But just a glimmer.
The City of Racine is not No. 1 in unemployment and, in fact, our jobless rate slightly improved in August, compared to July.
- Worst in the state is Beloit, with 17.4% unemployment. In July, the city of Beloit's rate was 17.7%.
- Racine is in second place, with 16.2% jobless, an improvement from July's 17.1%. Last year, the city's jobless rate was 8.9%.
Unemployment for the state as a whole dropped to 8.4%, from 8.8% a month ago. But last year, the rate was 4.6%.
State DWD Secretary Roberta Gassman, who released the numbers, said, "August labor market statistics show all metro areas and all but three counties with decreases in their unemployment rates. We see encouraging signs that the economy is improving..."
The full list of state workforce stats is HERE.
Ouch... it still hurts. What number does 16.2% represent? 400 people, 500?
ReplyDeleteThank God for small favors
ReplyDeleteI wonder what will happen when the RUSD and higher property taxes go into affect? New taxes for KRM. More hiring? More leaving Racine?
What is the plan for when more Home owners move out of Racine and there is less home owners paying taxes?
A Detroit with its own little Vegas?
How in the world does Caledonia have such a low rate? It can't just be proximity to Milwaukee county.
ReplyDeleteC'mon people use common sense! The figure has dropped because so many peoples unemployment has run out. Keep in mind all the unemployed that were part timers and did not qualify...The number is really around 21-22 percent.
ReplyDelete"The figure has dropped because so many peoples unemployment has run out. "
ReplyDeleteUnemployment benefits do not factor into this rate. The BLS definition of an unemployed person for the commonly reported U-2 unemployment rate is anyone who is out of work, wants a job, and has actively done something to look for a job in the last 4 weeks. This includes far more people than just those that are recieving unemployment benefits. In fact, if you compare the BLS unemployment number to the DOL reported benefits numbers, you will see that the BLS says that there are far more people unemployed than are receiving benefits.
The BLS also calculates other unemployment rates that include discouraged workers and underemployed workers in the rate. In fact there are 6 different rates being caluculated since 1994 when the process was overhauled.
The U-2 rate is the traditional measure, and has been more or less calculated the same way since the 1940s. This is why this is the only one usually reported.
Of course, do keep in mind that the unemployment rates are estimates based on monthly survey data collected in the Current Population Survey by the Census Bureau. There is no claim that they are absolutely 100% correct...they are just estimates. There would be no way to get perfectly accurate data short of requiring every worker in the US to report their employment status to the Gov't on a monthly basis, and that would be expensive and big brotherish.
"The City of Racine is not No. 1 in unemployment and, in fact, our jobless rate slightly improved in August, compared to July."
ReplyDeletePete, I think you are comparing monthly rates that have not been seasonally adjusted. SInce we know that there is huge seasonal influences on the labor market, that makes for dubious conclusions.
Of course, labor data is almost never seasonally adjusted by the BLS or state labor agencies below the state level. Not sure why...I would guess that the samples just get too small.
Anyway, you can compare the unadjusted numbers to same month in other years to say the situation has gotten worse/better. But, you cannot compare different months when using unadjusted data.
That's why we don't need the development in West Racine - because our unemployment rate is so low!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the help RCEDC
ReplyDelete"How in the world does Caledonia have such a low rate? It can't just be proximity to Milwaukee county."
ReplyDeleteBecause, it takes real money to live in most of Caledonia. There are few places where you can be poor and live there. People with decent jobs moved their because they wanted nicer/bigger houses, more white people, less crime, whatever. You can't stay jobless and in a $300,000 house at the same time for very long.
Anon 9:26, I suppose what you're saying is that if you live in Caledonia and you loose your job, you move to the City? I suppose there is some truth to that, but I do know a few folks on unemployment who are actively looking and live here. I must say that $300,000 is a very high estimate for median home prices, though. We certainly don't make a lot of money and neither do most of our neighbors. My guess for average house prices on the East side of Caledonia would be $200,000 at the most. Especially in this market...
ReplyDeleteRoughly 13K people out of our 80K population.
ReplyDelete"Roughly 13K people out of our 80K population."
ReplyDeleteLess than that.
The unemployment rate is calculated as...
(# unemployed / # in workforce) x 100 = unemployment rate
The number in the workforce is not the entire population of Racine. Instead it is a subset of people age 16+, that want to work, and are currently able to work.
