[PRCo] Re: Unemployment

[Schneider Fred]

And now Fred comments:

Unemployment estimates in the nation, very populous states like  
California,Texas, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and even  
Pennsylvania, and very large cities like New York, Los Angeles,  
Chicago, Houston are quite reliable.   It's all in sampling  
reliability in statistics 101.

But don't put a whole of faith in data for counties of 3000 people!    
I'm not sure how people live in Adams County, Idaho today but the  
1990 census showed 3,254.  I'm not getting alarmed at whether there  
are 200 people or 359 people out of work in such a small county.    
The real number might be 12% or it might be 25%.

It would imagine, however, that it is high at this time of the year  
for two reasons.  What have they got going for them there?    
Tourism?   Lumbering?  Agriculture?  Retail sales and services?   We  
know that lumbering is shot to hell because of a severe nationwide  
downturn in housing.  I suspect that if there is a sawmill in that  
county, it has been closed or has laid off a substantial part of its  
work force.

The MSNBC pieces does not mention the word seasonally adjusted  
anywhere.   The U. S. adjusts all data.   Pennsylvania gives you the  
option.   Many small states do not adjust data.   What's the  
difference?   If it is adjusted, the unemployment rate will is  
adjusted to a 10 year running average of inverse seasonal changes so  
that what you end up with are business cycle changes and not seasonal  
changes.   If unadjusted you have business cycle and normal seasonal  
changes (summer improvements and winter layoffs) all heaped  
together.   I suspect that, since it is Idaho and small state, it was  
unadjusted.   Ten percent in the winter would not surprise me in a  
tourist / logging area under normal conditions.   These are not  
normal conditions.

MSNBC without any analysis?   Their analysis is only as good as the  
people who give the data to them.   A lot of the government  
"analysts" don't do a stunning job often because they are inhibited  
and sometimes because they are not the sharpest knives in the  
drawers.   You want great analysis?   Bank economists often did a  
very credible job.   I was very lucky.   When I started working for  
the state of Pennsylvania, I had one of the best analysts in the  
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a mentor.  But I was told too, when I  
wanted to do something to help the public, "Don't do it.   I might  
have to then ask the others to do the same thing.   They won't want  
to do it.  I want to coast out to retirement.  So I'm forbidding you  
from doing more than I ask you to do."    And then that man would go  
out to his car and get his gin bottle out of the trunk.

(And when John retires, we will have his stories too.)





John Swindler wrote:

Another msnbc article without any analysis.  Did a plant close?  Is  
this a farming community??  Where are people employed in this town/ 
county?


On Jan 17, 2009, at 3:47 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28623262/
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> Adams County ID:   "Gardner says unemployment always rises during  
> the winter, but 17.5 percent is unprecedented."
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> Phil
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