should, but won’t, settle a partisan debate. Cutting unemployment insurance apparently hasn’t encouraged the unemployed to look harder for work: It has caused them to drop out of the labor force altogether.But when I looked at the data, it wasn't nearly as clear to me as it was to him. I agree with him that many people are being reported as no longer looking for work after the change in UI, which occurred in July. How else to explain an increase in employment but a decrease in the labor force? But the drop began back in January, which I have a hard time attributing to July UI cuts. And we do see a bounce in employment in July, which is just what conservative critics of UI would predict. So it's hard to imagine this experience ending the partisan debate.
Evan was patient enough to reply to my tweet asking why he focused on annual data, and explained that it is an easy way to avoid seasonality. I agree, but looking at longer time horizons, I still don't see why he would've thought that his numbers were made more accurate by ignoring the post-July changes. Anyway, maybe I'm missing something. I hadn't looked at any of this until Evan usefully highlighted the issue today. Thanks for bringing it up, Evan.
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