Donald Trump's colossal error on jobs during his press conference

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. Yeah. This again.

He's referring to the "civilian noninstitutional population not in the labor force." What he needs to consider is the number of "{persons not in the labor force} who currently want a job."

The huge commentary, copied from the DU thread for the September jobs report, posted October 7, 2016

[font color="red"]These will be (or should be) the talking points:

1) A gain of 161,000 is more than Wednesday's estimate by ADP^® of a gain of 147,000 jobs. It is below estimates I heard earlier this week of a gain of 170,000 - 175,000 and earlier this week.¹ ;
2) "In October, both the labor force participation rate, at 62.8 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.7 percent, changed little. These measures have shown little movement in recent months, although both are up over the year."² ;
3) "The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised up from +167,000 to +176,000, and the change for September was revised up from +156,000 to +191,000. With these revisions, employment gains in August and September combined were 44,000 more than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 176,000 per month." ;
4) "In October, average hourly earnings for all employees on private payrolls rose by 10 cents to $25.92, following an 8-cent increase in September. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.8 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 4 cents to $21.72 in October." ;
5) The civilian noninstitutional population not in the labor force went from 94,184,000 in September to 94,609,000 in October, an increase of 425,000.³ ; and
6) The number of "{persons not in the labor force} who currently want a job" went from 6,088,000 in September to 5,912,000 in October, a decrease of 176,000. Therefore, the percentage of those not in the labor force who want a job now is (5,912,000/94,609,000) times 100%, or 6.2%, down from 6.5% in September.⁴[/font]

¹ADP Private Payrolls Add 147,000 Workers in October

² I've added mention of the employment-population ratio, aka the employment to population ratio, as progree argues that it is more worthy of attention than the labor force participation rate (LFPR). See: Over the past month, over the past year, and since February 2010

³ The datum "civilian noninstitutional population not in the labor force" is in Table A-1. It's also at Not in Labor Force. (Hat tip, progree: Only 6.3% of those 94 million "unemployed" people want a job now.) Some people make a big deal out of this number, so to keep them happy, here it is.

⁴ The figure is also found in or derived from Table A-1. Once again, I'm indebted to progree for pointing out the significance of these data: Only 6.3% of those 94 million "unemployed" people want a job now).[/font]

Payroll employment increases by 156,000 in September; unemployment rate little changed...

[center]How Do You Define Unemployment?
The Large Print Giveth, and the Fine Print Taketh Away.[/center]

Long ago, a DUer pointed out that, if I'm going to post the link to the press release, I should include the link to all the tables that provide additional ways of examining the data. Specifically, I should post a link to Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization. Table A-15 includes those who are not considered unemployed, on the grounds that they have become discouraged about the prospects of finding a job and have given up looking. Here is that link:

Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

Also, hat tip, Recursion: How the Government Measures Unemployment

[font color="red"]New material, added August 8, 2016:[/font]

This appeared at the top of page A2 in the Wednesday, July 27, 2016, print edition of The Wall Street Journal. as "Jobless Picture is Open to Interpretation."

Jobless Picture is Open to Interpretation

Gauges used to measure unemployment vary in how they define who is out of work {title online: "Political campaigns clash over different ways of measuring unemployment"}



By Josh Zumbrun
[e-mail]
http://twitter.com/JoshZumbrun

July 26, 2016 7:56 p.m. ET

Because political campaigns can rise and fall on the health of the economy, spats often flare over the gauges used to measure growth and unemployment.

The latest dust-up, raised by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, focuses on the monthly employment numbers. A long streak of hiring has nudged the jobless rate down to 4.9%. ... Donald Trump Jr., the nominee’s son, recently criticized the official statistics as “artificial numbers…massaged to make the existing economy look good.”

The nominee himself has said unemployment is far higher than the Labor Department’s headline 4.9% rate would suggest, part of his message that the economy is in a dire state. After he won the New Hampshire primary in February, Mr. Trump called the official jobless figures “phony” and said the real number could be as high as 42%.

This isn’t the first time people have cast aspersions on the jobs numbers in an election year, but the Trump claim is also part of a larger discussion over how best to assess the health of the labor market.

The following link to Barron's might not work for everyone. See progree's tips.[/font] From the July 20, 2015, issue of Barron's:

Refresher Course: Inside the Jobless Numbers

Are we undercounting the unemployment numbers—or overcounting? How the BLS gathers and calculates the numbers, and why it matters.

By Gene Epstein
July 18, 2015

The unemployment rate has never been the object of as much attention from the markets and the media as it is now, sparked by the keen interest taken in its monthly fluctuations by policy makers at the Federal Reserve.

Despite the heightened focus, there are a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions about how the rate is calculated. Some people assume the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles the rate from the unemployment-insurance rolls. On that basis, they fault the BLS for undercounting the unemployed. But that’s just one myth among many about this cornerstone measure of economic pain and labor-market slack.

To estimate the unemployment rate, the BLS actually relies on the monthly Current Population Survey conducted for it by the Census Bureau. While the data are highly imperfect in their own way, we think the Federal Reserve is right to view the official unemployment rate as the best available information, while also keeping its eye on ancillary measures of “labor underutilization.”

In fact, a close look at BLS methods suggests that, if anything, the official unemployment rate may be overcounting rather than undercounting the unemployed.

[font color="red"]New material:[/font] In August 2015, DUers whatthehey and progree got into a 1995 report from economists John E. Bregger and Steven E. Haugen. The .pdf is unfortunately an image and thus challenging as a source of quotes. Trying to find it in a format that does make for easy copying, I was led to this:

Alternative Unemployment Rates: Their Meaning and Their Measure March 12, 2014