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To: bentway who wrote (14173)	10/6/2003 2:15:41 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

<<I've never known even one person who's been "surveyed" for this purpose, nor have I ever heard of one reported in the press.>> What Grace told you is true, and you can find more than you ever want to know about unemployment statistics methodology and the survey right here: bls.gov In my other life, I worked in the office where these statistics and many others were issued to the news media promptly at 8:30 a.m. on the appointed day. Whether you "trust" the stats or not, they're all we've got to measure things by, so you might as well trust them. Otherwise, you'll have to also mistrust even those statistics which some people use to make a point that you agree with. As for trusting any statistics as gospel, I doubt the layoff figures issued by companies are all that accurate either as a mesurement of what's going on. Examples: layoffs which are scheduled to be phased in over a period of time, but are given as a lump sum number. No doubt, during the phase-in period, some employees will voluntarily leave their jobs during this time and thus their jobs could be called "attrition" rather than layoffs. Some employees will decide to take retirement a little earlier than otherwise, and won't technically be unemployed. Some employees will be outplaced to other jobs in other companies or other parts of the same company, and some employees will always be likely to quickly find jobs elsewhere. Statistics are just statistics, and all have a margin for error. (I'm married to a statistician/programmer/systems analyst--pretty boring stuff, but sometimes a fantastic statistic makes for a great newspaper headline or a sharp increase/decrease in the stock market.)

To: bentway who wrote (14173)	10/6/2003 9:44:11 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

You've probably never known anyone who has been to the moon either, but most rational individuals accept that people have been there. Statistical sampling is a widely accepted method of measuring things on a timely basis that are too time consuming to measure by counting every instance. Over and over it has been shown to have a reasonable degree of accuracy, far more accurate than the anecdotal evidence you or the people you know might encounter. As to trusting the government's numbers, the thing you have to understand about the numbers put out by the government is that at any given time there is a large faction of the government that wishes for the numbers to say one thing while a different faction would like them to say something entirely different so who is in control? Most of the time the disagreements revolve around what can be inferred from looking at the numbers, not the numbers themselves. No one would argue that there aren't limitations to trying to measure something like the number of people at any given time who wish to be employed who aren't. Maybe those people getting unemployment insurance simply want to sit out the full six months before they look for a job, maybe they are working under the table while they are getting unemployment, maybe those looking are extremely discouraged and have actually stopped looking but they answer the survey questions indicating they are still looking because they are ashamed to tell the truth. Maybe those people who are sampled say they want work when they really don't. How do you measure intent to look for a job or whether or not a person is telling the truth in a survey? Who is going to say they are working under the table when they are receiving unemployment insurance? If the numbers are flawed it is because the underlying populace is flawed.