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A comment on US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak since the Vietnam War. Parent comment

Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by lmpdev on Saturday January 06, 2024 @09:08PM (#38897685)
Unemployment is also a poor metric in and of itself as it discounts large groups of people

Participation rate is much more meaningful IMO

Example, the participation rate is currently ~67%, so its inverse is 33%.

This means that 33% of the working age population are currently not employed

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Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by greeneggs on Saturday January 06, 2024 @10:44PM (#38898217)
Do you have a link for that, or are you just making up numbers? (Please don't make up statistics.)

These sources both give the civilian labor force participation rate as 62.5% in December 2023.

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

https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

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Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by rendang on Saturday January 06, 2024 @09:30PM (#38897818)
Why is it meaningful given that the 33% includes people who have no desire to work?
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Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by catherd on Saturday January 06, 2024 @10:05PM (#38898024)
How healthy would the economy be if 100% had no desire to work? That depends on why those people don't want to work and the overall situation, but until all of our needs are served by robots in reality likely not so healthy.
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Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by Herring on Saturday January 06, 2024 @09:58PM (#38897999)
No desire today != no desire tomorrow. A lower participation rate might indicate untapped potential or barriers to employment, such as lack of childcare or training opportunities.
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Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by lotsofpulp on Saturday January 06, 2024 @10:25PM (#38898125)
That is not at all what the labor force participation rate means.

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

> The Labor Force Participation Rate is defined by the Current Population Survey (CPS) as “the number of people in the labor force as a percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population […] the participation rate is the percentage of the population that is either working or actively looking for work.”

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Re:US unemployment has been under 4% for the longest streak ... by theironhammer on Monday January 08, 2024 @05:26PM (#38919167)
Agreed. And what percentage of the employed workforce (that 67%) are in low wages jobs compared to 1972?
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