Monday Smackdown: There's Something in the Water at the New York TImes
If they stay around there too long, they fall victim to the culture and start purveying misinformation. Here from last February we have Neil Irwin claiming that part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs are "unemployed". They are not. They are working.
Why do this, Neil? It misinforms your readers. It destroys your own credibility:
Neil Irwin: The Real Jobless Rate Is 42 Percent? Donald Trump Has a Point, Sort Of:
Donald Trump seems quite certain that the real unemployment rate is higher than the 4.9 percent that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported it to be. A lot higher. “Don’t believe these phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment,” Mr. Trump said in his victory speech after the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night. “The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.” Mr. Trump might be bombastic, but he’s not entirely wrong....
There is no “true” unemployment rate.... The B.L.S. itself reports six different unemployment rates, of which the one the press most commonly cites is called U-3... [the] 4.9 percent “official” unemployment rate.... It’s easy to see how you can get to a much larger unemployment rate.... Take the B.L.S.’s broadest definition of unemployment for example, known as U-6.... U-6 includes not just those 7.8 million people who have actively sought work... but also millions more who... wanted a job and had looked for one in the last year...along with people who are working part time but would prefer a full-time job...
But, Neil, the BLS does not say that U-6 is its "broadest definition of unemployment". The BLS says U-6 is one of its "six alternative measures of labor underutilization":
Unemployment is unemployment. Its definition makes sense. Those truly out of the labor force do not call themselves unemployed. Surveys show that very few of those who have not actively looked for a job in the past month think of themselves as or call themselves "unemployed". Those with a job do not call themselves unemployed.
And "42%"? That's nowhere in any BLS publication
