Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I thought I'd bother after reading your comment.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

and the numbers:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

It's actually kinda straightforward, and very clear about what measures they're using. The numbers are bit scary - "The employment-population ratio, at 56.6 percent, changed little over the month but is 4.5 percentage points lower than in February."

"The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job, at 7.2 million, changed little in September; this measure is 2.3 million higher than in February. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the last 4 weeks or were unavailable to take a job."

So that's 12m officially unemployed, plus 7m "not in the labor force" but who want a job.

So yeah, the article is kinda on point; that the numbers don't mean what they think we mean. But I have to agree: that's not because the numbers aren't available for anyone to look at and understand.

74.1 million children

54.0 million over 65

48.9 million on disability

328.2 million total population

185.8 million people employed at 56.6% employment

128.1 million people not employed (including children)

54 million people not employed, but marginally employable (max income is $1,260 per month if on disability and $18,240/yr when retired)

In any case, under-employment is still a bigger issue than unemployment.

Am I reading this right: almost 1 in 5 American adults is on disability?

Yes. Disability numbers are shockingly high. It's an issue that is really not talked about enough.

Yes, it is truly scary. A large portion of them are in more rural areas that have been decimated. Also, IIRC states pay money to trainers/consultants that help people get on the national disability programs.

That number doesn't match what the SSA publishes in their annual reports.[1]. They put the figure on disability at 8.9 million disabled workers, with 11.2 million total beneficiaries once you include the disabled workers' children.)

That said, the real figures are still startling. They represents 4.4% of the US worker population but some states rely incredibly heavily on the program.

  Alabama - 8.0% of the population
  Arkansas - 7.9% of the population
  Kentucky - 7.6% of the population
  Maine - 7.4% of the population
  Mississippi - 7.5% of the population
  West Virginia - 8.6% of the population

1: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/di_asr/2019/di_asr...

No idea why this was downvoted into oblivion, so I vouched for it. It seems to state factual information and cites direct sources. The information presented is located on page 29. Maybe instead of just drive-by downvoting, you can state some reasoning for doing so.

For a second I thought I'd lost my ability to vouch, then I reloaded and found you had already done so. Thanks for recognizing good posts!

Collecting disability doesn’t necessarily mean you’re incapacitated or can’t work at all. Depression is a common disability, for example. It’s very common for veterans who served more than 4 years to get some amount of disability if they are persistent, and often not for crippling injuries (sleep apnea is a popular one)

Exactly right.

The reality is that "unemployment" is a highly visible metric. Sure, the data itself is available... A big part of the reason why it's important to have this data available is exactly for this purpose: call bullshit on the unemployment numbers when necessary...

...especially considering that "want a job" is measured in very specific ways.

> reality is that "unemployment" is a highly visible metric.

Is it though? The photos of queues for jobs and unemployment benefits is something of the distant past. Find out that a different measure makes the rate 3x higher came as news to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com