Unemployment rate in the country right now 2.4 % Awesome. Please just be happy and dont make this political
Did you know South Carolina has the 2nd lowest
- Thread starter jeff2001
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Tell it to the Clemmies. They think they're slumming it in SC. Lord, I wish Georgia, Alabama, Alaska . . . anyplace . . . take 'em.
That table is the U-3 rate, which government propaganda uses because it is always lower than the U-6 rate (what most economists consider the "real" unemployment rate). U-6 is still better than the national average, but is the 18th best.
https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm
By the way, in 2016 candidate Trump claimed the "real" unemployment rate was 50%. That's when you include all non-working students, disabled, retired, and voluntarily non-working (housewives, househusbands, independently wealthy, etc.) people above 18 and below the full SS age.
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We are deplorable though because we're a red state.
And yet it has one of the lowest median incomes in the country. Cost of living is not high, but that’s still very unfortunate.
So if you did not want to make this political, "why is this topic on a sports site?"
Try living in New York with that high median income or maybe DC see how far that gets you.
Hooray but I am skeptical of the way these rates are calculated. I remember in my Econ class being taught that there is a "natural unemployment rate".
That consisted of people in transition by choice, layabouts, etc. Back then, the 80s, it as said to be 4%. So when I hear it is 2.4% I really wonder how that can be now without changing how the number is computed.
That consisted of people in transition by choice, layabouts, etc. Back then, the 80s, it as said to be 4%. So when I hear it is 2.4% I really wonder how that can be now without changing how the number is computed.
In SC, the poverty rate is over 15%, 22% for children; 8th from the bottom. That rate accounts for the cost of living, I think. Plenty of people are working, but plenty aren’t earning enough.
I looked up historical rates. It gets complicated because the age distribution has changed a lot since the 70s and 80s; and the rate for people over 65 is usually lower than the rate for people 18-64. But they do break it out. The numbers above sound bad, but they are in line with historically good levels. They have just a little room to improve to get back to Clinton-era levels.
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I'm more concerned with the level of our wages and we rank near the bottom in household income.
SC has some things going for it: outdoor recreation, laid back culture, low cost of living, fun nightlife. That said, if you are proud of SC’s economy or political landscape... I can’t help ya.
I heard it is bad when it drops too low. 3.5% is supposed to be ideal to maintain a healthy economy. Don’t ask me why.
Supply and demand. The theory is if it drops too low, then labor costs increase too much. In practice it seems to apply more to some jobs and not others.
It's very good and all the governors since Hollings have done a good job of attracting business investment. Wasn't he the one who pushed the technical college system? The income issues are really a nationwide problem. Like everywhere, there are areas like the corridor of shame with very low taxes bases and decrepit schools (the rust belt is full of them, for example).
People are employed but income inequality grows wider, and wages are nearly stagnant.
The gap that Bernie and Warren continue to harp on isn’t important at all. Or rather, the problem isn’t that the top 1% or whatever earns too much money. The problem is that one out of five kids grow up in poverty. The wages for their parents need to increase, and it doesn’t have to be drastic. We just all need to pay a little more for goods & services. All the talk of taxing the rich is just a straw man.
Something I have never understood. I have traveled both with my company and on vacation over the years. In late '78 a co-worker and I were on a business trip in Buffalo, NY in July. That was the most depressing city I had ever visited at that time. We were there about three days and as we drove around the city my co-worker and I talked about how were people in Buffalo better off than residents of southern cities where he and I had lived? My wife and I was in Harrisburg, Pa in 2010 during the summer visiting Amish country and again that was a depressing city even in the summer. How is the life style of that city better than any town in a southern state?
I know all the data from an economic standpoint suggest that living in NY, Pa, Mass, etc is really much better than most southern states but when I actually compare some of those places physically to places in the south they don't pass the eye test.
It’s cheap to live here for a reason. Hey don’t hate the messenger location matters.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/
And yet we are still a beggar.
And yet we are still a beggar.
Happy about that. Crime, infastructure and education are a different story. SC needs to follow the lead of the FED and just get a money printer. "Quantitative Easing" is now up to 21 Trillion since 2008. We are on the verge of negative interest rate instruments. P/Es indexes on the S&P are exceeding 30-40x.
