----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 12:35 PM Subject: Re: Household vs. payroll employment
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 09:42:48AM -0600, Dan Minette wrote: > > > This is an interesting question. On the face of it, your arguement is > > intuative, but there are other factors involved. People who work in > > housing, but are not "on the books" are usually (or at least often) > > illegal immigrants. They tend to eschew filling out government forms > > and surveys. > > I don't follow your point here. Are you saying that we shouldn't count > these as jobs because the people doing them are not legally in the > country? No, I'm saying that they would probably not appear in the household survey because they would not fill it out. > > Other people who are working "off the books" would also have > > incentives to not report those jobs. The people who are in drug sales > > comes to mind here. > > My impression was that most organized crime had a legitimate-looking > business as a front, so these guys would still be counted, only they > would be on the books as "strip club worker" instead of "drug dealer". That would be my impression of Mafia type organized crime. But, I don't think gangs, like the Crips (sp) or the Bloods would do that. I know those gangs even had chapters in the local Jr. High school, but I don't know of any Jr. Mafia members at local high schools. I was thinking more of those. In short, to be very clear, I think that most "off the books" employment is off the radar for both the household and the payroll measures of unemployment. Dan M. Dan M. > > Economic View: Two Tales of American Jobs: ...the Federal Reserve has > > just thrown cold water on the household data. It concludes that the > > gloomy payroll data is essentially accurate and that the household > > survey is probably off base. "I wish I could say the household survey > > were the more accurate,'' Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, said in > > his testimony at a House hearing on Feb. 11. "Everything we've looked > > at suggests that it's the payroll data which are the series which you > > have to follow.'' > > Good find. I hadn't read that before. > > > I think that the overestimation of the population growth is a good > > candidate for a source of overestimation of the employment growth by > > the household survey. > > Makes sense. > > > -- > Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ > _______________________________________________ > http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
