So Mr Economist rather than stating the obvious what would you do to make sure that the impacts of Covid-19 are mitigated given what you know at the moment? Most economists are v good at analysing what’s happened…not so good on proposing practical solutions to mitigate potentially and in this case wholly predictable events… and v good at articles like this that say we’re all doomed. 10 a penny
Mark Corby
3 years ago
I would love to believe the 13.3% figure for May, but hardly had it been issued than the Bureau of Labo(u)r Statistics (BLS) said there had been a “mistake”. I haven’t heard what the correct figure should be but, the inference from the BLS is that it will be higher.
Mark, I believe the corrected figure would be 16.2%. According to Annalyn Kurtz of CNN Business: “the BLS noted that for the third month in a row, its data collectors misclassified some workers as ’employed not at work,’ when they should have been classified as ‘unemployed on temporary layoff.’ If it weren’t for that issue, the unemployment rate could have been as high as 19.2% in April and 16.1% in May, not including seasonal adjustments”. So this compares to the 14.4% April rate and 13.0% 13.0% May rate that were published before seasonal adjustment, not the 13.3% seasonally adjusted May rate you note, or the 14.7% April rate. I don’t think BLS has released the correction based on seasonally adjusted estimates. If you simply use the same implicit seasonal factors as those used for the published estimates, the correct seasonally adjusted estimates would show a 19.6% rate for April, declining to 16.5% for May. If one looks at the movement, not the level, it is still really good news for the American economy.
Many thanks Andrew, mystery solved! Unfortunately over here (UK) any good news linked to Mr Trump, in any conceivable way, is normally ignored by the MSM. In fact he has replaced the late Mrs Margaret Thatcher or “that woman” as some like to say, as the new Anti-Christ.
So Mr Economist rather than stating the obvious what would you do to make sure that the impacts of Covid-19 are mitigated given what you know at the moment? Most economists are v good at analysing what’s happened…not so good on proposing practical solutions to mitigate potentially and in this case wholly predictable events… and v good at articles like this that say we’re all doomed. 10 a penny
I would love to believe the 13.3% figure for May, but hardly had it been issued than the Bureau of Labo(u)r Statistics (BLS) said there had been a “mistake”.
I haven’t heard what the correct figure should be but, the inference from the BLS is that it will be higher.
Mark, I believe the corrected figure would be 16.2%. According to Annalyn Kurtz of CNN Business: “the BLS noted that for the third month in a row, its data collectors misclassified some workers as ’employed not at work,’ when they should have been classified as ‘unemployed on temporary layoff.’ If it weren’t for that issue, the unemployment rate could have been as high as 19.2% in April and 16.1% in May, not including seasonal adjustments”. So this compares to the 14.4% April rate and 13.0% 13.0% May rate that were published before seasonal adjustment, not the 13.3% seasonally adjusted May rate you note, or the 14.7% April rate. I don’t think BLS has released the correction based on seasonally adjusted estimates. If you simply use the same implicit seasonal factors as those used for the published estimates, the correct seasonally adjusted estimates would show a 19.6% rate for April, declining to 16.5% for May. If one looks at the movement, not the level, it is still really good news for the American economy.
Many thanks Andrew, mystery solved!
Unfortunately over here (UK) any good news linked to Mr Trump, in any conceivable way, is normally ignored by the MSM.
In fact he has replaced the late Mrs Margaret Thatcher or “that woman” as some like to say, as the new Anti-Christ.