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[IndeedProceed]

Reason I brought it up is IP has done this to me something like 8m times in the last week  - I have never seen IP criticize someone for pointing out a left wing site when linked, but he does deny MSM is biased (again  ).

That is factually untrue.

A) I'm going to need some evidence for the 8million number. Not calling you a lyre, but just saying, I think its off.

B) If someone posts a left-wing site for something I actually want to use, I will typically go find the MSM equivalent (because someone will say, "Well that's not exactly a quality source"). If the best I can do is Huff Post, usually I'll say something like 'The best we've got is Huff Post for right now, so take it for what its worth. I have a hard time thinking we have the whole story though if none of the major players pick it up.'

Here's the Heritage analysis for people who don't want to click a link, because they might feel dirty:

1. Unemployment rate fell to 7.7% in Nov
2. This is due to 146k new jobs and 350k leaving the workforce
3. 146k jobs is good (but tempered by revisions to previous reports of -45k)
4. Population growth means you need 125k new jobs per month to tread water
5. Extrapolating this out - growth is so slow it will take 5 years to get back to full employment

Conclusion: while the economy is in recovery, the recovery is a very anemic one.

I think nobody is contesting that the recovery is slower than everyone would want. 'Very anemic' strikes me as a bit hyperbolic though.

Also, I read the 'full employment' claim, and I am wondering what the basis for that was. If you follow the link, it brings you to a Jobs Calculator little web app from the Fed Reserve Bank of Atlanta without giving you the numbers the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation actually used.

So we don't know what the 'desired employment' was, we don't know what they used as their 'changeable assumptions'.

But, they credit it to the Federal Reserve Bank Of Atlanta, like they were the ones who actually put in the numbers and made the 'findings'.

[Brendan]

Full employment is well defined by economists, not a partisan made up number by Heritage. http://bit.ly/TPkLcu

[IndeedProceed]

Full employment is well defined by economists, not a partisan made up number by Heritage. http://bit.ly/TPkLcu

So then what % is 'Full Employment'?

[Brendan]

Now, what do we mean by full employment at decent jobs? Full employment, in my view, a realistic definition is below 4 percent as officially measured by the government. And why is that my threshold? Why below 4 percent? Because what we've seen in the 1960s when we got below 4 percent, and again in the late 1990s when we got below 4 percent, you see a decisive change in the labor market dynamics, such that workers' wages go up pretty significantly, even in the late 1990s.

This is a quick google result: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10918-bob-pollin-the-full-employment-debate

IANAE - so I don't know the full math version.

[Neurotic Guy]

I was laid off once in my life.  It was in 1984 at the height of Reaganomics.  The business I was in was laying people off even though unemployment in general was going down.   The fact that some companies are laying off now tells only part of the story.   

Of course, it isn't the OPs job to be a non-biased reporter, but he does illustrate how biased reporting can be persuasive in the absence of thorough reporting.  Both sides can do it, watch:

Obama took over when the unemployment rate was 8.5% and we were in full-blown recession following the Bush years which had highlighted policies of lowering taxes rates and deregulating Wall Street and the banking industry.  Reeling from the recession, unemployment rates continued to rise to 9.6% in August of 2009.  8 months into Obama's first term the unemployment rate began to turn downward.  In Novemebr of 2012, little more than 3 years since the era's peak, the unemployment rate is 7.7%.

My blurb doesn't tell the whole story either.  But on its surface seems to tell a story of improvement.  Just as the OPs sliver of info seems to tell a story of things going downhill.   

Both spins are unecessary.  We all know that we are in slow growth, that the fiscal situation will require revenue solutions and entitlement reforms (among other things -- see Simpson -Bowles), and hopefully we all want things to improve -- though I am positive Grover Norquist and Karl Rove do not.

[IndeedProceed]

Now, what do we mean by full employment at decent jobs? Full employment, in my view, a realistic definition is below 4 percent as officially measured by the government. And why is that my threshold? Why below 4 percent? Because what we've seen in the 1960s when we got below 4 percent, and again in the late 1990s when we got below 4 percent, you see a decisive change in the labor market dynamics, such that workers' wages go up pretty significantly, even in the late 1990s.

This is a quick google result: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10918-bob-pollin-the-full-employment-debate

IANAE - so I don't know the full math version.

I think Full Employment isn't the rock-solid ideal you implied it is.

I did do a google search, and he's what Wikipedia had to say about it:

Whatever the definition of full employment, it is difficult to discover exactly what unemployment rate it corresponds to. In the United States, for example, the economy saw stable inflation despite low unemployment during the late 1990s, contradicting most economists' estimates of the NAIRU.

The idea that the full-employment unemployment rate (NAIRU) is not a unique number has been seen in recent empirical research. Staiger, Stock, and Watson found that the range of possible values of the NAIRU (from 4.3 to 7.3% unemployment) was too large to be useful to macroeconomic policy-makers. Robert Eisner suggested that for 1956-95 there was a zone from about 5% to about 10% unemployment between the low-unemployment realm of accelerating inflation and the high-unemployment realm of disinflation. In between, he found that inflation falls with falling unemployment.

Worse, the NAIRU doesn't stay the same over time—and can change due to economic policy. For example, some economists argue that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's anti-inflation policies using persistently high unemployment led to higher structural unemployment and a higher NAIRU.

So to bring this puppy all the way around to center, again we don't know what numbers Heritage used for 'Full Employment', and their 'calculations' are pretty suspect considering their political leanings.

EDIT: And to counterpoint my counterpoint, I'm basing this on the loosest of understandings regarding economics, so if I've got it all wrong, apologies.

[Brendan]

Yes - I agree. As a concept its understood, but hard to put an exact number on it. I'm guessing they used a number around 4. I know much lower is considered a bad sign (inflationary, not enough elasticity.)

[Celtics4ever]

Some of these guys griping like Papa John's are just cheapskates who don't want to pay for benefits.

In coal country, demand has been down because of natural gas but they timed the layoffs as always right before Christmas and after the election.   I think they would have happened either way.

[Brendan]

Some of these guys griping like Papa John's are just cheapskates who don't want to pay for benefits.

In coal country, demand has been down because of natural gas but they timed the layoffs as always right before Christmas and after the election.   I think they would have happened either way.

Yes and when you have a huge new requirement to pay benefits that the labor value doesn't justify - you get "cheapskates" laying people off or using more part time help.

This is a good lesson for big gov't people: your best laid plans have many unexpected outcomes.

[Celtics4ever]

I'd pay the extra .12 cents a pizza so someone has health insurance.

[Brendan]

I'd pay the extra .12 cents a pizza so someone has health insurance.

If you owned the giant pizza place this might matter.

Or if you eat like a 100k of pizza a year.