1. Kaiser Permanente healthcare strike sidelined 28,000 workers. The strike ended on February 23rd.
2. The severe weather resulting in two major snow storms made it so that lots of businesses were simply closed for a few days. This meant they couldn’t be properly surveyed.
It still is not good, but the magnitude of how not good is worsened by specific one-time circumstances. Make of that what you will.
Hot take, but I don’t think it should recover. If anything, I think a combination of low unemployment, higher wages, and a labor force participation rate of ~45-55% would be a sweet spot to aim for:
* It would indicate more single income households able to make ends meet and live higher quality lives
* It would suggest more stay-at-home parents to rear children, which is only possible in a safe and stable economic environment
* It’d also suggest a higher amount of community engagement, rather than mere working and resting.
* A rise in successful single-income households would also suggest improvements in cost of living affordability
In our current world, where we expect both parents to work full-time jobs to survive (because the cost of everything assumes a married couple employed full-time, especially in cities), this number is bad; in a healthier society, it might be a good thing.
I’d argue in favor of deflating costs or raising wages instead of increasing labor force participation, but that’s my personal soapbox.
That seems to be everyone above 16 years of age.
It excludes inmates, that is penal and mental institutions (which in the land of the free is surprisingly sizeable chunk).
Also excludes active military personnel.
Notably it includes people who are disabled but are unable to work.
U-3 Unemployment doesn't include people not actively looking for work, people making less than they'd like, or working less than they'd like.
https://www.lisep.org has alternate measures that try accounting for take home wages as well as seasonal variability (construction is noted as being volatile but relatively well paying).
The requirements to be US President isn't to be born in the US, but to be a "natural born citizen."
While the rules of being a natural born citizen is more complicated if born outside of the US, you can generally become one if one of your parents is a US citizen.
I wouldn't call it an Americanism, per se. There are plenty of countries where you can't become a citizen at all without having a relative who is one. There are also plenty of countries where, even being born there is not sufficient for citizenship (in fact, only 35 countries in the world grant citizenship unconditionally via being born within the borders).
It means that if we cut off or discourage immigration, we can’t count on non-native citizens to continue boosting our numbers. So, we have to look at the native-born stats to get an idea of our future.
I understand the US economy is experiencing some… troubled times. However, 4.4% unemployment rate, while that’s an increase, sounds really low compared to other countries. Am I missing something?
4.4% is the headline number, but there are other measures of unemployment [1] that show we are closer to 8% when you include people that are discouraged from even looking and those working part-time but would prefer a full time job.
There's also a stagnation of salaries relative to inflation and a slow hiring market that has people locked into a job when they'd like to find something better. The K-shaped recoveries have people slipping out of the middle class. Combine with housing increasing faster than inflation, future generations having a lower quality of life than their parents.
The wealthy are doing what they can to try to direct the narrative elsewhere, by controlling media sources, blaming immigrants, blaming China, and blaming the government. But we really have far too much wealth concentration to be sustainable, not unlike the ending of a game of monopoly. If a more stable solution isn't found soon, I fear things will get much worse than they already are.
US economy is robust, the problem is that people don’t have the same safety nets when out of work.
No job means no healthcare or reduced coverage for many people for example, so it
is a bigger deal to have unemployment.
Which means a Finnish or Spanish level unemployment would be much more catastrophic, however anyone expecting the demise of USA will have to keep waiting as the country is very rich and developed and as a result they will re-group and be fine - eventually.
The U-3 rate does not include those that drove for Uber one hour in the month. The gold standard metric is labor participation rate of white men over 20, and that's not looking good: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300028
You’re absolutely right. The labor market is still quite strong. All the doom and gloom from places like HN is coming from the many layoff announcements and fear of AI.
It's not that numbers are a farce but different industry segments are doing better or worse than other.
HN being a tech forum that now increasingly skews East and Midwest (heck, it's not even 7am yet in the West, but look at the degree of engagement on here) means most HNers are impacted by a slowdown in tech hiring, which exacerbates the sense of pessimism.
And tbf, if you aren't working in a tech hub like the Bay or NYC, you are going to be screwed if you are laid off - employers increasingly restrict remote work to those employees who have proven internal track records, and inshoring hubs like in RTP, Denver, Atlanta, etc are on the chopping block.
In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country until you came along, we're just always losing. But now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever.
So two factors that affected this report:
1. Kaiser Permanente healthcare strike sidelined 28,000 workers. The strike ended on February 23rd.
2. The severe weather resulting in two major snow storms made it so that lots of businesses were simply closed for a few days. This meant they couldn’t be properly surveyed.
It still is not good, but the magnitude of how not good is worsened by specific one-time circumstances. Make of that what you will.
I can’t see the FT article but this one. Talks a bit about these circumstances: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/06/february-2026-jobs-report.ht...
The FT article brings it up as well - most HNers never read the articles.
The ungameable statistic is the native born labor force participation rate, which also ticked down: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01373413.
Unfortunately, that figure never recovered from the pandemic. It also never recovered from a major drop after the 2008 recession.
A lot of things unraveled around 2012.
https://wtfhappened2012.com
The iphone + fb/instagram = kids spending more time on the screen than irl
Since, youth suicide, depression, anxiety, etc have hit record levels.
Hot take, but I don’t think it should recover. If anything, I think a combination of low unemployment, higher wages, and a labor force participation rate of ~45-55% would be a sweet spot to aim for:
* It would indicate more single income households able to make ends meet and live higher quality lives
* It would suggest more stay-at-home parents to rear children, which is only possible in a safe and stable economic environment
* It’d also suggest a higher amount of community engagement, rather than mere working and resting.