Spanenberg - I am glad you are thinking of these people when you want to stop the project.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that to really count the number out of work figure double what is reported because so many have quit filing for benefits or run out of benefits. That applies nationally so likely locally too.
ReplyDeleteCap and trade, if passed, should make these numbers look like the good old days in a few years.
I do beleive they calculate unemployment by data from bussines.There are not to many bussines or maybe none in caledonia!Therefor low or no unemployment!
ReplyDelete"I do beleive they calculate unemployment by data from bussiness."
ReplyDeleteNope. You are thinking of the Current Employment Survey conducted by the BLS. This is a massive survey of businesses that pay employee Social Security taxes. (As a result this does not include the self-empoyed, farm workers, and a few other types of jobs.) The CES is being cited when you hear that X number of jobs were lost/cretaed.
The unemployment rate is calculated from the Current Population Survey, which is a massive monthly survey of households coducted by the Census Bureau with the BLS. For the U-2 unemployment rate the survey tries to estimate the number of people that want work, can work, and have tried to find work in the last previous 4 weeks.
Hardly a headline. Look at last year compare to today, 5.5 compared to 10.2? Someone is desperate for a pat on the back. Fishing for compliments. Really hold the headline til we at least make up 15%, not 6 measly points.
ReplyDeleteTim - any estimate that cannot ever be verified through a truly random sample of an appropriate set of data is and always will be a guess, not an estimate. Is it 100% accurate? 50%? 20%? I'm not picking on you but this number is next to meaningless.
ReplyDeleteOkay Dickert, what part of your 10 year plan is actually going to address the unemployment issue? You've been mayor for 6 months now and we still haven't been informed as to what the 10 year plan is and we've seen little or no advancement in bringing new businesses to Racine, or even a sincere attempt at keeping the existing ones. Most new businesses are discouraged from opening here, unless it's a bar. When are you going to get off your duff and quit playing "Mr. Popular" with the minorities and start doing something for the entire community? I've got it! Why not appoint another friend or relative to a six year Unemployment Czar position and pay him $10,000.00 a year more than the city council approves. That would be creating a job!
ReplyDeleteAnon 3:23, after reading your remark it would appear you are a product of RUSD. Why not take a night course in another school district to learn to spell and use punctuation properly?
"...any estimate that cannot ever be verified through a truly random sample of an appropriate set of data is and always will be a guess, not an estimate."
ReplyDeleteWhat? That comment does not make sense.
The Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau IS a random sample; perhaps the best random sample survey ever conducted in the US. They survey something like 60,000 households each month. This is a massive sample size. This is the data used by the BLS to estimate/calculate the unemployment rate. Perfect, no. But it does not get much better than that short of conducting a full-fledged census every month or some sort of big brother gov't tactics.
Yes that comment does make sense - and 60,000 seems large but a large sample size does not always, in fact often does not, by itself insure that it is an appropriate sample of a normal distribution of data. I guess it is the best they can do, and I certainly wouldn't want intrusive studies performed, like the kind we'll be getting with Obamacare.
ReplyDelete"...and 60,000 seems large but a large sample size does not always, in fact often does not, by itself insure that it is an appropriate sample of a normal distribution of data..."
ReplyDelete1. Well, if the CPS is not a good enough survey for you, then nothing is. This survey leaves everything else in the dust. You can find a document on the methodology at http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/tp-66.pdf, and the main CPS website is http://www.census.gov/cps/.
2. The goal of sampling is a random sample and not necessarily a normal distribution. Statistics assumes that you will get a normal distribution if you repeat the sampling process over and over again. This is the Central Limit Theorem. The actual underlying data itself may not have a normal distribution, and hence the sample also may not have a normal distribution.
The city looks like the are trying to create new jobs with the Racine Franchise Expo in May. That's a great start if the Mayor and Community leaders are indeed behind this.
ReplyDeleteRight you are about the assumption that the data is distributed normally Tim. However, the number of times you sample has nothing to do with "eventually getting a normal distribution" - the data is either distributed normally in the first place or it isn't. And just because a sample is large and "this is the best you're going to do" doesn't increase its validity or justify spending money on the study in the first place - this was my main argument.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing in statistics that says a population or sample has to be or should be normally distributed. Population paramters are not normally distibuted...in fact there can be very abnormally distributed.
