Krugman Incorporates the Liquidity Trap Into His Affordable Care Act Job Analysis
I’m not trying to be obnoxious about this, but in his latest post Krugman completely vindicates my claim that he had been totally ignoring the liquidity trap–the staple of his analysis the last 6 years–when dealing with the CBO’s report on the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka “ObamaCare”).
In the comments at my first post, some of you thought I was being absurd, and claimed that Krugman was juggling all the various balls in the air (supply-side incentive effects and demand-side spending effects) with no tension at all between his analysis of unemployment benefits on the one hand, versus the ACA’s impact on work decisions on the other. Well, on this particular battle, you were wrong and I was right: Krugman now incorporates the liquidity trap into his analysis, and his answer totally flips. So clearly I was right when I claimed that Krugman had been focusing on the long run.
To refresh your memory, the CBO came out with a report saying that the ACA would change the incentives workers faced, and end up leading to the equivalent of 2 million full-time jobs worth of lower employment. Krugman didn’t dispute the logic, but instead offered an extremely wonkish (his term) post showing how reduced employment might actually be a good thing. There is nothing in that post about a depressed economy; instead Krugman argues that prior government interventions had led to too much work effort, and so on net the “distortions” of the ACA might not be distortions at all, but might instead be nudging workers back to the correct decision on the tradeoff between leisure and utility. (Call it the Great Vacation sponsored by the ACA.)
But now he has remembered that we’re in a liquidity trap, and in his latest post separates the short-run effects of the ACA from the long-run:
I had some fun (for weird econonerd values of “fun”) yesterday thinking through the interesting possibility that our pre-Obamacare health system created a “reverse notch” that induced some people to work too much. But I think I should step back and talk about the broader issue here.
…
A somewhat educated guess…is that the net economic losses from the kind of labor supply effect CBO analyzes are on the order of 0.3 percent of GDP.Oh, and that’s in the long run. In the next few years, with the economy still depressed, it’s all positive: reduced work by some will open up job opportunities for others, and higher incomes for beneficiaries will mean higher overall employment. [Bold added.]
Everyone see how the impact of the ACA totally flips once we embed it in a liquidity trap economy? To repeat, I wasn’t crazy for wondering why Krugman didn’t play this card initially.
Let me try to illustrate it this way. When discussing the issue of Democrats wanting to extend unemployment insurance, to be analogous to his initial reaction to the CBO statement, Krugman would NOT have brought up the fact that his textbook incentive analysis didn’t apply in a liquidity trap. Rather, he would have argued something like this:
HYPOTHETICAL KRUGMAN JUSTIFICATION OF EXTENDING UI, RELYING ON SUPPY-SIDE ARGUMENTS: It’s true, as I lay out in my textbook, that introducing unemployment benefits will distort marginal incentives and lead to longer spells of unemployment. However, in the real world there are pre-existing government distortions that alter the tradeoff between work and leisure. For example, the government offers all sorts of tax credits and other subsidies to businesses that make new hires. If we draw a simple budget curve with the representative worker/taxpayer, we can see how this pre-existing distortion leads unemployed workers to stop their search for a new job too early–they accept the best offer they’ve gotten after, say, 16 weeks, instead of holding out for 17 weeks as they would, in a free market. In the presence of this pre-existing distortion, the fact that unemployment benefits causes them to search longer, is a good thing.
I hope that by this point, at least some of you see what I am saying. The above is not at all how Krugman tackled right-wingers who brought up the incentive effects when criticizing extending unemployment insurance. But something analogous to the above IS how Krugman dealt with right-wingers who brought up incentive effects when criticizing the Affordable Care Act.
Last point: In light of his clarification, Krugman now believes the following about the Affordable Care Act:
==> In the short run, it will boost employment, and that’s definitely a good thing.
==> In the long run, it will reduce employment, and that’s arguably a good thing.
This ACA is one amazing piece of legislation, isn’t it? I bet if you dumped some frozen berries in it, a smoothie would pop out.
”
reduced work by some will open up job opportunities for others, and higher incomes for beneficiaries will mean higher overall employment
”
”
==> In the short run, it will boost employment, and that’s definitely a good thing.
==> In the long run, it will reduce employment, and that’s arguably a good thing.
