"Now, unless you can unravel how BLS actually calculates the unemployment rate, let'sdrop it. It's off topic."
Fine, but the BLS was clear, the weatherman/landscaper/grief counselor was conflating, and you're still wrong. The household survey asks if you are working, looking for work, or neither. Eligibility for, or actual collection of, UI is irrelevant.
As for "Despite the weak economic performance, the unemployment rate has remained low, largely because many people have given up looking for a job", the latter 2/3 of that sentence was largely true in 2003, when that was written. The first clause of it, however, is debatable. The household survey was showing actual job growth, not just drop-outs from the labor force, then. It was showing dramatically better job creation than the establishment survey at the time, likely because the establishment survey is focused on larger employers and doesn't capture job creation in small businesses or among the self-employed.
Of course, we've discussed this before, back when it was current news and lefties on SI were prattling on about "worst president since Hoover" for the poor numbers in the establishment survey. And IIRC, you understood and agreed with the above back then. |
