<story><title>Say Hello to Full Employment</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/07/hello-full-employment/564527/?single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tmpz22</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t help but feel the unemployment rate is so politicized that its facts and statistics will continue to be cherrypicked outside of reality.</text></item><item><author>spir</author><text>This article seems to use the terms &amp;quot;unemployed&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;jobless&amp;quot; interchangeably.&lt;p&gt;People who stop searching for jobs (eg. due to despondence or poor health) are excluded from the official unemployment rate, yet they are jobless.&lt;p&gt;On a recent EconTalk, Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, said, in their recent sample, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 months.&lt;p&gt;From quick googling, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 is about 7.5 million people.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.econtalk.org&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;edward_glaeser.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.econtalk.org&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;edward_glaeser.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>azernik</author><text>The selection of this metric is not some recent political decision - the headline number has been U3 for a loooong time, and its definition was decided by the UN-affiliated International Labor Organization.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not a &lt;i&gt;good&lt;/i&gt; measure, but it&amp;#x27;s not a case of politicians picking a convenient metric, it&amp;#x27;s just a case of a bad metric being optimized for.</text></comment>
<story><title>Say Hello to Full Employment</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/07/hello-full-employment/564527/?single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tmpz22</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t help but feel the unemployment rate is so politicized that its facts and statistics will continue to be cherrypicked outside of reality.</text></item><item><author>spir</author><text>This article seems to use the terms &amp;quot;unemployed&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;jobless&amp;quot; interchangeably.&lt;p&gt;People who stop searching for jobs (eg. due to despondence or poor health) are excluded from the official unemployment rate, yet they are jobless.&lt;p&gt;On a recent EconTalk, Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, said, in their recent sample, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 have been jobless for over 12 months.&lt;p&gt;From quick googling, 11.9% of U.S. men aged 25-55 is about 7.5 million people.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.econtalk.org&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;edward_glaeser.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.econtalk.org&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;edward_glaeser.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dev_dull</author><text>Is it called the Wells Fargo effect now? When you optimize for a number, you&amp;#x27;ll get that number -- and it will deceive you.</text></comment>