”
http://api.ning.com/files/K0XvuKX4bou*wg8yU-*YzUhMsEJvSPf5clpbNG94C2o927K4*sxCLkq7CqjZagLF33IpgTQ2V69ppTplhkeycCfYwMsUlK6X/headache.jpg
* it is an illustration of a headache.
Bob, take a deep breath. I’m just looking at the logical structure here, I’m not advancing the case either way.
A diabetic comes into the doctor’s office shaky and on the verge of collapse. Proper treatment in the long term is to reduce his sugar intake, but proper treatment in the next few minutes is to give him sugar.
Personally I agree with your theory that the morning after his coffee, and before Daniel gets his copy, Krugman casts around for something, anything, he can dragoon into the service of defending the ACA. I’m just pointing out that as a matter of logic lower blood sugar does not make smoothies.
Ken B. OK fine. But there are two (at least!) arguments going on.
Originally when the doctor said, “Lowering sugar is a good thing,” I had said, “What the hell? This doctor called me an idiot just the other day for wanting to lower the guy’s sugar.” Then Daniel Kuehn said, “No, that’s because you were talking about Snickers bars but he’s talking about Milky Ways. They have different amounts of sugar. No contradiction.”
See what I mean? You’re probably the only person who will possibly understand my analogy. I have faith in you.
Right. Those are different medicines. See below.
Ken B. wrote:
Bob, take a deep breath. I’m just looking at the logical structure here, I’m not advancing the case either way.
A diabetic comes into the doctor’s office shaky and on the verge of collapse. Proper treatment in the long term is to reduce his sugar intake, but proper treatment in the next few minutes is to give him sugar.
Ken, I am indeed calm now (before, not so much). Let’s just make sure you understand Krugman’s role in your analogy.
Not only would Krugman have to say, “The right thing for you, Mr. Patient, is to spike your sugar right now, but in the long-term reduce it,” but he would *also* have to say, “And I have this one pill here that will do both. Yessir, this pill will spike your blood sugar in the short term, but in the long term this same pill will reduce your blood sugar.”
And note that the duration of the pill’s effects, Ken, switch over *exactly* in accordance with when the patient’s body needs the switch to occur, to promote health.
Finally, the doctor just so happens to own a lot of stock in the drug company that makes this particular pill.
Did anybody stop to think how the USDA distorted the food market so badly, junk food has crowed shelves, starting this entire problem.
Darn food pushers.
Never mind what I say, I am stuck in irrelevancy trying to figure out why a hospital aspirin cost 500.00 dollars…
Yes, I agree the analogy is the same medicine. So suger per se is not the best analogy. But consider a pill which acted antagonistically to insulin dependent on blood insulin levels. That would do the job. Right now, with insulin raging it would shut it down and let blood sugar normalize. In the long term it would level things off at a lower level. This is what homeostasis is all about right? So while ACA doesn’t look to me like that the *idea* isn’t crazy.
My house is too cold today but too hot most of the time. What I need is a thermostat. That’s not crazy talk! (Not that the case has been made that ACA has such stabilizing effects much less stabilizing at a good level.)
Plus the dose could vary. Replace sugar with a diabetic drink like glucerna. Give him two bottles now but have him drink one a day.
Well at the end of the day, diabetics have given their thermostat to the AMA.
Oops forgot to end the quote. Only the first paragraph was supposed to be a quote.
You’re not just looking at the logical structure Ken B. Your analogy of a good doctor as a placeholder for the state is indicative.
Try to do the same thing again, except use the analogy of a mafia or drug dealer coercing and misleading people instead.
You’re not just looking at the logical structure Ken B. Your analogy of a good doctor as a placeholder for the state is indicative.
Try to do the same thing again, except use the analogy of a mafia or drug dealer coercing and misleading people instead..
Why does the CBO believe that the employer mandate, which has demonstrably led to the creation of fewer full-time jobs, is only the third most important effect ?
And more to the point, this shows that atleast some of that reduced employment is not voluntary… Some employees would like to work full time but can’t because the jobs available are only part-time.
Why isn’t Krugpot being called out for ignoring this ? Or am I overestimating the effect of the employer mandate ?
Why does the CBO believe that the employer mandate, which has demonstrably led to the creation of fewer full-time jobs, is only the third most important effect ?
And more to the point, this shows that atleast some of that reduced employment is not voluntary… Some employees would like to work full time but can’t because the jobs available are only part-time.
Why isn’t Krugpot being called out for ignoring this ? Or am I overestimating the effect of the employer mandate ?
