Misleading statistics and disinformation inferences at work

February 5, 2023

What exactly does the "unemployment" percent number mean today without a context?

I'm not an economist, yet it seems to me that simply comparing the current unemployment rate with the from one 53 years ago, with also including data on (1) numbers/percent not in the labor force, (2) numbers/percent on long-term government-funded disability, (3) the number of job vacancies (or percent of same, using number in labor force as the denominator), and (4) the number of employed who were not born in the USA (yes, that sounds racist, but it is relevant, especially when I read economists claiming that we need immigrants to do the work that Americans cant or wont do). And isn't it odd to not include farm payrolls in the statistics on unemployment?

I think that Eberstadt's updated "Men without work" makes much the same case in that the larger context of work, workers and non-workers needs to be understood well beyond the traditional, simplistic and somewhat misleading "unemployment" number.

Unemployment Falls to 3.4%, Lowest in 53 Years, Jobs Report Shows - WSJ.pdf

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From the Amazon brief on the book:

Nicholas Eberstadt’s landmark 2016 study, Men Without Work, cast a spotlight on the collapse of work for men in modern America. Rosy reports of low unemployment rates and “full or near full employment” conditions, he contends, were overlooking a quiet, continuing crisis: Depression-era work rates for American men of “prime working age” (25–54).

The grim truth: over six million prime-age men were neither working nor looking for work. Conventional unemployment measures ignored these labor force dropouts, but their ranks had been rising relentlessly for half a century. Eberstadt’s unflinching analysis was, in the words of The New York Times, “an unsettling portrait not just of male unemployment, but also of lives deeply alienated from civil society.”

The famed American work ethic was once near universal: men of sound mind and body took pride in contributing to their communities and families. No longer, warned Eberstadt. And now—six years and one catastrophic pandemic later—the problem has not only worsened: it has seemingly been spreading among prime-age women and workers over fifty-five.

In a brand new introduction, Eberstadt explains how the government’s response to Covid-19 inadvertently exacerbated the flight from work in America. From indiscriminate pandemic shutdowns to almost unconditional “unemployment” benefits, Americans were essentially paid not to work.

Thus today, despite the vaccine rollouts, inexplicable numbers of working age men and women are sitting on the sidelines while over 11 million jobs go unfilled. Current low rates of unemployment, touted by pundits and politicians, are grievously misleading. The truth is that fewer prime-age American men are looking for readily available work than at any previous juncture in our history. And others may be catching the “Men Without Work” virus too.

Given the devastating economic impact of the Covid calamity and the unforeseen aftershocks yet to come, this reissue of Eberstadt’s groundbreaking work is timelier than ever.

Then there is the canard about labor shortages....without perhaps eighty million working age adults not meaningfully employed, at least not by any acceptable statistical measure.

One last problem: There is the perfect storm of the convergence of Covid, an aging population and government subsidies for family care givers to give up "employment" to provide home health assistance to many of the tens of millions of Americans over the age of 65 who can't afford a 'nursing home' or assisted living, or who prefer family rather than hired health care aids to help them. Are these caregivers employed? And are they really any different from a "stay at home" parent who forsakes "employment" to care for young children rather than for elderly parents or grandparents.