The stats cited in this article are headline-worthy but they don't make much sense.
If you think about what employment means in the context of labor and wage earning, until the early 1900s, most in America would now be counted as unemployed, since they were rather "employed" in agriculture and domestic work, neither of which would be counted as a living wage today. In addition, most women, a large part of today's workforce, did not actively participate in the labor pool (looking for full-time employment as the BLS cites for employment), however that drastically changed in the 1960s and onwards.
As such, the current definition of employment is rooted in the realities of where employment was in the early 1900s. Today's definition might not jive with what the Axios article is stating, but what the Axios article is stating is not really about Employment, but rather about Income generation.
The notion of generating income must be separated from the idea of full-time employment. In the gig economy, side hustle world, most gig workers would not be counted in the employment rolls. As such, do the employment numbers matter and do we need something distinct to measure what Axios is stating here, which has more to do with income earning than full time employment?
Agreed, I am a freelancer making six figures married and my wife hasn't worked since we were dating. So according to their definition my wife is unemployed, not making a "living wage" and so am I. This is a perfect example of why I pay little attention to the news. They or their editor must have known this was bs but decided to publish it anyway for the clicks.
Whose definition are you referring to? The official BLS unemployment statistics only include people who are actively looking for work, so they wouldn't count your wife as unemployed.
Exactly. What is currently touted as an Unemployment number should be renamed: "% of those who are seeking full-time employment but not currently full-time employed". Perhaps "Unfulfilled Job Seekers" might be a better term than "Unemployed".
The other measure should be "% of working age Households where household income is not at or above average living wage adjusted by region". Then that is a measure of income and poverty and not a measure of "who has a full time job"
When I looked at this a while ago I selected the male 25-54 years old population to remove situations like the one of your wife, schooling, and retirement.
If you think about what employment means in the context of labor and wage earning, until the early 1900s, most in America would now be counted as unemployed, since they were rather "employed" in agriculture and domestic work, neither of which would be counted as a living wage today. In addition, most women, a large part of today's workforce, did not actively participate in the labor pool (looking for full-time employment as the BLS cites for employment), however that drastically changed in the 1960s and onwards.
As such, the current definition of employment is rooted in the realities of where employment was in the early 1900s. Today's definition might not jive with what the Axios article is stating, but what the Axios article is stating is not really about Employment, but rather about Income generation.
The notion of generating income must be separated from the idea of full-time employment. In the gig economy, side hustle world, most gig workers would not be counted in the employment rolls. As such, do the employment numbers matter and do we need something distinct to measure what Axios is stating here, which has more to do with income earning than full time employment?