Anecdotally this is the one I get emails from my employer about. My employer doesn’t seem to think this effect is swamped enough to not make me aware how important this is to them.
In a more perfect world Krugman is wrong and nobody cares.
Luckily the money to subsidize the demand size falls from the sky and is used to make skittles to feed to unicorns. Thus second or third order effects make aca a good depression jobs policy.
Trying not to embarrass myself by springing to the defense of Krugman, but in “Reverse Notch Blogging” I don’t think he was entirely trying to create a complete picture of the Obamacare situation. I think that was just going off on an aside to demonstrate some economic theory without intending it to be directly applicable to anything.
He even points out that if you presume all workers are equal, there’s no value in a welfare state and demonstrates that “tax-and-transfer” makes the typical worker worse off, and then says, well people aren’t identical.
This was all a very quickly thrown together simplification for the purpose of pointing out that by having a standard number of hours as a “full time” week, you massively skew the curve to putting a knee at that number of hours. Krugman happens to be talking about healthcare right now (because everyone is) but there are lots of other reasons why the knee turns up at a “full time” week. First reason is all sorts of government regulation defining what “full time” work actually is, second is an employer expectation that for certain types of job they are not willing to negotiate part time weeks and other flexible stuff. If you want the job at all, you have to do the whole job.
One could go beyond that, and look at the very complex distortions that happen on the TT curve caused by a progressive tax system. Essentially the whole curve becomes convex where each tax bracket kicks in. When you add welfare to that it becomes even more convex.
By the way, Krugman draws it wrong (he might well claim it was a quick sketch, but it could have been laziness or possibly lack of understanding) but if you look at the thin blue line here:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/02/05/opinion/020514krugman2/020514krugman2-hpMedium.png
You might note that the thin blue line not only allows a worker to achieve more consumption when working less (presumably because of government handouts) but they even achieve more total leisure than the black line maximum when the untaxed worker is doing no work at all! Yes that’s right, Krugman believes that government handouts will not only give you the chance to consume what you otherwise wouldn’t be able to, but they also put more hours into your day. No Krugman does not really believe that, he just drew it wrong.
It actually gets more interesting when you draw it properly. With a convex TT curve that has a knee in it due to the “full time” employment anomaly and a concave “indifference curve” same as Krugman draws it, you can end up with two locally stable solutions — one where the worker works a full time job, and accepts the loss of utility due to tax, etc, and another where the worker works just a little bit and depends on government handouts. Although both solutions are locally optimal, generally we expect only one to be globally optimal, but the difference between the two is small so a relatively minor policy change might swing it for the global position.
Now I will agree with Krugman that all people are not the same, so we won’t all give up working exactly on the same day, but how broad is the spread? The implication of what I’m saying is that the feedback gain of some policy might be surprisingly high thanks to the bimodal position of the local optima.
This totally fits with my experience of the world by the way. I suspect many other people have noticed this without being able to clearly articulate it.
Ma ha! MF beat that if you dare… my comment is longer than the original blog post!
Probably why I did not read it. Short attention, short memory = modern America…
Unemployment is not just the opposite of employment. We generally think a shorter working week is a good thing, leaving us unemployed for more of the week. We don’t usually refer to those hours we are not working as being unemployed. From a basis of full employment, long term reduced employment would be desirable. To put it in context, in 1950 the average American worker worked 1900 hours per year. Now it is about 1700 hours per year. Given 155M workers, this is a reduction in employment of 18 million full time jobs.
Reduced employment is a good thing, and also reduced unemployment is a good thing. It is logically possible for a policy to produce both. I don’t know if it is actually possible.
From the average worker’s point of view, it’s only a “good thing” if the worker’s productivity increases by at least the amount of reduced working time, plus the amount skimmed each year by the money printers.
I would argue that right now, productivity increases are not able to keep up with real inflation (not the bogus CPI crap), forcing workers to seek more employment rather than less. ACA just add a whole bunch more skimming to that, making it even harder to keep the same, let alone higher, standard of living.
I don’t think it’s possible for a “policy” to make reduced unemployment and reduced employment happen without lowering the standard of living. Only a free market can do that. Unless getting rid of the government can be seen as a policy?
So we have a lot of of people involuntarily unemployed right now. Given labor demand, if one of the currently employed people decides not to work, someone exiting the labor market will presumably make room for those involuntarily unemployed to get a job.
