Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

37% of people in the survey are unemployed. That is very high. Not at all representative of the general population (4 to 5%).

69% live in a home they or someone in their household owns.

That sounds a lot like young adults yet to get off their feet.

More interesting things:

- opinion on economy and own financial health has improved over the past 3 years

- the opinion on the American dream is actually quite stable over the past several years. There is a slight negative trend. You could write the same article 3 years ago.

But no reason 37% of people randomly asked, who are not currently working, would necessarily fit those criteria

In any case it doesnt really change anything 37% unemployed and 69% living in a home they or someone in their household owns sounds like a lot of young people who havent left the nest.

Your snark aside, actually yes, that is correct. The unemployment rate you cite is the UNRATE, or U-3. It explicitly only counts people over 16 years of age who reside in the fifty states or DC, who aren’t institutionalized, and not on Active Duty in the military.

Looking at other data sets fills in the picture further. U-6 adds in part-time workers seeking full-time employment and people intermittently employed, which bumps that figure to 7.9%. Looking at the length of unemployment shows a jump from 20 weeks to 24.1 weeks in the span of a year, a pretty significant jump considering “how well the economy is doing”.

But let’s take the second part of your rebuttal - that the results may be skewed towards younger people who still live at home.

I want you to try and think about N-order repercussions of that, if true. If 2 in 5 are unemployed and 3 of 4 live at home, then doesn’t that seem alarming? Shouldn’t young people be the most employed demographic across a wider assortment of roles and industries? Shouldn’t their jobs be paying enough to at least share an apartment with someone else? If your assessment is correct, then the correct reaction should be panic and fear over what that might mean for the wider economy, not belittling the demographic who is suffering under its present effects.

>But let’s take the second part of your rebuttal - that the results may be skewed towards younger people who still live at home.

Are we in an argument? I wasnt really rebutting anything. I was clarifying my original comment. Even after the clarification that it's not apples to apples, the intersection of 69% living in a home and 37% being unemployed is pretty striking.

>If your assessment is correct, then the correct reaction should be panic and fear over what that might mean for the wider economy, not belittling the demographic

Where am I belittling anyone?

It seems like you are defending against something I did not say. I would agree 100% that if you cant find a job its hard to move out of your parents house.

4-5% unemployment rate captures something different from "do you have a job right now, yes/no?". There are also different "unemployment rates" that mean different things.

FWIW, adults might live in homes owned by their spouse or child. It doesn't necessarily point to children living their parent's home.

I'm looking at the pdf you linked. I did a ctrl+f and couldn't find anything for "unemployed". I then searched for "employ" (in case there is some OCR bug) and the only hits I got were on a table that says "employment status" and the responses are "employed" or "not employed".

Can you point out where the survey uses the term "unemployed"?

I think the confusion here is the definition of various BLS metrics on unemployment. If I have a STEM degree, for example, but was working as a cashier -- I wouldnt officially be considered unemployed. In practical terms, many of these individuals would label themselves as unemployed, as they may be seeking work aligned to their aspirations/degrees/years-of-training. Same for gig work, Uber driving, Door Dashing, Amazon deliveries, etc.

Also, once you are unemployed/underemployed for long enough, it gets treated as "structural unemployment" and doesn't get counted, hence the 4-5% figure you are citing.

I have friends' parents who were used to making 50k, 60k, or more. They dont have the same opportunities and now might be faced with making much less, often without benefits. In one case, I knew someone who was offered 35k p/t without benefits (thus, they would then just sink 20k of that into healthcare.) They did the math and the 35k was a net negative considering having to pay for healthcare, transportation to work, etc. Instead they just stayed unemployed. That isnt counted as unemployment, hence the 4-5% figure you are citing.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm