Re: For Trucker


The Trucker wrote:
> Negloid" <negloid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1123182161.620609.87480@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > jrw wrote:
> >> By her yardstick, there may be as many as 5.1m Americans
> >> who do not appear in the unemployment rolls, but who might rejoin the
> >> job queue if work were more forthcoming. If so, the "true"
> >> unemployment rate could be over 8%, not 5%; the true number of jobless
> >> 12.6m, not 7.5m.
> >
> > It's impossible to know exactly why some people are not in the work
> > force. People such as Coburn, ever the pessimist when a "Repugnican"
> > is in charge, will instantly attribute their decisions to their
> > inability to find work or course. The unemployment rate has remained
> > very low, even at its highest points, since it hit 3.9% in 2000.
>
> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1ECO/is_2002_Sept/ai_93974717
>
> According to this "data", the unemployment rate was 7.5%
> in 1992 and dropped to 4.0 before Pinocchio took over.
> It then rose to 6% by April of 2002.
>
> http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/13/18595359.pdf
>
> And this "data" says it was 5.8% for all of 2002 and then
> reached a high for all of 2003 at 6%. Then it fell in
> 2004 and 2005 and in May was 5.1%
>
> So where do you get 3.1% ????

Coburn, I wrote 3.9%, not 3.1%. Also, I wrote 2000, not 2002, 2003,
2004, or 2005. Finally, you are most likely looking at annual data,
not monthly data. The unemployment rate reached 3.9% in the last 4
months of 2000.

> > I have always attributed recent
> > labor force participation rates to the unique situation we were in in
> > the late '90s. At that time, even the most marginal workers were being
> > hired because the unemployment rate was so low.
>
> Good grief!!! You mean those people opened the
> paper and saw a big news story that told them that
> the unemployment rate was low and that is what
> _caused_ them to go out and get a job???? They
> wanted to be part of the "in" crowd, did they.
> Maybe,,,,, JUUUUUUUST maybe, they saw that
> they would actually get _paid_ for doing the work
> and _that_ is what prompted them to seek a job.

That is exactly what happened, though I would probably describe it with
a little less emotion, cynicism, and sarcasm.

> > Since then, a lot of
> > people did exit the labor force. They were marginal *workers* after
> > all. They hadn't completed their education or they were near
> > retirement or they were only attracted in the first place by promises
> > of stock options, etc..
>
> The same Repugnican prancing pig *** as always:
> "Unemployment is the result of personal failure on
> the part of the workers".

You don't actually read what people write before you post. I never
wrote anything about personal failures. Perhaps you need to figure out
what I mean by "marginal worker". Are you more interested in what I
meant, or are you most interested in attacking what I wrote regardless?

> The fact that we brought
> in a bunch of low wage Indians and Mexican
> illegals has NOTHING to do with it.
>
> > But this author did bring up an interesting fact. Since WWII, the
> > women's labor force participation rate had risen, almost uninterrupted,
> > through the late 1990's. Through each and every recession, the growth
> > in this rate just progressed up and up and up, until recently.
> > (Conversely, it is interesting to note that the men's labor force
> > participation rate has steadily declined since WWII, from the high 80's
> > to the low 70's percentages.) Maybe the women's lib movement has
> > matured, and there really will not be any more growth in this
> > demographic.
> >
> > Go here for easily-searched stats on labor force participation:
> > http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm
> >
> > Another thing not really mentioned in the article (well, parhaps
> > touched on) is the drastic reduction in labor force participation among
> > the young. In the late 1990's, around 52% of teenages (16-19) were in
> > the labor force. Last month, 43.9%. This is the lowest it has been
> > since 1965. That represents a loss of well over 1 million members of
> > the labor force (which generally uses the age range of 16+). I'm not
> > sure how worked-up I would get about alleged labor market troubles just
> > because out-of-work 16-year-olds are not looking for jobs. In fact, it
> > begs the question, just how many people in that age range *can* drop
> > out of the labor force?
>
> It depends on how much their daddy makes and it
> depends on whether they are illegal or not.

I'm sure that illegal immigrants have played their part in the numbers,
though not necessarily only as you believe.

> > If we look at the labor force participation rate for women and men, 20
> > and older rather than 16 and older, then the labor force participation
> > rate for men dropped 0.7% from June 2000 through June 2005. For women
> > 20 and over, it dropped 0.5% over the same time period. If the
> > participation rates had held steady for both, there would be 1.25
> > million more people in the labor force, aged 20+. Now perform the same
> > calculations on the 16+ labor force rather than 20+ labor force and
> > that 1.25 million becomes 2.49 million.
>
> > Half of the drop in the labor force participation rate was caused by
> > reduced participation by teenagers. I wonder what the numbers would
> > look like if we upped the age to 22+, so that we captured most people
> > in their post-high school as well as post-college years...
>
>
> GEE!!! Why don't we just count Repugnican males between
> 25 and 45 and see how that works. You know... The
> Pinocchio *** kissers.
>
> Your suggestions speak volumes on the fact
> of your Repugnican apologist manipulation
> of data to simply "leave out" the stuff that is
> not "in line" with your religious perspective.

I "left out" nothing. I *pointed out* that half of the drop in the
labor force participation rate occured because 16- to 19-year-olds
dropped out of the labor force in larger numbers. Do you dispute that
fact, or claim that it is meaningless?

> I too have a religious perspective. But I don't
> manipulate the "data" around whatever
> conclusion I have already adopted.

There was a major drop in labor force participation amongst teenagers
over the past few years. That is a fact. Do you not see the
difference between a 40-year-old dropping out of the labor force and a
16-year-old not entering the labor force?

.

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