Favorite poverty symbols!

[bandit957]

It is?  I see 3.5% for your region.

https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh_cincinnati_msa.htm

I'll guarantee it's not 3.5%. Last it was even close was probably nearly 40 years ago.

[bandit957]

Once when I was about 13 or 14, my dad drove to Portsmouth, Ohio, with just me and my brother. It was about 95 degrees that day. We got right around Portsmouth when the air conditioner in the car suddenly broke. My dad and my brother both groaned, but I thought it was hilarious. That's because I was sitting in the back seat, and they were monopolizing the AC.

[abefroman329]

those HD antennas are quite crap.

This was a pretty highly-rated HD antenna.

[Brandon]

It is?  I see 3.5% for your region.

https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh_cincinnati_msa.htm

I'll guarantee it's not 3.5%. Last it was even close was probably nearly 40 years ago.

I doubt it was as low as current during the stagflation of the 1970s.

[bandit957]

I doubt it was as low as current during the stagflation of the 1970s.

It was much lower then than it is now.

[Nanis]

today I found a needle on the floor

[Brandon]

I doubt it was as low as current during the stagflation of the 1970s.

It was much lower then than it is now.

Wrong.  Here's the Bureau of Labor on the subject:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

1970-1980
Year - Rate
1970   4.9
1971   5.9
1972   5.6
1973   4.9
1974   5.6
1975   8.5
1976   7.7
1977   7.1
1978   6.1
1979   5.8
1980   7.1

And current:

2015   5.3
2016   4.9
2017   4.4

The highest listed by the BOL is 8.5% in 1975.

[hotdogPi]

I doubt it was as low as current during the stagflation of the 1970s.

It was much lower then than it is now.

Wrong.  Here's the Bureau of Labor on the subject:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

1970-1980
Year - Rate
1970   4.9
1971   5.9
1972   5.6
1973   4.9
1974   5.6
1975   8.5
1976   7.7
1977   7.1
1978   6.1
1979   5.8
1980   7.1

And current:

2015   5.3
2016   4.9
2017   4.4

The highest listed by the BOL is 8.5% in 1975.

That's national data, right?

[kalvado]

True sign of poverty is when you notice that price of salt went up...

[bandit957]

Wrong.  Here's the Bureau of Labor on the subject:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

Those numbers were cooked. The economy was booming in the late '70s.

[hotdogPi]

Wrong.  Here's the Bureau of Labor on the subject:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

Those numbers were cooked. The economy was booming in the late '70s.

Unemployment rate is not the only thing that determines whether the economy is booming or not. Also, 7% is not that high.

[Brandon]

I doubt it was as low as current during the stagflation of the 1970s.

It was much lower then than it is now.

Wrong.  Here's the Bureau of Labor on the subject:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

1970-1980
Year - Rate
1970   4.9
1971   5.9
1972   5.6
1973   4.9
1974   5.6
1975   8.5
1976   7.7
1977   7.1
1978   6.1
1979   5.8
1980   7.1

And current:

2015   5.3
2016   4.9
2017   4.4

The highest listed by the BOL is 8.5% in 1975.

That's national data, right?

Yes, national data from the BOL itself.  There's also local data, and a whole bunch of other metrics there.

[Brandon]

Wrong.  Here's the Bureau of Labor on the subject:
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

Those numbers were cooked. The economy was booming in the late '70s.

Unemployment rate is not the only thing that determines whether the economy is booming or not. Also, 7% is not that high.

The 70s were known best for what was called "stagflation", a condition wherein inflation increases, but there's not a whole lot of growth for the economy as a whole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_(1964%E2%80%9380)#%22Stagflation%22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973%E2%80%9375_recession
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_energy_crisis

[J N Winkler]

I decided long ago that I was not going to put much credence in headline unemployment numbers unless I knew exactly how they were measured and calculated.  I presume that information is available online for the key BLS measures, but it is certainly harder to find than the numbers themselves.

The media is currently reporting that the economy is booming, unemployment is at an all-time low, and job postings exceed the number of available workers for the first time in US history.  What they never say is whether the postings are, in fact, fillable.  I serve on the board of a library that has a $8 million annual operating budget and about six months ago we were told we had to return about $300,000 of it--and additionally implement budget cuts and customer fee increases--because it had been earmarked for employee salaries for positions we were not given authority to fill.

And even in cases where the employer actually goes ahead and advertises a job opportunity, it is so cheap to do so now (with applications accepted online only, etc.) that any given posting is more likely to reflect the employer's desire to sample the labor market than any actual intention to fill the position.

Meanwhile, I am missing two stacks of recordable Blu-ray discs that I ordered from Amazon last fall and that never arrived.  The presumption has to be that they were stolen somewhere along the delivery chain, probably from our mailbox.  And earlier this week we spent about an hour and a half setting up a new checking account because we had two checks, tendered in payment of bills, stolen from our mailbox.  The envelopes containing the checks in question were sitting in the mailbox, red flag up, for less than an hour, and I discovered the red flag still up, mailbox door open, and checks gone literally only 30 seconds before the letter carrier stopped by with the mail.  Our local news has reported that postal employees have been finding gum (clearly designed to intercept envelopes containing payment instruments) at blue letterboxes around town.

When people are so hard up that they are willing to tamper with the US mail to a degree that is unprecedented locally--committing multiple federal offenses in the process--is this the sign of a healthy economy?