He added the above, plus he made the point that we’re doing an income transfer to low wage workers which should boost aggregate demand for the same reason income transfers always do.
This adds additional details to the story, but I don’t see how it contradicts or change anything he said the other day. And I don’t see the liquidity trap anywhere (unless you are just identifying a liquidity trap with the existence of unemployment).
I don’t know if I agree with his last statement – that it will result in overall higher employment. If you think everyone leaving their job or reducing hours is going to be replaced by someone, and then you add an income effect on top of that, then you could see how one would make that argument. But I’m not sure I’d commit to it. And I don’t see how that follows necessarily from the existence of a liquidity trap. As far as I can tell, that’s just Krugman’s optimism.
Daniel Kuehn wrote:
This adds additional details to the story, but I don’t see how it contradicts or change anything he said the other day.
Daniel, it kinda makes it pointless to argue with you, if you never ever admit when you were wrong on something.
Before I said (paraphrasing), “This doesn’t make sense. To be consistent with what he said on unemployment insurance, Krugman should be arguing that the ACA right now will actually create jobs, not destroy them.”
And you said I was misreading him, that Krugman was indeed talking about a short-run analysis, but that the supply- and demand-side interactions of ACA were totally different from unemployment benefits.
Is any of this ringing a bell?
And it makes it pointless to argue when instead of responding to claims you accuse me of discussing things in bad faith.
I did a word search and I never mentioned short-run analysis. I did say that the supply/demand split of the two are different. They are.
Notice there is nothing here about a change in demand. Krugman is saying that given a state of demand (no change in it), and a reduction in labor supply the large population of involuntarily unemployed workers will fill that gap. My response to that is that I’m not sure I agree with him, but it’s a coherent argument.
I just reread all my comments from the last post. I’m still not seeing an issue. Perhaps you should quote me directly on what you have an issue with.
I feel like you think I’ve said something I haven’t or that you are assuming my position is that everything you’ve said is wrong and everything Krugman’s said is right.
Maybe this will clarify things – what is closest to your concern:
1. Krugman’s first post on the ACA and his second post on the ACA contradict each other, or
2. Krugman’s first post on the ACA should have raised the issues that he waited until his second post on the ACA (and I you said those issues should be raised at the time of his first post).
If you are saying (1.) I disagree. If you are saying (2.) I acknowledge different points are raised but I don’t think some great offense has been committed by not mentioning it in the first post.
Daniel,
Do we have people involuntarily unemployed right now?
Answer – No
You see what we actually have in or current system of Government is an inability to employ people at the wages that they SHOULD be employed at. In the 1930’s when Keynes first introduced “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” the world was a significantly different landscape then in comparison to today. The world was in many ways much less a ‘Global’ Economy. Today we have attempted to manipulate currency and use the concepts that Keynes came up with while ignoring some of the golden rules he established such as no trade deficits etc and so on. You see nothing Keynes suggested worked if you do not have a closed system. One in which the money introduced in the economy stayed in that economy.
So lets talk about what the ACA has done, what employment is apt to do, and where we are headed from here into the future.
So if I need to hire someone at minimum wage where would i have been if I had that person working full time. Prior to the ACA I would have been at $7.25 an hour, Plus the employer side of 7.6% in taxes. This means I am at $7.80 an hour in labor costs. I will most likely need management of this employee and typically managers make 30% more than an employee and can typically handle 10 or so employees… That will add an additional $1 per employee. So I am now at about $8.80 per person that I employ. Now add in the ACA costs which at a minimum on the employer side adds an additional $1.00 to the pot… I am now up to an employee at minimum wage costing almost $10.00 an hour.
Depending on the business you are in this may become unacceptable fairly quickly. If you were paying minimum wage to begin with it was because the margins you had for that hour of labor were around that line. Now you may suggest that over time with inflation things will change. Well of course they will eventually but in a GLOBAL market place I can get the labor cheaper else where. Not only that but I can still compete for money in the United States and probably do so with a great deal less Federal Oversight due to today’s technology. Speaking of technology ( since that is the field I am in ) guess what I do for a living? I automate these peoples jobs away and make a tone of money in the process!