The house of cards is going to tumble at some point. Mostly likely not until after the election. If you are staring at your bloated 401Ks, etc, be cautious until you actually realize those gains.
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It's no different than SC or NC. There are cities/towns you'd prefer to live in and others you wouldn't. There are cities all over the rust belt and Northeast that are very depressed, and Buffalo is one of them. Youngstown, Easton, Detroit, Gary, Patterson, New Haven, etc. Then there are other cities that are nice downtown and/or have some great suburbs with good schools. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Chicago, etc. - and they all have suburbs or pockets of depressed areas, higher crime rates, and subpar schools. Many of the smaller rust belt and upper Appalachia towns, especially the old mining towns, are in really bad shape.
You can increase wages AND tax corporations appropriately. The 40% tax cuts haven't been made up by any "growth" we've seen... not even remotely close.
It's two different problems, high deficits and low wages. The deficit, financed by borrowing, does mostly end up back in the economy and artificially inflates the GDP. As one example, the China trade surplus is used to buy US bonds; that money is then spent by the government on entitlements and discretionary spending. But taxes don't generally get to the right places to change the wage situation. I'd rather pay more for a hamburger than pay more income tax. But then again, somebody needs to pay more income tax to fix the deficit problem. Maybe a raise in the minimum wage is the magic pill we need.
Wages aren't stagnant when someone goes from unemployed to employed. But they are for people who remained employed the entire time. A lot of the people who have become employed in recent years are minorities. So that's a substantial increase in standard of living at the lowest economic range.
I recall about a decade ago I went maybe 5 years with only a pittance of raises while insurance premiums skyrocketed and benefits were decreased. That's worse than stagnant wage growth related to cost of living.
fake news. House hold income has seen the largest jump in 25 years! You have be non objective to knock this economy. Hasn't been anything like it since team late 80s and early 90s.
Unfortunately I know people that no matter how much they make it will not be enough. They want something, they buy it..
The real unemployment rate has to drop to drive up wages. Waged were stagnant for the past 20 years because real unemployment was too high. Businesses didn't have to raise salaries to compete for works. 2017 was the first real wage increase since the 90s. Real wages grew in 2018 and look to do it again this year.
When you reach lower middle class, what you spend and the things you want to own has as much or more bearing on your prosperity as wages.
And we have the second highest number of Waffle Houses!
Just wanted to say that this thread is pretty nice. It reminds me of the past. Good discussion by people with different opinions.
Because of this thread, I spent a lot of time looking at the data on tradingeconomics.com, which goes back 25 or more years. Here's another perspective on the *unemployment* rate: the *employment* rate!
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate
I was born during the end of Reagan, and it's amazing to me how much the economy has changed in my life. Obviously we endured the recession, and the interest rate decreased a huge amount and remains super low. Entire industries vanished and were created.
We've witnessed an amazing recovery since 2008, with the longest bull run in history, and hopefully we can keep it going or at least avoid too much of a downturn in the coming years as the momentum wanes and things continue to change, as they always do.
[s. QUOTE="jeff2001, post: 4902788, member: 1206"]Unemployment rate in the country right now 2.4 % Awesome. Please just be happy and dont make this political[/QUOTE]
Because of this thread, I spent a lot of time looking at the data on tradingeconomics.com, which goes back 25 or more years. Here's another perspective on the *unemployment* rate: the *employment* rate!
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate
I was born during the end of Reagan, and it's amazing to me how much the economy has changed in my life. Obviously we endured the recession, and the interest rate decreased a huge amount and remains super low. Entire industries vanished and were created.
We've witnessed an amazing recovery since 2008, with the longest bull run in history, and hopefully we can keep it going or at least avoid too much of a downturn in the coming years as the momentum wanes and things continue to change, as they always do.
[s. QUOTE="jeff2001, post: 4902788, member: 1206"]Unemployment rate in the country right now 2.4 % Awesome. Please just be happy and dont make this political[/QUOTE]
I will confirm that living in SC is superior to life in PA, with very few exceptions.
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