But Jim, As my last post pointed out, when I responded to Sabri's original post your whole discussion about the problems and additions to the U rate was not being considered. My original post was in response to someone (not you) suggesting that because the figures on registered unemployment were much higher than for survey unemployment, the figures for survey unemployment were deliberately meant to undermeasure unemployment. My point was that they were not measuring the same thing and there is good reason for the difference.
I know you and Doug know the meaning and limitations of the unemployment rate and are concerned with the income distribution issues that are affected by unemployment and nowhere have I every said or suggested you don't. I was saying that I understand Sabri's sadness if it is because he believes that most public discussion about unemployment abstracts from the reality and fixates upon the number -- and that makes me equally sad, eh! And that is the last I am going to say on this issue. Paul From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <pen- [EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PEN-L:31088] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment Date sent: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 12:05:55 -0700 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > I wrote: > > > Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on > > a single number > > > measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? > > Paul responded: > > Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE > > unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of > > looked like fixation to me. > > the number I cited included "discouraged workers," which is not THE official > unemployment rate. I prefer the kind of treatment that Dean Baker employs: > he goes through all of the official stats in the BLS press releases and > tries to draw out the implications. > > This discussion is pretty useless, not to mention involving too many > messages. > > On the one hand, Doug and I think that official statistics such as the > BLS-calculated unemployment rate --or the equivalent in Canada -- conveys > some information that is useful to leftist economists; despite its obvious > limitations, the official U rate isn't like Enron accounting. (Christian > Gregory has lept on our mini-bandwagon, it seems.) > > On the other, people incorrectly believe that just because we use the U > rate, (1) we think that this is the _only_ statistic we think is relevant to > understanding labor-power markets or (2) that we aren't familiar with the > limitations of the statistic. Maybe there are people who think bourgeois > statistics are nothing but propaganda, and thus should be avoided, though > no-one has said so. > > I think Ian said the right thing in an off-list discussion: >The BLS stats > are solid as far as they go; it's the norms and behaviors that lead to > unemployment that concern us far more than the stats. regarding > unemployment, no?< > ------------------------ > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > >
