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It always bothers me when people say the unemployment rate is low.

I was looking at some long term labor participation trends and I made this chart which shows how labor force participation has changed over time.

More women entered the labor force, more men left the labor force, but overall the labor force is trending down and continually going lower.

Currently labor force participation is 63% yet we are supposed to believe “unemployment rate” is 3%?

I might believe in Magic Internet Money but I don’t believe in the white-haired ones.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001

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Discussion

btccyberhornet 2y ago

They officially report U3 numbers, U6 is more exhaustive which is at 7.4. Still not showing the true picture, as lot of workers are employed in the gig economy and heavily overworked and underpaid.

Nice and Kind Vic 2y ago

Its a dumb metric as it leaves out swaths of people are work but aren't employed, or are employed but not paid through surveillance means

JG 2y ago

I'm reminded of the expression in statistics: torture the data enough and it will confess to anything.