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Business news summarized a MarketWatch article thusly: "One reason growth is not faster is because technology is helping customers more than companies." As a technocrat, I thought that was the whole idea.
"Two roads diverged," Robert Frost wrote in what is perhaps the most popular poem of all time, "The Road Not Taken." Frost's opening words keep playing in my head every time an economic indicator is released, a global macro forecast is revised, or financial markets take a tumble. In all cases, the bulls and the bears find enough ammunition to support their diametrically opposed views on the U.S. economy.
Rarely have two roads diverged so dramatically for so long. It took six years for mainstream economists to come around to the notion that no, this is not your grandfather's economy; and no, real economic growth isn't going to accelerate to 3% next year, the perennial forecast. Trend economic growth of 3% or 4% is a thing of the past, constrained as it is right now by anemic productivity and labor-force growth.
Even the 2.1% average growth [in] real gross domestic product since the Great Recession ended in June 2009 is a source of controversy. The economic bulls maintain that the price of information technology is being overstated, which means real GDP and productivity growth are being understated. For this group, the low level of both jobless claims and the unemployment rate is telling the true story of a robust economy that isn't being captured by the statisticians.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Capt. Obvious on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:02AM
Very, if you can read them right. Notice the plural, there are mutliple measures of unemployment. If you know whihc you are looking for, then you can parse it really well.
People who have been without a job for 2 years (assumed to have given up) and those who have given up, are left out of the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
See above, they are assumed to have given up, because otherwise they would have found work. Well, I suppose with the new shorter benefit time may have made it so some people may be off unemployment, but still searching. One has nothing to do with the other.
They are, but there are numerous rates they are counted in. Not in the "5% unemployement " number
I believe unemployment only counts (a) Part time only work or (b) People over-credentialed for their current job (including those who are in a worse position.). Although there is no dount a way to look up min wage jobs, those aren't considered "under-employed". Hell, there are many people who make significanylu under min. wage (waiters, Ubedr drivers) too. Those aren't counted merely because they make little money.