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A comment on The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment. Parent comment

Re:The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment by beagle3 on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @10:21PM (#8995146)
> One strong reason to prefer U3 is that the series is available much further back in time.

Isn't it a bit like saying one should prefer the bible to carbon dating because we've only had carbon dating for the last handful of decades?

It's not that U3 is useless, but one shouldn't assume it properly describes unemployment.

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Re:The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment by maxlybbert on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @01:48AM (#8995642)
Well, I think it's more like saying we should prefer temperature data based on tree rings or ice cores (or, even, old mercury thermometers).

"Prefer" is probably the wrong word, so you certainly have a point. "Accept, with a note that the data isn't ideal" is much better. I'm OK with using less-than-ideal data when ideal data isn't available; but I'm disappointed with the number of reports that fail to mention any limitations of their. It's entirely acceptable to say "we don't have enough data to establish whether this claim is true."

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Re:The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment by lkbm on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @10:06AM (#8997139)
No, it's not relevant how long we've had the method--what's relevant is how far back the data goes.
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Re:The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment by grayclhn on Wednesday February 04, 2015 @09:38AM (#8996980)
It's a bit like saying that having data on 1960 is useful.
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