[quote author="Geotpf" date=1259501752][quote author="graphrix" date=1259469411][quote author="Geotpf" date=1259422389][quote author="freedomCM" date=1259027207]The one big thing about the U3 rate is that it does not include all the people who are (were formally) paid on 1099s. All those mortgage brokers, computer system/software salespeople, mercedes salesmen, etc. It seems to me that 15% or so of people I know in Irvine were 1099s, and many of them are either looking for work, or making significantly less than a few years ago.</blockquote>
That's absolutely not true. It's based on a survey; kind of like a political poll. They randomly call people and ask if they are employed or not, and if not, if they are looking for work. If you are not looking for work you don't count as unemployed-for example, a housewife is not unemployed, nor is a full time college student, nor a retiree, nor somebody in jail, nor somebody who is disabled. They take the number of people employed, and divde that by the number of people employed plus the number of people looking for work, and subtract that number from one. So, if you have 950 people with jobs, 200 people not looking for work, and 50 people looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 5% (1-(950/(950+50)) is .05; throw the 200 out). The tax status of those employed or unemployed is not a factor. Whether or not you are currently collecting unemployment benefits is not a factor.</blockquote>
Sorry, but you are not totally correct. It is survey based, but it is not sent to individuals, it is sent to employers.
<em>"The employment by industry method is a nationally recognized system of reporting monthly employment. Employment by industry data reflect jobs by "place of work". That is, jobs located in the county or the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) that pay wages and salaries are counted although workers may live outside the area. Jobs are counted regardless of the number of hours worked. Multiple jobholders (i.e., individuals who hold more than one job) may be counted more than once. <strong>Self-employed, unpaid family workers, and private household employees are not included.</strong>"</em>
Also, your definition of the "labor force" is not exactly correct either.
<em>"Civilian labor force data are by place of residence; include self-employed individuals, unpaid family workers, household domestic workers, & workers on strike."</em>
Therefore you would not just throw out 200k people from the labor force as you say. What Freedom's point was that the labor force has shrank, but they are not included in the UE numbers, and since population grows so does the labor force... Meaning that the U-6 or total UE rate is much higher than what is actually being published on a micro/local level.</blockquote>
You are confusing the CES with the CPS. The U3 is created from the CPS.
From Wikipedia...
<em>The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 15 years of age) using two different labor force surveys[30] conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or "Household Survey", conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. This Survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.[31] The data are also used to calculate 5 alternate measures of unemployment as a percentage of the labor force based on different definitions noted as U1 through U6:[32]
U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.
U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons.
Note: "Marginally attached workers" are added to the total labor force for unemployment rate calculation for U4, U5, and U6. The BLS revised the CPS in 1994 and among the changes the measure representing the official unemployment rate was renamed U3 instead of U5.[33]
The Current Employment Statistics survey (CES), or "Payroll Survey", conducts a survey based on a sample of 160,000 businesses and government agencies that represent 400,000 individual employers.[34] This survey measures only nonagricultural, nonsupervisory employment; thus, it does not calculate an unemployment rate, and it differs from the ILO unemployment rate definition. These two sources have different classification criteria, and usually produce differing results. Additional data are also available from the government, such as the unemployment insurance weekly claims report available from the Office of Workforce Security, within the U.S. Department of Labor Employment & Training Administration.[35]</em>
Within the CPS, the following definitons apply:
<em>People are classified as employed if they did any work at all as paid employees during the reference week;<strong> worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm</strong>; or worked without pay at least 15 hours in a family business or farm. People are also counted as employed if they were temporarily absent from their jobs because of illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management disputes, or personal reasons.
People are classified as unemployed if they meet all of the following criteria:
They were not employed during the reference week
They were available for work at that time
They made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. (The exception to this category covers persons laid off from a job and expecting recall)
The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of unemployment insurance benefits.
Those who are not classified as employed or unemployed are not counted as part of the labor force. They are tracked as ?discouraged workers.?</em></blockquote>
Dude, nevermind. You obviously didn't read that I pointed out that this is micro level data, i.e. OC, not macro level data, i.e. national BLS numbers.
Point being, if you are going to be discussing micro level data, you have to use what they use as sources. BTW, have you looked at the labor force level? Has it gone down or up? Oh... and anyone who has to cite Wiki as their source for labor data is the least credible person when my data points were directly from the EDD.