I know that to count as unemployed you have to have sought work in the last 4 weeks. Thing is, when I was unemployed, I wasn’t qualified for unemployment benefits and I wasn’t telling anybody about my applications besides the people I was applying to. I doubt the dollar store is filing every application with the government. Now I get by on freelance work; how does the government know I’m employed? Is there some website I’m supposed to go to and check a box?
In: Economics
The unemployment rate comes from a survey. If you are sampled, they would presumably tell you.
Well, if you’re making over a certain amount you need to do your taxes. This alone will show the government you have income.
> how does the government count unemployed people?
In the US, at least, incorrectly.
You are counted as “unemployed” specifically and only if you are currently receiving unemployment benefits.
If you are underage, retired, disabled, not employed but not receiving unemployment benefits (benefits ran out or you didn’t qualify because you were fired for misconduct or quit for some reason other than constructive dismissal, or didn’t know how to apply or just decided not to apply, this is not an exhaustive list), or out of work for any other reason (such as maternity/paternity, ‘gave up’, or a stay at-home spouse or partner) then you are not ‘unemployed’ as far as the US is concerned. The Federally publish number on ‘unemployed’ people only counts the number of people currently receiving unemployment benefits. Once those benefits run out, you’re no longer ‘unemployed’.
“Unemployment is down! We’re doing great! Why are there so many homeless people?” Because you’re not capturing the data in a useful way, dipshit. Maybe we should count all these other people too. “But that would make unemployment go up. I don’t want to be known as the politician that cost workers jobs hurr durr.”
Much like counting inflation, the results are skewed by neglecting certain demographics etc. They recently changed how/when the report inflation just do it looks better on paper. It’s kind of akin to mean vs average. You can get wildly different results. It can be accurate, but is likely not.
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