[Brandon]

When people are so hard up that they are willing to tamper with the US mail to a degree that is unprecedented locally--committing multiple federal offenses in the process--is this the sign of a healthy economy?

Or it could be that instead of actually getting a job and working hard, they, like most criminals, choose the easy route of just stealing what they can from other people (who have jobs and are working hard).  We had plenty of crime in a lot of boom times as well as down times in the past.  Why would today be any different?

[abefroman329]

job postings exceed the number of available workers for the first time in US history

Yeah, this is nonsense; it's been the case for years.

[Brandon]

job postings exceed the number of available workers for the first time in US history

Yeah, this is nonsense; it's been the case for years.

Exactly.  Being in the STEM fields, I notice it quite acutely.  They're good jobs, pay well, yet getting kids interested in engineering or science seems to be a lot tougher than interesting them in majoring in some liberal arts bullshit.  And heaven forbid little Johnny dare to take up a decent career as a mechanic or welder instead of going to college for a degree he can't even use.

[abefroman329]

I have a liberal arts degree and make a good living, albeit not my in exact field of study, but I wouldn't say it's "useless."  STEM was out of the question, since I'm not very good at science and I'm only good enough at math to get an MBA. 

I don't think any college degree is useless, even if you end up flipping burgers after you get it.  You got something out of going to college.

[bandit957]

The 70s were known best for what was called "stagflation", a condition wherein inflation increases, but there's not a whole lot of growth for the economy as a whole.

It was worse in later decades though.

[bandit957]

The media is currently reporting that the economy is booming, unemployment is at an all-time low, and job postings exceed the number of available workers for the first time in US history.

The Media outright lies.

[J N Winkler]

Or it could be that instead of actually getting a job and working hard, they, like most criminals, choose the easy route of just stealing what they can from other people (who have jobs and are working hard).  We had plenty of crime in a lot of boom times as well as down times in the past.  Why would today be any different?

Yes, there is always some crime when times are good.  The point here is that resort to criminality is a decision made at the margin and that margin is a lot less further out than it used to be in cities like Wichita, where the local economy was essentially recession-proof since the three mainstays (ag, oil, and airplanes) rarely went down at the same time.  Airplanes started going down in the late noughties when Boeing transferred production out of town (in some cases, out of country) and divested, and the bulk of employment growth locally since then has been in low-paid service occupations.

Being in the STEM fields, I notice it quite acutely.  They're good jobs, pay well, yet getting kids interested in engineering or science seems to be a lot tougher than interesting them in majoring in some liberal arts bullshit.  And heaven forbid little Johnny dare to take up a decent career as a mechanic or welder instead of going to college for a degree he can't even use.

Employment can be difficult to find even with a good degree in a hard STEM field like math or physics.

And even from the narrow standpoint of clearing the job market, there are a couple of problems with the current tendency to regard postsecondary education as an investment that is to pay itself off within a very short period of time.  First, there is an aspect of intergenerational fairness since many people in their forties and fifties received their college education at very low cost, believing (as Abefroman329 says) that it has value completely independent of the ability to get a good-paying job through the credentialing effect, or indeed the field.  Many of these people have had much less difficulty finding good-paying employment simply because their entry into the workforce was well-timed.  Second, asking people to commit to a particular career track before they are even out of adolescence--thereby potentially foreclosing other options that might yield better life satisfaction overall--is often a recipe for regret.

[Brandon]

The 70s were known best for what was called "stagflation", a condition wherein inflation increases, but there's not a whole lot of growth for the economy as a whole.

It was worse in later decades though.

Citations?  Please feel free to provide links and references.

[bandit957]

Citations?  Please feel free to provide links and references.

Forty-five years of life.

[vdeane]

I'm not sure how much the economy is booming even in STEM.  I majored in computer science with intent on a career in IT, only to find that nobody would even give me an interview.  I ended up taking a programming job that didn't work out (since I'm not as good at programming, and thought I'd be a network/system administrator anyways, so that's what my focus was on in college), and later ended up here in a job in a completely different field.  I probably should have thought about web development (which I could actually do with more experience) or GIS (which I hadn't even heard of because what little GIS Clarkson has is confined to the civil engineering program for some reason), if I had been smarter.

Granted, it probably doesn't help that I'm not interested in dealing with metro areas above a certain size (not willing to deal with the high cost of living and horrible traffic) or outside a day's drive to Rochester, NY (even Albany can feel far away since three and a half hours of Thruway each way, 7+ times per year, gets old fast).  Originally I even had "not outside Wegmans territory" as a criteria, but that one didn't work out.

It's unfortunate that US companies don't do true entry-level hiring any more.  Even "entry level" jobs require lots of experience and networking to get, since businesses won't train any more, and applying for job postings online is basically futile.

[abefroman329]

First, there is an aspect of intergenerational fairness since many people in their forties and fifties received their college education at very low cost, believing (as Abefroman329 says) that it has value completely independent of the ability to get a good-paying job through the credentialing effect, or indeed the field.  Many of these people have had much less difficulty finding good-paying employment simply because their entry into the workforce was well-timed.

I got my degree in 2001, at 22, and entered the workforce in the middle of a recession.  My first job paid $26K, which was not "good-paying," even 17 years ago.