The number of long-term unemployed is chilling

The Automatic Earth
The long and the short of numbers
OK, so the BLS Establishment Survey Data say that in March, nonfarm payroll employment rose by 162,000 (quite a bit less than the consensus among "experts"). Not a terribly reliable or important number, if you ask me, but of course people will milk it for what they can. What strikes me is a number in the Household Survey Data:

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) increased by 414,000 over the month to 6.5 million.

That's almost 7% in one month, and that is downright scary. Of course, we've talked about this till the cows were home, fed, bathed, and left the barn again, but it still bears repeating that discussing US employment, for instance the initial jobless claims data, has become a futile exercise, if not an outright affront to the people, if the EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) numbers are not included.

It may make for a nice feel-good story to claim that less people have jumped onto the front of the wagon, but it's simply deceitful not to mention the number that have fallen off the back. Over 44% of jobless Americans are now unemployed for more than 27 weeks. Hence, the EUC component of the stats, the by now 6.5 million who largely depend on the emergency money Congress just last week refused to extend, is now probably the most important segment of the unemployment numbers, or at least should be if the fudging would end. At present, it’s exceedingly hard to figure out where they show up in the various sets of supplied data.

And this whole focus on short term versus long term is increasingly becoming an issue in the overall economy, as well as, obviously, its data sets. We’ll have to see if the 162,000 jobs the BLS Establishment Survey Data is real, and how real it is. Note, for instance, that the ADP reported a loss of 23,000 jobs in the private sector just a few days ago. The gain may therefore stem from government jobs alone, most of which would be temp Census ones.

An increase of close to 7% in long-term unemployment is far scarier than a bunch of temp jobs is reason to cheer, that much should be clear. And there are probably millions of additional people who fall outside the scope of even these numbers. After all, don’t let's forget the difference between U3 (steady at 9.7%), U6 (rose to 16.9%) or even John Williams' SGS Alternate, which presumable has stayed near 22%. + 162,000 may be the best number in three years, but what's it mean when you know that fudging is the name of the game?

Just as long term unemployment is the real story when it comes to jobs, housing has its own version of long-term trouble. The Wall street Journal has an anonymous editorial titled The Permanent Mortgage Crisis, and that pretty much sums up the core of it all. more...