Michael Perelman wrote: >I don't think that there is a contradiction between Doug and Lou. There >are criticism's about the method of calculating unemployment -- the >discouraged workers being excluded. But such matters are transparent, not >the result of skulduggery. > >On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 05:21:30PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: >> >> >And, fevered claims to the contrary, they're not cooked by Enron-style >> >accountancy. The people who collect and process the U.S. jobs data are >> >honest, competent professionals. If anything, the political sympathies of >> >BLS employees are slightly to the left of center. >> > >> >Doug >> >> I don't have time to delve into this question in any depth, but a five > > minute search on Lexis-Nexis turned up the following:
Well, damn, I only spend my life with this stuff, so I guess I'm at a disadvantage not having just done a five minute Lexis search. The reason we know how many discouraged workers there are - and how many people are classified as "not in labor force - want job now" (BLS series ID LFS73000000) - is because the BLS counts them and publishes the data regularly. Ditto "part time for economic reasons," other measures of "marginal labor force attachment," and the employment/population ratio. Doug
