to get better jobs and the unskilled to get not-so-great jobs. Furthermore, W has more than once passed over orthodox textbook responses to the current recession, in favor of his pre-existing agenda. This hasn’t prevented a recovery - sooner or later I trust that we’ll be back to 5 or 5.5% unemployment - but it appears to have delayed it unnecessarily. Hey, most workers held jobs during the Great Depression as well. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830/57 "2003-11-11T07:29:15Z")
I say this with absolutely no irony, by the way: I bow to the opinions of the experts. 🙂 I discussed this very topic tonight, and I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that it’s really my pride talking. So be it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unemployment-figures/211830.md?page=2)