At the cost of minimum wage before it was much more difficult to justify the investment into automation. What you will see due to technology and the increasing off-shoring of other jobs is a continued stress to wages in the United states, which does have a trade deficit and CANNOT simply float its way out of this issue. I am in this field I know what is coming. My goal is to replace 50% of low wage jobs in the next 10 years. The CBO has NO WAY of even knowing what is coming. Krugman does not see it. I do cause I am living it… To be honest it is scary what I and others are working on in an economic sense. But due to the increasing labor costs it makes economic sense to do this. Now you can talk to be about the weavers rebellion in England etc and so on, and you would be correct. But what I am getting at is that due to the ACA and heaven forbid a new minimum wage level in the future. This process will be sped up rather than slowed down.
The sad thing about the current state of the economy is most new jobs have been low end wage jobs, the even scarier thing is I know these are going to go away VERY soon, I believe it will take 2 – 5 years for several of these products to be fully integrated.
Anyway… I know you ‘know’ all of this but I sometimes do not think that economists actually know what is on the horizon and that Government is pushing due to interventionist policies faster and faster along.
What I really meant in saying that people are not involuntarily unemployed is that they are Government mandated unemployed due to wage and cost constraints.
You forgot workers comp.
“Prior to the ACA I would have been at $7.25 an hour, Plus the employer side of 7.6% in taxes.”
Hey the good news is Mexicans have upgraded from roofing and concrete to heavy equipment operators.
“I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but…” means you are trying to be obnoxious. No problem. I just don’t understand why you don’t treat Krugman with the contempt and disdain like the guys at Zerohedge do. It’s more fun that way.
Reminds me of James Lehman(1946-2010rip) from the Total transformation teaching program
This is what he says to tell your children. ” Everything after but is bs…”
Now that we have done the program, the funniest part is making my child watch all of those commercials. The commercials do more than the training package, lol.
Zero Hedge is possibly my favorite econ/finance site….and while I realize it runs somewhat counter to my Christian mores, I must say I find a little pleasure in the palpable hatred displayed for the Krugmeister there.
Their adverts are so racy, I had to stop visiting.
Yeah, I agree they let some rather sketchy stuff advertise there and share your disdain for it, but the content is just too rich for me to pass up. Some of the commenters are a little coarse and maybe a little too over-the-top (violent or otherwise), but the article are often very good.
It pretty clear that Krugman means:
==> In the short run, it will REDUCE INVOLUNTARY UNemployment, and that’s definitely a good thing.
==> In the long run, it will INCREASE VOLUNTARY UNemployment, and that’s arguably a good thing.
In his model this is not a contradiction at all.
All I can say is that a world where Paul Krugman is a “leading intellectual,” be it on economics or anything else, is ultimately doomed.
One final point from me on this (unless Krugman or DeLong chimes in):
I just want you folks to realize just how extraordinary the ACA is. It’s even better (and more complex) than unemployment insurance. Here’s why, according to Krugman’s writings:
==> With unemployment insurance, it (a) boosts unemployment in the long run, but in the short run it reduces it. So it’s (b) bad in the long run, but good in the short run, from an efficiency perspective. There is thus one subtlety involved here: You have to know that the impact of unemployment insurance is different, when you make the analysis either short-term or long-term. But in either term (short or long), raising unemployment is a bad thing (from an efficiency standpoint, perhaps not from some other standpoint).
==> With the ACA, we have another layer of complexity. Like UI, the ACA boosts unemployment in the long run, while reducing it in the short run. However, unlike UI, with the ACA *both* effects are good. So not only does its impact on unemployment flip, depending on the time frame of the analysis, but the desirability of moving unemployment in one direction vs the other also flips. And to top it all off, the switches are perfectly coordinated: the ACA boosts unemployment when (arguably) that’s what you’d want it to do, and it reduces unemployment when (unarguably) that’s what you’d want it to do.
No, the above isn’t a formal contradiction, I just want everyone to appreciate how amazing this ACA is.
Assume an optimal level of employment that would exists in a free market.
Some policies (like UI) will reduce the supply of labor
some policies (like ACA) will increase the supply of labor.
Both will distort the market but in different directions
If however you assume the economy is below this optimal level of employment because of deficient AD then:
Any policy that increase AD (like both UI and ACA) will increase SD and move us closer to the optimal level.
What is it exactly that is so amazing about ACA ? Its just following the normal rules of economics that exists within a model that assumes AD matters.
“SD” should be AD
AD? The politically correct term these days is CE.
