It’s been a rough few months for economic data parsers. The federal government shutdown meant an interruption of the usual torrent of official statistics, and those of us who use those numbers to make sense of the economic and social world were wandering around in the dark. Yes, there were some private sector stats, but, lacking rigor, transparency, material disinterest, and long histories, they were weak substitutes for the real thing.
The torrent has returned, with lots of backlog to catch up on. On November 20, the monthly employment report for September from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was published; it was originally scheduled for release on October 3. And on December 16, we got the reports for October and November together; October would normally have been released on November 7, and November on December 5. The monthly employment reports are probably the best single look at how “the economy” translates into people’s material lives. The latest trio do not make for inspiring reading: job growth was weak and unemployment continued its upward climb.
Before going into detail, a few technical notes. That monthly employment report draws on two surveys, one of 60,000 households, the other of 121,000 employers, known as the payroll or establishment survey. These are very large surveys; a typical opinion poll samples only around 1,000 people. The payroll survey is the source for news items like “employers added 64,000 jobs in November” (which they did); the household survey is the source for, most prominently, the unemployment rate, though it also provides plenty of demographic data on employment (age, education, race, sex, full- or part-time, etc.).
Because of the shutdown, the BLS was unable to conduct the household survey for October, the first miss since the monthly survey began in 1948. Because employers file their reports electronically, there was no gap in the establishment survey.
The structural problems of the American economy are more…
Auteur: Doug Henwood
