Topic: Labor Statistics

The hosts discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics revising job growth downward by 818,000 jobs. They play a clip of Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo claiming she is "not familiar" with the BLS data and accusing Donald Trump of lying about the numbers. Curry and Dvorak criticize the administration for hiding the true state of the economy behind a "sugar high" of convention rhetoric.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced it will calculate the 2022 Consumer Price Index (CPI) using expenditure data from 2019-2020, effectively omitting 2021 data. In a related discussion on fuel prices, John Dvorak claims he can determine the quality of gasoline by its smell, specifically looking for "aromatics" and the absence of sulfur. This leads to a tangent about individuals with "super palates" who can distinguish between different sources of water or wine.

The U.S. economy added 228,000 jobs in November, with the unemployment rate holding at a 17-year low of 4.1%. However, a C-SPAN caller challenged these figures, arguing they ignore "discouraged workers" and those affected by the opioid crisis. Economists acknowledge that nearly one-third of Americans remain outside the labor force, making the headline unemployment rate a narrow metric of economic health.

The price of eggs has dropped significantly, reaching as low as 99 cents a dozen in some areas according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This economic shift coincides with a cultural trend of putting eggs on various food items. A listener suggested the trend might be influenced by a popular talking toy oven that features a song about eggs tasting amazing on top of anything.

The statistic that "women do 66% of the world's work but earn 10% of the income" is traced back to a 1986 World Bank speech by Barbara Conable. The hosts argue that these figures often conflate "work" with normal social and domestic activities like child-rearing and housekeeping. They criticize the "slave culture" mentality of quantifying every human interaction as unpaid labor.

The official unemployment rate's drop from 9.5% to 9.4% is questioned, as the U.S. still lost 250,000 jobs in the same period. The hosts explain that the number decreased because long-term unemployed individuals "fell off the rolls" and are no longer counted. They compare these misleading statistics to the corporate use of "EBITDA" to mask financial losses.

The official U.S. unemployment rate of 9.5% is challenged by the U6 data, which provides a more comprehensive measure of labor underutilization. The U6 figure, which includes discouraged workers and those in involuntary part-time positions, has reached 16.5%. This level of economic distress is compared to the Great Depression, which saw peak unemployment between 25% and 33%.