Ask HN: If 160M Americans are employed, what's the unemployment rate? 340 million total Americans. 160 million were employees last year. So, raw figures alone, doesn't that mean over 50% of Americans are unemployed? |
Ask HN: If 160M Americans are employed, what's the unemployment rate? 340 million total Americans. 160 million were employees last year. So, raw figures alone, doesn't that mean over 50% of Americans are unemployed? |
No, because “total population” is not the same as “total employable population”. There are children and retired people. Also it’s not clear how “employees” are counted, do self-employed and small business owners count? There could even be more people who don’t count for employment statistics, like those with severe disabilities.
Minimum employment age varies.
Even if you don't count all 50M who are under 16 it would still be like 35% or higher unemployment.
[1] - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
Even if you say some % is not employable - what %?
Let's talk facts
This seems to suggest 75 million are under 18.
https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-...
I also said "160M" instead of "168.3 million" for simplicity.
10/10 nitpick
About 75M people. So it's still over 30% unemployment not a laughably absurd ~4%
In terms of people capable of work, that are willing and able to work and want to work that number is indeed 4.3%. That is how unemployment is calculated, not the number of adults that are not currently in a job. Anything outside of that 4.3% are not employable either due to circumstances beyond their control or by choice and that is a much bigger topic that I will defer to someone else to comment on.
Calculating a percentage that is not employable would be rather challenging I think. Whatever that number is I would expect it to climb as more jobs/careers are automated and deprecated, as increasing numbers of younger people are illiterate and probably quite a few other factors.
I am providing the raw number of human beings who live in America do not work - which is the majority.
Take away children and elderly and it's still an absurdly high number at 30-35%