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

The poll is more interesting than the article: https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/WSJNORCJu...

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.

4% unemployment could mean 37% jobless rate since 4% means "recently worked and wants to work again and is looking for a job but hasn't found one yet"

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

Thanks for the information. So unemployed != unemployed.

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.

> Thanks for the information. So unemployed != unemployed.

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.

It's not snark. The survey uses the term "unemployed" but it is a different metric than the "unemployed" metric.

>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?