* A rise in successful single-income households would also suggest improvements in cost of living affordability
In our current world, where we expect both parents to work full-time jobs to survive (because the cost of everything assumes a married couple employed full-time, especially in cities), this number is bad; in a healthier society, it might be a good thing.
I’d argue in favor of deflating costs or raising wages instead of increasing labor force participation, but that’s my personal soapbox.
Isn’t that a proxy for aging and lower birth rates?
Is this working age population or all ages ?
That seems to be everyone above 16 years of age. It excludes inmates, that is penal and mental institutions (which in the land of the free is surprisingly sizeable chunk). Also excludes active military personnel. Notably it includes people who are disabled but are unable to work.
It is a historical range of working age, so it includes people who are 16 and over and everyone until the die of old age.
> The ungameable statistic
How are the normal unemployment rates (U-3, U-6, etc.) "gamed" exactly? Or, put another way: what would you do differently?
U-3 Unemployment doesn't include people not actively looking for work, people making less than they'd like, or working less than they'd like.
https://www.lisep.org has alternate measures that try accounting for take home wages as well as seasonal variability (construction is noted as being volatile but relatively well paying).
As the population continues to age, and more people are 62+, this is expected...
I don’t think that’s telling the whole story.
Immigration has always been used as leverage against the native workers, and now it’s more efficiently corrupt than ever.
Used by whom?
Look at that trajectory one more time and tell me how 'expected' it is.
The first stages of a worldwide recession is what it looks like to me.
I’m naturalized—very, very long term—but I couldn’t find any stats that track by US citizens.
I suppose that makes me a second-class citizen?
You have one right fewer than natively born Americans - you can't become the President. Make of that what you will.
This is another one of the weird American-isms that many Americans don't realise isn't normal everywhere else.
Boris Johnson was born in New York. "He wasn't born in this country" probably wasn't even on anybody's top-100 problems with Boris as Prime Minister.
The US president is both Head of State and Head of Government. It turns out there's a bunch of countries that require the head of state to be a natural born citizen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidential_qualifica...
The requirements to be US President isn't to be born in the US, but to be a "natural born citizen."
While the rules of being a natural born citizen is more complicated if born outside of the US, you can generally become one if one of your parents is a US citizen.
I wouldn't call it an Americanism, per se. There are plenty of countries where you can't become a citizen at all without having a relative who is one. There are also plenty of countries where, even being born there is not sufficient for citizenship (in fact, only 35 countries in the world grant citizenship unconditionally via being born within the borders).
It means that if we cut off or discourage immigration, we can’t count on non-native citizens to continue boosting our numbers. So, we have to look at the native-born stats to get an idea of our future.
The future is a labor shortage. Good for wages, bad for inflation.
I understand the US economy is experiencing some… troubled times. However, 4.4% unemployment rate, while that’s an increase, sounds really low compared to other countries. Am I missing something?
4.4% is the headline number, but there are other measures of unemployment [1] that show we are closer to 8% when you include people that are discouraged from even looking and those working part-time but would prefer a full time job.
There's also a stagnation of salaries relative to inflation and a slow hiring market that has people locked into a job when they'd like to find something better. The K-shaped recoveries have people slipping out of the middle class. Combine with housing increasing faster than inflation, future generations having a lower quality of life than their parents.
The wealthy are doing what they can to try to direct the narrative elsewhere, by controlling media sources, blaming immigrants, blaming China, and blaming the government. But we really have far too much wealth concentration to be sustainable, not unlike the ending of a game of monopoly. If a more stable solution isn't found soon, I fear things will get much worse than they already are.
[1]: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
US economy is robust, the problem is that people don’t have the same safety nets when out of work.
No job means no healthcare or reduced coverage for many people for example, so it is a bigger deal to have unemployment.
Which means a Finnish or Spanish level unemployment would be much more catastrophic, however anyone expecting the demise of USA will have to keep waiting as the country is very rich and developed and as a result they will re-group and be fine - eventually.
The U-3 rate does not include those that drove for Uber one hour in the month. The gold standard metric is labor participation rate of white men over 20, and that's not looking good: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300028
From TFA: "The fall was led by a drop in healthcare employment following widespread strikes by medical workers in New York, California and Hawaii"
You’re absolutely right. The labor market is still quite strong. All the doom and gloom from places like HN is coming from the many layoff announcements and fear of AI.
I didn’t say the market is strong
Or the reality, which is that the numbers are royally fudged and the statistic is a farce.
It's not that numbers are a farce but different industry segments are doing better or worse than other.
HN being a tech forum that now increasingly skews East and Midwest (heck, it's not even 7am yet in the West, but look at the degree of engagement on here) means most HNers are impacted by a slowdown in tech hiring, which exacerbates the sense of pessimism.
And tbf, if you aren't working in a tech hub like the Bay or NYC, you are going to be screwed if you are laid off - employers increasingly restrict remote work to those employees who have proven internal track records, and inshoring hubs like in RTP, Denver, Atlanta, etc are on the chopping block.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035
US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February (bbc.com)
524 points | 23 hours ago | 733 comments
Discussion yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035
Already discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275035
Already told about this already being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47287309
In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country until you came along, we're just always losing. But now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever.
Doublespeak, am I right? :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
I'd call it dummerspeak...