ReplyDeleteThe only assumption of normal distribution is that samples (note the pural) will be normally distibuted around the population parameter they are trying to estimate.
For example: We want to estimate the average age of a people in Wisconsin. Let's same the real average (i.e.- the population paremeter) is 40. If we do a sample we expect our sample average (a statistic) to come out somewhere around 40. If we do another sample we would again expect the sample average to be somewhere around 40. This would be true again and again. In fact, if repeated over and over we would except our sample averages to have a normal distibution around the real average, with 95% of the time samples falling within 1.96 standard deviations of either side of the real mean.
This is the only assupmtion of or need for a standard distribution. The bit described above is true no mater how normal or abnormal the population is. And if the population is not normally distributed, then the sample should not be normally distributed either.
Anyone who thinks that Rat-Scene's economy is improving is either a wicked wealthy Waxie or one of the Carnauba Court's Ivy League yuppies. For anyone else, The Rodent City is nothing but a moribund Mickey Mouse company town.
ReplyDelete. . . but the data HAS to be normally distributed, or assumed to be so, in order to make any statistical inferences from the data.
ReplyDeleteYour example of average ages is "good" because it would be relatively easy to get an appropriate sample. It is also a calculation that has a look and feel that would make sense - if the calculations were performed and the number came out to be 23 or 79, it would be clear that there was some type of error. However, getting usable data from a population such as "those not working and looking for work" remains extremely difficult.
". . . but the data HAS to be normally distributed, or assumed to be so, in order to make any statistical inferences from the data."
ReplyDeleteNo, no, no...and you never find a statistics textbook that says that! The only thing in conventional statistics* that is assumed to have a normal distribution is the 'sampling distribution', or in other words, the repeated samples. If the data itself had to be normally distributed in a bell curve then statistics would be a mostly useless too because the world is very rarely normally distributed.
I think you have confused the term 'sampling distribution' (the distribution of repeated samples) with the term 'sample distribution' (the distribution of the data in the sample).
* I used the term conventional statistics because some statisticians that have gotten into chaos theory argue than even the sampling distribution may not have a single central tendency, but instead could multiple points around which the samples cluster.
I always thought that a Bell Curve was a perfect representation of normally distributed data, and that many times we have to wish (or pretend) that data is normal in order to analyze. BTW, it sounds like you aren't some Gateway person that is just using Google to appear to be smart! I am going to do some reading tonight.
ReplyDelete"I always thought that a Bell Curve was a perfect representation of normally distributed data, and that many times we have to wish (or pretend) that data is normal in order to analyze."
ReplyDeleteI have seen some explanations of survey and sampling that are really poorly written, so I could see how you would have that understanding of sampling. News stories are especially bad at this when they try to explain a surveys margin of error.
"Anonymous Tim the Shrubber said...
ReplyDelete"The figure has dropped because so many peoples unemployment has run out. "
Unemployment benefits do not factor into this rate. The BLS definition of an unemployed person for the commonly reported U-2 unemployment rate is anyone who is out of work, wants a job, and has actively done something to look for a job in the last 4 weeks."
they DO use people claiming unemployment as some meter on our unemployment rate.
it's one of their only semi-effective ways of counting unemployed people.
Statistics LIE!!!!! Ask the RCEDC about the figure for census tracts 1-5. Please let us not celebrate, this community continues to have the F the poor people mentality until the crime rate starts to climb and then they want to place blame. Blame yourselves for bringing out this ridiculous figure and expecting everyone to be ignorant enough to eat it!!!!! Have a nice Day!!!!
ReplyDelete"they DO use people claiming unemployment as some meter on our unemployment rate."
ReplyDeleteYes, they do in a way. The Department of Labor reports the number of people recieving benefits on a weekly basis, but this is different than the unemployment rate. At any given time, for any given place, you will notice that the number of people considered unemployed for the unemployment rate is considerable higher than the number of people recieving unemployment benefits.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteStatistics LIE!!!!! Ask the RCEDC about the figure for census tracts 1-5. Please let us not celebrate, "
celebrate? WTF are you smoking??
half the people i know are unemployed.
jas - I guess you hang around in the wrong group.
ReplyDeletejas - you need to find some new friends!
ReplyDelete