Oops. Just realized that ACA will work in the same direction as UI. It is pre-ACA healthcare interventions that work in the opposite direction and increase the supply of labor.
Let’s suppose that UI had no limit in duration- i.e. you can get fired and collect UI until the day you die. Krugman isn’t prepared to make the claim that such a system is both good in the short term and good in the long term because it is the sort of claim a vast majority of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum are going to reject on perfectly good common sense grounds. However, he thinks he can get away from doing exactly that with the ACA and the CBO claims about its effect on employment because he believes most people won’t see that ACA is just a form of never-ending UI.
whats the problem? the economics of market failure state clearly that these reforms move the economy towards a more efficient state.
you can argue it doesnt, and if u wanna do that go ahead. but sarcasm doesnt help, because this is exactly what these interventions are SUPPOSED to do.
So isn’t this the way every Krugman post goes? No side can agree on what Krugman meant when he said xyz.
Yup. I think it would help if someone here offered to debate Krugman.
What is the market clearing price to get such a debate?
This just shows you don’t understand the fundamental concept of economist calculation.
There’s no like button for this comment…. 🙂
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2014/02/07/socialism-walking-dead/
Why did employment and more hours become the focus? People want purchasing power, wealth and security, not necessarily a job.
I think we are marching to the Feds supposed dual mandate. Only the slave owners want maximum production, maximum employment.
I care more about increasing purchasing power, minimizing; waste, misallocation and destructive bubbles…
“The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates.”
http://www.chicagofed.org/webpages/publications/speeches/our_dual_mandate.cfm
Right, this is a common mistake. Jobs are a bad thing. It’s income which is the good thing. Most of the time you can’t get one without the other, but sometimes you can, or the government can, and then the confusion really does cause harm. So you arguments that imply wasted effort or random destruction are valuable.
you get arguments that …
Jobs are a bad thing for the individual working the job, but if you think about the bigger picture without people in jobs you don’t have supply, and without supply you don’t have consumption (i.e. Say’s Law). You cannot consume what is not produced.
Thus, from a government and macroeconomic perspective, it isn’t entirely unreasonable to say that the reduction in overall employment under the tail-end of Bush and all of Obama is an indicator of failed policy. Mind you, just sticking people into “keep busy” jobs that produce nothing does not add to supply, so merely looking at the number of jobs is not the whole picture. You would like to know how productive those jobs are, which is difficult.
No. A cornucopia would be a useful thing. You are arguing from the fact that you need work done to create wealth. But that does not affect the underlying logic. If we could all have more health magically without effort that would be a good thing.
We can generally base our analysis on the presumption that no cornucopia is suddenly going to spring into existence, and that magic does not happen in economics. Yes, it’s important to document such assumptions, and yes there’s a chance it might turn out to be wrong.
On the whole, I think I’d go out onto a limb and say that the current flagging employment situation in the US economy is not a reflection of a recent productivity boost… although that hasn’t always been the case. For example, struggling farmers in the 1920’s were facing the “problem” (for them) that worldwide agricultural productivity was improving. It was good news for food consumers, bad news for food producers (especially producers with debt payments). As things settled down it seems that most people are happy with their easily available food.
Getting back to the present day, Gamble says:
Well without the cornucopia and without the magic, you don’t get “purchasing power” if no one is working to produce stuff, no matter how much fiscal policy you want to throw at it. That’s why you generally want people productively employed.
Now, people who are voluntarily unemployed are barred from collecting unemployment compensation, right?
But then, how do we know they are unemployed? Isn’t the statistic based on unemployment claims?
So, how has the Administration determined that those people are lying on their unemployment claims, and what is it doing to make sure they receive no benefits?
The concept of Voluntary Unemployment sounds just a tad like “She wanted it!”
That is what government does. They capitalize on any available statistic. Of course it looks better to only count those who make claims and ignore all those who have given up. Of course it looks better to include government spending in GDP calculation. Of curse it looks better to ignore essentials and shrinkage when calculating CPI.
Our town clerk/treasure says in the notes, building and truck were paid for with grants, celebrate. Upon closer inspection, only half of spending spree was grants.
Our town clerk/treasure writes gushy newsletter explaining how water/sewer rates have only inched up less than inflation, critics crawl back under rock. Neglects fact that base charge use to include 5000 gallons. Big difference.
Liars lie.
Simple as.